Episode 50
What a milestone: issue 50 of our Kosmos newsletter! This episode is pretty long, so get your preferred developer drink, sit back, enjoy and celebrate a little with us in these weird times.
Kirby Blocks
Kirby Blocks unifies and combines the best of the Kirby Editor and Builder plugins into one highly flexible writing and layout tool. Currently in alpha, you can already test the new field type while it is still under development and leave your feedback in the GitHub issues or join the discussion on Discord.
Kirby in the wild 1
Websites created with Kirby out in the wild are always a great source of inspiration and show that with its flexibility and extensibility there are hardly any limits to what you can create with Kirby.
Kirby plugins
Colorist is a Kirby wrapper around Joe Drago's colorist, capable of generating and manipulating next-gen image formats like AVIF.
Always test third-party plugins thoroughly before using them in production. Note that we do not test plugins we list here.
Kirby screencasts
Bastian's latest addition to the Kirby Screencast series introduces you to keeping your templates clean by moving the logic into controllers.
PHP
PHP 8 is targeted to be released at the end of this month, and release candidates are already available. Marcel Pociot has put together an interactive article and a video with the new features.
Front Line PHP is a book about building modern applications with PHP 8. The book will be available at the beginning of December, but there are also some free videos to watch.
Note: We haven't yet tested Kirby with PHP 8, and will keep you informed once we have.
JĂ©rĂ´me Gamez explores different ways to scrape the web with PHP.
CSS
Grid Layout is a layout model for CSS that has powerful abilities to control the sizing and positioning of boxes and their contents. It promises CSS-only Masonry style layouts.
In Native CSS Masonry Layout In CSS Grid, Rachel Andrew explains how it works.
Control element sizing, maintain proper spacing, and implement fluid typography using logical CSS functions.
HTML forms
How to Build HTML Forms Right: User Experience is the fourth part of a series of articles about building HTML forms semantically, accessibly and user friendly.
Privacy
Fed up with data-hungry Google services? Mail, analytics, maps, video and more: there's a privacy friendly alternative for each service. Find the replacement that fits your needs on No More Google.
Kirby in the wild 2
JavaScript
Create dynamic, interactive maps in modern web browsers with Polymaps, a JavaScript library for image- and vector-tiled maps using SVG.
Swup is a lightweight, easy to configure JS library that makes creating transitions between website pages a breeze.
Htmx lets you to access AJAX, WebSockets and Server Sent Events directly in HTML, using attributes.
With Shepherd.js you create guided tours to help users find their way around your app.
Performance
Addy Osmany shows how to implement infinite scroll without layout shifts.
A11Y
Scott Vinkle explains how to perform screen-reader tests on real mobile devices and simulators.
This & That
Webbed Briefs: videos about the web, its technologies, and how to make the most of them by Heydon Pickering.
Cursus stores your CLI command history in a database and makes it searchable.
In Portals and giant carousels, Jeremy Keith discusses when it makes sense to use a single page architecture for your site.