UX

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JavaScript Beginner

"1 item" vs "2 items": Stop Writing That Ternary

Intl.PluralRules knows every language's plural categories and Intl.ListFormat writes "a, b, and c" correctly - two tiny APIs that end string-building guesswork.

Jun 14, 2025 2 min 2,441 Read →

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JavaScript Beginner

Sorting "file10.txt" After "file2.txt": Natural Sort in One Line

Plain sort puts item10 before item2 because strings compare character by character. Intl.Collator fixes it, handles accents and case, and is faster than localeCompare in loops.

Jun 7, 2025 2 min 2,436 Read →

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DOM Intermediate

inert: Disable an Entire Section of the Page in One Attribute

While a modal is open, the page behind it should not be clickable, tabbable or readable by screen readers. inert does all three - focus traps become one line.

May 24, 2025 2 min 1,694 Read →

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CSS Intermediate

The popover Attribute: Dropdowns Without the JavaScript

Toggle behavior, light dismiss, Escape handling, top-layer rendering - the popover attribute gives you all of it declaratively. Menus and tooltips just got dramatically simpler.

May 15, 2025 2 min 1,773 Read →

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JavaScript Intermediate

The Form Validation API You Already Shipped

required, pattern and type attributes feed a full JavaScript API: custom error messages, on-your-terms timing, and async checks - without a validation library.

May 9, 2025 2 min 1,757 Read →

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JavaScript Intermediate

navigator.onLine Lies - Build Offline Detection That Doesn't

onLine only knows if there is a network interface, not whether the internet works. Real offline handling means verified checks and a retry queue for failed writes.

May 5, 2025 2 min 1,817 Read →

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JavaScript Intermediate

scrollIntoView Has Options (and Focus Can Skip the Scroll)

block: "center", preventScroll on focus(), the new scrollend event - the scroll-control details that make custom UI feel native instead of jumpy.

Mar 25, 2025 2 min 1,972 Read →

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JavaScript Intermediate

Build a "Quote This" Feature with the Selection API

That floating "tweet this quote" button on Medium-style sites is the Selection API plus one event. Here is the whole thing, popover positioning included.

Mar 7, 2025 2 min 616 Read →

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JavaScript Intermediate

Your Tabs Can Talk to Each Other: BroadcastChannel

Log out in one tab, stay logged in at the other five? BroadcastChannel syncs state across tabs in three lines - and the storage event covers the legacy cases.

Feb 21, 2025 2 min 2,595 Read →

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PHP Intermediate

A Real Upload Progress Bar with XMLHttpRequest and PHP

fetch() still cannot report upload progress reliably - but XMLHttpRequest has done it for fifteen years. The full pattern: progress events, a PHP receiver, and the config limits that silently break big uploads.

Dec 8, 2024 2 min 2,962 Read →

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jQuery Intermediate

One Global Spinner for Every AJAX Call

Stop wiring loading states into every request. jQuery broadcasts global AJAX lifecycle events, and $.ajaxSetup injects headers everywhere - CSRF tokens included.

Nov 29, 2024 2 min 3,590 Read →

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CSS Beginner

Your Animations Might Be Making People Sick

Vestibular disorders make parallax and zoom animations physically unpleasant for a lot of people. Respecting the reduced-motion setting takes ten lines and is table stakes for professional work.

Aug 6, 2024 2 min 1,524 Read →