I’ll be sincere: scripting this submit looks like a chore some years. Rounding up and reflecting on what’s occurred all year long is considerably compulsory for a website like this, particularly when it’s a practice that goes again so far as 2007. “Hey, take a look at all of the cool issues we did!”
This yr is totally different. A lot totally different. I’m extra grateful this time round as a result of, final yr, I didn’t even get to put in writing this submit. At the moment 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, scripting this feels so, so, so good. There’s much more gusto going into my writing once I say: thanks so very a lot! It’s due to you and your assist for this website 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.
General site visitors
Is it value saying something about site visitors? This website’s pageviews had been trending down since 2020 because it has for nearly any weblog about front-end dev, nevertheless it completely cratered when the positioning was on pause for over a yr. Issues started transferring once more in late Could, nevertheless it was in all probability nearer to mid-June when the engine totally turned over and we resumed common publishing.
And, sure. With common publishing got here a contemporary inflow of pageviews. Humorous how a lot distinction it makes simply turning on the lights.
All stated and achieved, we had 26 million distinctive pageviews in 2024. That’s precisely what we had in 2023 as site visitors went right into a tailspin, so I name it a win that we stopped the bleeding and broke even this yr.
Publishing
A bit of little bit of historical past in the case of what number of articles we publish annually:
- 2020: 1,183 articles
- 2021: 890 articles (website acquired by DigitalOcean)
- 2022: 390 articles
- 2023: 0 articles (website paused)
- 2024: 153 articles (website 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 employees. 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 straightforward to think about publishing upwards of 400 articles in 2025 if we keep the momentum.
Working example: we printed a whopping three guides in six months:
Which may not sound like rather a lot, so I’ll put it in context. We printed only one information in 2022 and our purpose was to put in writing three in all of 2021. We acquired three this yr alone, they usually’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 all the options for Anchor Positioning and View Transitions, in addition to different new options like @starting-style. And the explanation spent a lot time within the Almanac is as a result of we made some vital…
Website updates
That is the place the majority of the yr was spent, so let’s break issues out into digestible chunks.
Almanac
We refreshed your complete factor! It was simply selectors and properties, however now we are able to write about every part from at-rules and features to pseudos and every part in between. We nonetheless want quite a lot of assist in there, so possibly contemplate guesting writing with us. 😉
Desk of Contents
We’ve been embedding anchor hyperlinks to part headings in articles for a number of years, nevertheless it required utilizing a WordPress block and it was pretty limiting so far as placement and customization. Now we generate these hyperlinks mechanically and embrace a conditional that enables 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 persons are writing about and share our takeaways with you. The motivation was to decrease the barrier to writing extra freely. Technical writing takes quite a lot of care and planning that’s at odds with overtly studying and sharing. This manner, we now have a central spot the place you may see what we’re studying and be a part of us alongside the best way — reminiscent of this set of notes I took from Bramus’ wonderful free course on scroll-driven animations.
Hyperlinks
That is one other space of the positioning that acquired a contemporary 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 scale back the noise on this website 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 are able to shoot that out much more simply.
Fast Hits
We launched one other new piece of content material within the type of temporary one-liners that you just would possibly sometimes discover us posting on Mastodon or Bluesky. We nonetheless submit to these platforms however now we are able to write them right here on the positioning 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 rather a lot like Hyperlinks, however the thought is that we are able to merely “star” one thing from our RSS reader and it’ll present up within the feed. They’re merely fascinating 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 number 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 may already head over there.
Baseline Standing
Ooo, this one’s enjoyable! I noticed that the Chrome workforce put out a brand new net element for embedding net platform browser assist data on a web page so I got down to make it right into a WordPress block we are able to use all through the Almanac, which we’re already beginning to roll out as content material is printed or refreshed (reminiscent of right here within the anchor-name property). I’m nonetheless engaged on a write-up about it, nevertheless it’s I’ve already made it accessible within the WordPress Plugin Listing if you wish to seize it to your WordPress website.
Or, right here… I can merely drop it in and present you.
Publish Slider
This was one of many first issues I made when re-joining the workforce. We needed to floor a higher variety of articles on the homepage in order that it’s simpler to seek out particular sorts of content material, whether or not it’s the newest 5 articles, the ten most not too long ago up to date Almanac objects or guides, traditional CSS tips from ages in the past… that type of factor. So, we acquired away from merely displaying the ten most up-to-date articles and developed a collection of submit sliders that pull from totally different areas of the positioning. Changing our current submit slider element right into a WordPress block made it extra moveable and a heckuva lot simpler to replace the homepage — and another web page or submit the place we’d want a submit slider. Actually, that’s one other one I can demo for you proper right here…
So, yeah. This yr was heavier on growth than many previous years. However every part was achieved 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 skill to get contemporary content material out to you.
2025 Targets
I’m fairly reluctant to articulate new targets 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 once I’m reflecting on issues precisely like this, I’d be blissful, nay stoked, if I used to be capable of say we did this stuff:
- 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 positioning. We’ve solely acquired a number of pages within the at-rules and features sections that we not too long ago created and will use all the assistance we are able to get.
- Restart the publication. That is one thing I’ve been itching to do. I do know I miss studying the publication (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 just a little additional resourcing and the desire to do it, and we’ve acquired not less than half of that lined.
- Extra visitor authors. I discussed earlier that we’ve labored with 19 visitor authors since June of this yr. That’s nice but in addition not almost sufficient on condition that this website thrives on bringing in exterior voices that we are able to all be taught from. We had been clearly busy with growth and all types of different website updates however I’d prefer to re-emphasize our writing program this yr, with the very best precedence going into making it as easy as attainable to submit concepts, obtain well timed suggestions on them, and receives a commission for what will get printed. There’s quite a lot of invisible work that goes into that nevertheless it’s value 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 because of Juan Diego Rodriguez and Ryan Trimble. It’s possible you’ll not understand 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 similar to I do — we’d all be higher for it, that’s for certain. I do know I be taught a heckuva lot from them and I’m certain you’ll (or are!) as properly.
Juan Diego Rodriguez
Ryan Trimble
Give them high-fives whenever you see them as a result of they deserve it. ✋
