Link archive: February 9th, 2019

Proper UI hierarchy · accssible

Bringing gradients back, baby!

This is going to be a handy reference to keep on hand whenever you want a button to actually look like a button.

PWA2APK- Convert PWA to APK file - Appmaker.xyz

This seems to work quite nicely: convert your progressive web app into an APK file that you can then submit to the Google Play store (you’ll still have to go through all the hassle of submitting the app, but still).

I tested this with The Session and sure enough, it looks like it’s available to download from Google Play.

CSS Remedy

This is a really interesting approach that isn’t quite a CSS reset or a normalisation. Instead, it’s an experiment to reimagine what a default browser stylesheet would be like if it were created today, without concerns about backwards compatibility:

Applies basic styling to form elements and controls, getting you started with custom styling. We want to find the balance between providing a base for implementing a custom design, and allowing OS-level control over how form inputs work (like how a number pad works on iOS).

Provides a very lightweight starter file, with generic visual styling that you will want to replace. This isn’t as robust or opinionated as a starter-theme or framework. We’ve leaned toward specifying less, so you have less to override. (We haven’t defined any font families, for example.)

You can contribute by adding issues.

Let’s bring Fan Sites and webrings back! - bryanlrobinson.com

As the commercial viability of the web grew, we saw more and more users become consumers and not creators. Many consumers see websites as black boxes full of magic that they could never understand. Because of this, they would never think to try to create something.

This is a shame. We lost a little piece of the magic of the web when this culture came about.

A call to action to create a fan site about something you love. It would be an unmonetisable enthusiasm. But it’s still worth doing:

  1. The act of creation itself is fun!
  2. Sharing something you love with the world is worthwhile.
  3. You’ll learn something.

So here’s the challenge:

  1. Create a Fan Site.
  2. Help someone create a Fan Site.
  3. Create a webring.

Oh God, It’s Raining Newsletters — by Craig Mod

After musing on newsletters, Craig shares how he’s feeling about Instagram and its ilk:

Instagram will only get more complex, less knowable, more algorithmic, more engagement-hungry in 2019.

I’ve found this cycle has fomented another emotion beyond distrust, one I’ve felt most acutely in 2018: Disdain? (Feels too loaded.) Disappointment? (Too moralistic.) Wariness? (Yes!) Yes — wariness over the way social networks and the publishing platforms they provide shift and shimmy beneath our feet, how the algorithms now show posts of X quality first, or then Y quality first, or how, for example, Instagram seems to randomly show you the first image of a multi-image sequence or, no wait, the second.8

I try to be deliberate, and social networks seem more and more to say: You don’t know what you want, but we do. Which, to someone who, you know, gives a shit, is pretty dang insulting.

Wariness is insidious because it breeds weariness. A person can get tired just opening an app these days. Unpredictable is the last thing a publishing platform should be but is exactly what these social networks become. Which can make them great marketing tools, but perhaps less-than-ideal for publishing.