Alternatives to the !important Keyword
Every now and then, I stumble onto an old project of mine, or worse, someone else’s, and…
Making Complex CSS Shapes Using shape()
Creating rectangles, circles, and rounded rectangles is the basic of CSS. Creating more complex CSS shapes such…
Front-End Fools: Top 10 April Fools’ UI Pranks of All Time
April Fools’ Day pranks on the web imply that we’re not trying to fool each other every…
Sniffing Out the CSS Olfactive API
A lot has happened in CSS in the last few years, but there’s nothing we needed less…
Experimenting With Scroll-Driven corner-shape Animations
Over the last few years, there’s been a lot of talk about and experimentation with scroll-driven animations….
JavaScript for Everyone: Destructuring
Editor’s note: Mat Marquis and Andy Bell have released JavaScript for Everyone, an online course offered exclusively…
What’s !important #7: random(), Folded Corners, Anchored Container Queries, and More
For this issue of What’s !important, we have a healthy balance of old CSS that you might’ve…
4 Reasons That Make Tailwind Great for Building Layouts
When I talk about layouts, I’m referring to how you place items on a page. The CSS…
Abusing Customizable Selects
Web browsers ship new features all the time, but what fun is it if we can’t build…
The Value of z-index
The z-index property is one of the most important tools any UI developer has at their disposal,…
The Different Ways to Select in CSS
Temani Afif recently did this exercise and I thought I’d build off of it. Some of these…
What’s !important #6: :heading, border-shape, Truncating Text From the Middle, and More
Despite what’s been a sleepy couple of weeks for new Web Platform Features, we have an issue…
Yet Another Way to Center an (Absolute) Element
sibling-index() and sibling-count() functions. There are lots of recent examples like this. Still, there is one little…
An Exploit … in CSS?!
Ok, take a deep breath. We’ll have some fun understanding this vulnerability once you make sure your…
A Complete Guide to Bookmarklets
You’re surely no stranger to bookmarks. The ability to favorite, save, or “bookmark” web pages has been…
Loading Smarter: SVG vs. Raster Loaders in Modern Web Design
I got this interesting question in an SVG workshop: “What is the performance difference between an SVG…
Potentially Coming to a Browser :near() You
Just before we wrapped up 2025, I saw this proposal for :near(), a pseudo-class that would match…
Distinguishing “Components” and “Utilities” in Tailwind
Here’s a really quick tip. You can think of Tailwind utilities as components — because you can…
Distinguishing “Components” and “Utilities” in Tailwind
Here’s a really quick tip. You can think of Tailwind utilities as components — because you can…
Spiral Scrollytelling in CSS With sibling-index()
Confession time: I’ve read about the performance benefits of scroll-timeline(), but when I see an impressive JavaScript…
Interop 2026
Interop 2026 is formally a thing. So, you know all of those wild, new CSS features we’re…
What’s !important #5: Lazy-loading iframes, Repeating corner-shape Backgrounds, and More
This issue of What’s !important is dedicated to our friends in the UK (aka me), who are…
Trying to Make the Perfect Pie Chart in CSS
Speaking of charts… When was the last time you had to use a pie chart? If you…
CSS Bar Charts Using Modern Functions
New CSS features can sometimes make it easier and more efficient to code designs we already knew…