Articles By: Louis Lazaris

Skills for Front-End Developers

Ninjas have skills for front-end developersAs a web professional, I’m constantly trying to learn new skills for front-end developers, along with various technologies related to the field in order to add to what I already know. Front-end developer job postings, however, vary from posting to posting so the list of different languages, libraries, and technologies that could theoretically fall under the category of skills for front-end developers is quite large.

What’s the Difference Between Classes and IDs in CSS?

When applying CSS styles to an element in your HTML, you’ll be using different CSS selectors to target your elements.

Two of the most common selectors used in CSS are the “class” selector and the “ID” selector. There are many others, but this post will focus on these two, and I’ll describe the difference so you’ll know the potential effects of using either of these selectors.

Some HTML5 Resources Worth Checking Out

Some HTML5 Resources Worth Checking OutAs the weeks go by, I find tons of new developer resources, tools, and things worth looking into.

I wrote a similar roundup of JavaScript resources, so this time I’m covering stuff related to what we commonly call “HTML5” (even though a lot of this stuff could easily fall under a “JavaScript” umbrella too).

Are Web Development Search Results Being Manipulated?

Are Web Development Search Results Being Manipulated?I’m not entirely sure what to think of this situation, but it seems to be yet another strong piece of evidence that the people behind W3schools don’t have our best interests in mind.

I’m currently in the process of revamping my CSS3 Click Chart app and I was doing my usual cursory searches for simple JavaScript methods that I often forget the syntax for. Notice what I stumbled across, as shown in the re-enactment below.

How Page Speed Increases Website Conversions (Sources)

The Importance of Page SpeedLately in some of my writing projects I’ve had to hunt down sources to demonstrate the importance of web page speed. Usually a quick Google search will pull up some pretty good ones, and I have a few others on file that I can refer to.

I thought I would put together a roundup of some of the ones I’ve been able to find. Web development bloggers, who are constantly promoting the importance of web page speed, should have these types of authoritative sources at their fingertips.

So consider this post the collective evidence for the importance of page speed. Posts are listed from oldest to newest.

Understanding CSS’s vertical-align Property

Understanding CSS's vertical-align Property“Vertical-align isn’t working!” cried the web developer.

The vertical-align property is one of those features of CSS that sounds pretty self-explanatory, but can cause problems for CSS beginners. I think even many CSS veterans have had problems figuring this one out at times.

In this post, I’ll try to cover it in an understandable manner.

Reverse Ordered Lists in HTML5

Reverse Ordered Lists in HTML5With all the hype surrounding the new APIs and the fancy parts of CSS3, I had almost forgotten about the new reversed attribute that allows you to write a descending list of numbered items, as opposed to the default ascending list of numbered items.

You can get full details in the specification, but here I’ll summarize what it does and I’ll offer a solution for the fact that there is (from what I can see) no browser support for this attribute.

The Difference Between “Block” and “Inline”

For the purpose of CSS styling, elements can be generally divided into a few different categories. Two of those categories are block-level elements and inline elements.

In my opinion, this is one of those areas that, once understood correctly, can help beginners to take their CSS skills to the next level.

Introducing “CSS Basics”

CSS BasicsOver the last couple of weeks I’ve introduced a new link in the main navigation on this site. It’s a new section called CSS Basics.

I’ve wanted to publish info on really basic CSS stuff, because I think web design should be taught at many levels and beginners should especially be informed of the right way to do things.

Using Absolute Positioning in CSS

Positioning elements absolutely is a useful technique to be aware of. When used selectively, it can offer many more options for what might otherwise be troublesome layout options. Here I’ll discuss the basics, with some tips for use.