Since the inception of CSS in 1994, the cascade and inheritance have defined how we design on the web. Both are powerful features, but as authors we’ve had very little control over how they interact. Selector specificity and source order provide some minimal “layering” control, without a lot of nuance – and inheritance requires an unbroken lineage. Now, CSS Custom Properties allow us to manage and control both cascade and inheritance in new ways.
See the Pen Custom Property Cascades (sass function) by @miriamsuzanne on CodePen.
So, you have a site that you want to build or redesign. Maybe you have a few core colors in mind, and you’re thinking about how to quickly implement a theme based on those colors. Baseline features can help!
<dialog> and popover
Elements and windows that pop up on the screen are one of the most common patterns on the web. With use cases spanning from alerts and brief forms requesting data, to the now ubiquitous cookie settings prompt, these layered UI patterns are used frequently by developers.
From image sharing sites to online stores, image galleries are a common pattern on the web. Images can be very data heavy, and loading images can make the page take a long time to load. In addition, users have high expectations around the usability of galleries, so it’s common to…