Articles



Theming Slack using a message

Feb 15, 2019

🕑1 min read
The Slack (desktop) client allows you to create your own themes. But did you know that you can also set the theme via a message. Simply send a message with the contents being 8 comma separated hex codes. You don't have to send the message to anybody either...

Getting to grips with CSS Grids

Oct 6, 2018

🕑7 min read
Grids are the latest layout model to join the CSS spec after flex. Like flex, grids open up a whole new world of layout possibilities that will make every web developer's life a whole lot easier. Unlike flex, grids allow you to use more than one dimension ...

Create a basic ReactJS app with no config

Apr 11, 2017

🕑11 min read
There are many ways that a ReactJs app can be created. The aim of this guide is to get up and running with a basic react app as quickly as possible. That means no other fancy libraries such as Redux, Router, Relay or anything else beginning with R (seems ...

Hide number input spinners using CSS

Jul 18, 2016

HTML 5 number pickers are great, since they help restrict users to the input ranges required in certain cases. Some browsers add little up and down arrows to help the user step though numbers. On some browsers the pickers show by default even when the for...

Running a simple server while developing locally

Jul 12, 2016

🕑2 min read
When you’re building a website one of the most important steps is the building of the templates. Building static templates is almost always quicker than building integrated templates such as WordPress, Django or Rails. One of the biggest issues with using...

Javascript best practices

Jul 10, 2016

🕑4 min read
Where to put the javascript? Unless it’s essential for it to be in the head of the HTML document, place all javascript just before the closing body tag of a page. What’s essential for the head? That can vary from project to project but a rule of thumb w...

A Project code guideline

Jun 14, 2016

🕑8 min read
This is my documentation for a new project. I’m writing it here rather than inside a repository so that it can exist across multiple projects. This will eventually be duplicated on to a markdown document for posterity! Project structure As the project is...

Lessons learnt from my first iOS Game

Feb 19, 2016

🕑6 min read
A few weeks ago I decided to make an iOS game. I’ve toyed with the idea for a long time, and tried a few times, but never actually made something that was fun enough and worked properly — consequently, I’ve never actually made a game from start to finish. ...

Start using Git

Feb 9, 2016

🕑9 min read
Turning any project in to a Version controlled project is really simple and should be one of the first steps in any project workflow. By the time you realise that you need a version controlled file, it’s usually too late – whether you have accidentally ove...

CSS best practices

Dec 16, 2015

🕑5 min read
There are a few ways of writing css. For consistency, we will adopt only one naming convention. This is lowercase and hyphen separated. It is the most readable and fits well with other CSS methodologies that are covered below. Yes No Specificity Keep y...

WordPress localhost redirects to live site

May 2, 2015

🕑1 min read
When you are developing on WordPress sites it's always quicker to work on a local machine/development server. It's essential to work from the same data as the live site so you can work effectively as possible so taking a copy of the live database and insta...