Tags: support

A Non-Business Case for Supporting Old Browsers « Texte | ovl – code & design

Supporting Internet Explorer 11 doesn’t mean you need to give it the same experience as a modern browser:

Making sure (some of) your code works in older browsers, does not mean all functionality has to work everywhere. But, mind you, ninety percent of web development means putting text and images in boxes.

And to be honest, there is no reason to not enable this everywhere. Same for form submissions. Make it boring. Make it solid. And sprinkle delight on it.

The “P” in Progressive Enhancement stands for “Pragmatism” - Andy Bell

With a Progressive Enhancement mindset, support actually means support. We’re not trying to create an identical experience: we’re creating a viable experience instead.

Also with Progressive Enhancement, it’s incredibly likely that your IE11 user, or your user on a low-powered device, or even your user on a poor connection won’t notice that they’re experiencing a “minor” experience because it’ll just work for them. This is the magic, right there. Everyone’s a winner.

Should I try to use the IE version of Grid Layout? Revisited for 2018

Rachel follows up on my recent post about CSS grid in old IE with her thoughts.

As Jeremy notes, the usefulness of a tool like Autoprefixer is diminishing, which is a good thing. It is becoming far easier to code in a way that supports all browsers, where support means usable in an appropriate way for the technology the user has in front of them. Embrace that, and be glad for the fact that we can reduce complexity based on the increasing interoperability of CSS in our browsers.

Tips for in-house teams in a free market software culture

A great in-depth report from Alice on creating, running, and most importantly, selling an in-house design system. This makes a great companion piece to her Patterns Day talk.

Where internal teams seem to go wrong is not appreciating that the thing they’re building is still a product and so it needs to compete with other products on the market.

Cascading Web Design with Feature Queries ◆ 24 ways

24 Ways is back! Yay! This year’s edition kicks off with a great article by Hui Jing on using @supports:

Chances are, the latest features will not ship across all browsers at the same time. But you know what? That’s perfectly fine. If we accept this as a feature of the web, instead of a bug, we’ve just opened up a lot more web design possibilities.

From Cats With Love: Welcome The New Smashing Membership — Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine has launched its lovely new design, but more importantly, it has launched its lovely new business model. Ads are gone. Patronage is in. This is a resource worth supporting.

New A List Apart wants you! · An A List Apart Article

We’re getting rid of advertisers and digging back to our roots: community-based, community-built, and determinedly non-commercial.

I approve!

A List Apart has given me so, so much over the years that becoming a supporter is quite literally the least I can do.

And so can you!

CSS: Current, Soon, Someday (Web Directions Code 2017) // Speaker Deck

Oh, how I wish I could’ve been at Web Directions Code in Melbourne to see this amazing presentation by Charlotte. I can’t quite get over how many amazing knowledge bombs she managed to drop in just 20 minutes!

codebar.io Donations

Donate money to support Codebar:

By donating to codebar you are helping to promote diversity in the tech industry so that more women, LGBTQA and other underrepresented folks will be able to get started with programming and raise their skills to the next level.

(Now More Than Ever) You Might Not Need jQuery | CSS-Tricks

Thanks to jQuery, you probably don’t need jQuery. Just look at all these methods that started life in jQuery, that are now part of the standardised DOM API:

• remove()
• prepend()
• before()
• replaceWith()
• closest()

Introducing the Made by Many professional development programme – Made by Many

This resonates a lot—we’ve been working on something similar at Clearleft, for very similar reasons:

We rode the folk knowledge train until it became clear that it was totally unscaleable and we struggled to effectively commute know-how to the incoming brains.

At Made By Many, they’ve sliced it into three categories: Design, Technology, and Product Management & Strategy. At Clearleft, we’re trying to create a skills matrix for each of these disciplines: UX, UI, Dev, Research, Content Strategy, and Project Management. I’m working on the Dev matrix. I’ll share it once we’ve hammered it into something presentable. In the meantime, it’s good to see exactly the same drivers are at work at Made By Many:

The levels give people a scaffold onto which they can project their personalised career path, reflecting their progression, and facilitating professional development at every stage.

IndieWeb is on Open Collective

You can help support the indie web community with their fairly modest costs: about $200 each month for hosting, domain names, and the like. Also:

We want IndieWeb events to be as accessible as possible, regardless of personal barriers. Because of this, we have offered a travel scholarship fund in the past to underrepresented groups thanks to our generous sponsors. Your support will allow us to continue to offer and expand this scholarship fund, helping make sure that IndieWebCamps represent everyone.

Is it really safe to start using CSS Grid Layout?

Rachel uncovers a great phrase for dealing with older browsers:

It isn’t your fault, but it is your problem.

She points to multiple ways of using CSS Grid today while still providing a decent experience for older browsers.

Crucially, there’s one message that hasn’t changed in fifteen years:

Websites do not need to look the same in every browser.

It’s crazy that there are still designers and developers who haven’t internalised this. And before anyone starts claiming that the problem is with the clients and the bosses, Rachel has plenty of advice for talking with them too.

Your job is to learn about new things, and advise your client or your boss in the best way to achieve their business goals through your use of the available technology. You can only do that if you have learned about the new things. You can then advise them which compromises are worth making.

Browser Support for evergreen websites

Oh, how I wished everyone approached building for the web the way that Rachel does. Smart, sensible, pragmatic, and exciting!

What about CSS? Progressive Enhancement & CSS // Speaker Deck

I heard nothing but good things about this talk from the Fronteers conference. There’s some great stuff in here—I really like its historical perspective.

@supports will change your life | Charlotte Jackson, Front-end developer

Charlotte is a big fan of feature queries.

A Redesign with CSS Shapes · An A List Apart Article

Eric walks through a really nice use of CSS shapes and @supports on a page of the An Event Apart site.

It’s a nice little illustration of how we can use advanced features of CSS right now, without the usual wait for widespread support.

Using Feature Queries in CSS ★ Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog

A thorough explanation of @supports from Jen, with plenty of smart strategies for using it in your CSS today.

The Lumpy Web - Tales of a Developer Advocate

Paul argues that the biggest problems for interoperability on the web don’t come from support (or lack of support) for entire features, but from the frustrating inconsistencies when features land in different browsers at different times with different implementations:

• Platform inconsistencies hurt us more than big feature differences, we should start to try and prioritize aligning the platform
• We need better tools to help us understand what the inconsistencies are and guidance on how to manage them
• Developers should raise more issues to keep browser vendors accountable when there are differences

Join Fractal on Slack!

If you’re planning on giving Fractal a test drive, jump into this Slack channel. Mark and others will be able to help you out with any questions that aren’t covered in the docs.