Thank You (2024 Version)

I’ll be trustworthy: penning this put up looks like a chore some years. Rounding up and reflecting on what’s occurred all year long is considerably compulsory for a web site like this, particularly when it’s a convention that goes again so far as 2007. “Hey, take a look at all of the cool issues we did!”

This yr is completely different. A lot completely different. I’m extra grateful this time round as a result of, final yr, I didn’t even get to put in writing this put up. Right now final yr, I used to be a full-time pupil bent on incomes a grasp’s diploma whereas doing part-time contract work.

However now that I’m again, penning this feels so, so, so good. There’s much more gusto going into my writing after I say: thanks so very a lot! It’s due to you and your help for this web site that I’m again at my common job. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that, so please settle for my sincerest gratitude and appreciation. Thanks!

Let’s tie a bow on this yr and spherical up what occurred round right here in 2024.

Total visitors

Is it price saying something about visitors? This web site’s pageviews had been trending down since 2020 because it has for nearly any weblog about front-end dev, but it surely completely cratered when the location was on pause for over a yr. Issues started transferring once more in late Could, but it surely was most likely nearer to mid-June when the engine absolutely turned over and we resumed common publishing.

And, sure. With common publishing got here a recent inflow of pageviews. Humorous how a lot distinction it makes simply turning on the lights.

All stated and accomplished, we had 26 million distinctive pageviews in 2024. That’s precisely what we had in 2023 as visitors went right into a tailspin, so I name it a win that we stopped the bleeding and broke even this yr.

Publishing

Somewhat little bit of historical past in relation to what number of articles we publish annually:

• 2020: 1,183 articles
• 2021: 890 articles (web site acquired by DigitalOcean)
• 2022: 390 articles
• 2023: 0 articles (web site paused)
• 2024: 153 articles (web site resumed in late June)

Going from 0 articles to 153 (together with this one) in six months was no small activity. I used to be the one author on the workforce till about October. There are solely three of us proper now; even then, we’re all extraordinarily part-time staff. Between us and 19 visitor authors, I’d say that we outperformed expectations so far as amount goes — however I’m much more happy with the hassle and high quality that goes into each. It’s simple to think about publishing upwards of 400 articles in 2025 if we keep the momentum.

Living proof: we revealed a whopping three guides in six months:

• CSS Anchor Positioning
• CSS Size Items
• CSS Selectors

That may not sound like quite a bit, so I’ll put it in context. We revealed only one information in 2022 and our objective was to put in writing three in all of 2021. We bought three this yr alone, and so they’re all simply plain nice. I go to Juan’s Anchor Positioning information as a lot as — if no more than — I do the ol’ Flexbox and Grid guides.

On high of that, we garnered 34 new additions to the CSS-Tips Almanac! That features the entire options for Anchor Positioning and View Transitions, in addition to different new options like @starting-style. And the rationale spent a lot time within the Almanac is as a result of we made some important…

Web site updates

That is the place the majority of the yr was spent, so let’s break issues out into digestible chunks.

Almanac

We refreshed the complete factor! It was simply selectors and properties, however now we will write about every part from at-rules and capabilities to pseudos and every part in between. We nonetheless want loads of assist in there, so perhaps contemplate guesting writing with us. 😉

Desk of Contents

We’ve been embedding anchor hyperlinks to part headings in articles for a number of years, but it surely required utilizing a WordPress block and it was pretty limiting so far as placement and customization. Now we generate these hyperlinks mechanically and embody a conditional that permits us to toggle it on and off for particular articles. I’m engaged on an article about the way it got here collectively that we’ll publish after the vacation break.

Notes

There’s a new part the place we take notes on what different individuals are writing about and share our takeaways with you. The motivation was to decrease the barrier to writing extra freely. Technical writing takes loads of care and planning that’s at odds with brazenly studying and sharing. This manner, we’ve a central spot the place you’ll be able to see what we’re studying and be part of us alongside the way in which — resembling this set of notes I took from Bramus’ wonderful free course on scroll-driven animations.

Hyperlinks

That is one other space of the location that bought a recent coat of paint. Effectively, greater than paint. It was that hyperlinks had been in the identical stream as the remainder of the articles, tutorials, and guides we publish. Hyperlinks are supposed to be snappy, sharable bits — dialog starters if you’ll. Breaking them out of the principle feed into their very own distinguished part helps cut back the noise on this web site whereas giving hyperlinks a brighter highlight with a faster path to get to the unique article. Like when there’s a brand new useful resource for studying Anchor Positioning, we will shoot that out much more simply.

Fast Hits

We launched one other new piece of content material within the type of transient one-liners that you simply would possibly sometimes discover us posting on Mastodon or Bluesky. We nonetheless put up to these platforms however now we will write them right here on the location and push them out when wanted. There’s much more flexibility there, even when we haven’t given it a substantial amount of love simply but.

Picks

There’s a brand new feed of the articles we’re studying. It may appear quite a bit like Hyperlinks, however the concept is that we will merely “star” one thing from our RSS reader and it’ll present up within the feed. They’re merely attention-grabbing articles that catch our consideration that we wish to highlight and share, even when we don’t have any commentary to contribute. This was Chris’ brainchild a couple of years in the past and it feels so good to carry it to fruition. I’ll write one thing up about it after the break, however you’ll be able to already head over there.

Baseline Standing

Ooo, this one’s enjoyable! I noticed that the Chrome workforce put out a brand new net part for embedding net platform browser help data on a web page so I got down to make it right into a WordPress block we will use all through the Almanac, which we’re already beginning to roll out as content material is revealed or refreshed (resembling right here within the anchor-name property). I’m nonetheless engaged on a write-up about it, but it surely’s I’ve already made it obtainable within the WordPress Plugin Listing if you wish to seize it on your WordPress web site.

Or, right here… I can merely drop it in and present you.

Submit Slider

This was one of many first issues I made when re-joining the workforce. We wished to floor a larger variety of articles on the homepage in order that it’s simpler to seek out particular kinds of content material, whether or not it’s the newest 5 articles, the ten most lately up to date Almanac gadgets or guides, traditional CSS tips from ages in the past… that type of factor. So, we bought away from merely exhibiting the ten most up-to-date articles and developed a sequence of put up sliders that pull from completely different areas of the location. Changing our present put up slider part right into a WordPress block made it extra transportable and a heckuva lot simpler to replace the homepage — and another web page or put up the place we would want a put up slider. Actually, that’s one other one I can demo for you proper right here…

So, yeah. This yr was heavier on improvement than many previous years. However every part was accomplished with the mindset of creating content material simpler to seek out, publish, and share. I hope that this is sort of a little punch on the fuel pedal that accelerates our means to get recent content material out to you.

2025 Objectives

I’m fairly reluctant to articulate new objectives when there are such a lot of issues nonetheless in flux, however the planner in me can’t assist myself. If I can think about a day on the finish of subsequent yr after I’m reflecting on issues precisely like this, I’d be pleased, nay stoked, if I used to be in a position to say we did these items:

• Publish 1-2 new guides. We have already got two within the works! That stated, the bar for high quality is about very excessive on these, so it’s nonetheless a journey to get from planning to publishing two stellar and chunky guides.
• Fill within the Almanac. My oh my, there’s SO a lot work to do on this little nook of the location. We’ve solely bought a couple of pages within the at-rules and capabilities sections that we lately created and will use all the assistance we will get.
• Restart the e-newsletter. That is one thing I’ve been itching to do. I do know I miss studying the e-newsletter (particularly when Robin was writing it) and this neighborhood feels a lot smaller and quieter with out it. The final subject went out in December 2022 and it’s excessive time we get it going once more. The nuts and bolts are nonetheless in place. All we want is slightly additional resourcing and the need to do it, and we’ve bought at the very least half of that coated.
• Extra visitor authors. I discussed earlier that we’ve labored with 19 visitor authors since June of this yr. That’s nice but additionally not practically sufficient provided that this web site thrives on bringing in exterior voices that we will all be taught from. We had been clearly busy with improvement and all types of different web site updates however I’d wish to re-emphasize our writing program this yr, with the very best precedence going into making it as easy as doable to submit concepts, obtain well timed suggestions on them, and receives a commission for what will get revealed. There’s loads of invisible work that goes into that but it surely’s price everybody’s whereas as a result of it’s a win-win-win-win (authors win, readers win, CSS-Tips wins, and DigitalOcean wins).

Right here’s to 2025!

Thanks. That’s a very powerful factor I wish to say. And particular due to Juan Diego Rodriguez and Ryan Trimble. You might not realize it, however they joined the workforce this Fall and have been so gosh-dang extremely useful. I want each workforce had a Juan and Ryan identical to I do — we’d all be higher for it, that’s for positive. I do know I be taught a heckuva lot from them and I’m positive you’ll (or are!) as effectively.

Give them high-fives whenever you see them as a result of they deserve it. ✋

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Thank You (2024 Version) initially revealed on CSS-Tips, which is a part of the DigitalOcean household. You need to get the e-newsletter.