From the archives: We’ve started a new project which requires heavy, creative theming, so I made a prototype to test some ideas out. https://piccalil.li/blog/how-were-approaching-theming-with-modern-css/

A really nice tool for generating 3D voxel scenes with fantastic documentation and examples. https://meodai.github.io/heerich/

Why slop it when you can Fraude it? https://fraude.design/

The Index: Issue #183 It’s Friday, so let’s close out the week with some Good Links™ in The Index #183, sponsored by the great folks at DebugBear https://piccalil.li/the-index/183/

From the archives: Temporal is the Date system we always wanted in JavaScript. It's extremely close to being available so Mat Marquis thought it would be a good idea to explain exactly what is better about this new JavaScript date system. https://piccalil.li/blog/date-is-out-and-temporal-is-in/

Let’s build a documentation-first, framework-agnostic component library using web standards and solve the combination of problems that would be present if we relied on frameworks, with Scott Riley. https://piccalil.li/blog/framework-agnostic-design-systems-part-1/

From the archives: Sam Rose walks us through some real-world usage of TypeScript’s utility types in their day job’s open source codebase to help those new to the language get to grips with this key capability. https://piccalil.li/blog/real-world-uses-of-typescripts-utility-types/

Surprisingly tricky game! https://www.keithcirkel.co.uk/css-or-bs/

From the archives: Progressive enhancement hasn’t caught on nearly as much as it should. It’s likely related to folks not being able to envision it working in their real world contexts. This post attempts to alleviate that and reignite the conversation […]

In this free lesson from JavaScript for Everyone, @Wilto guides us through the intricacies of asynchronous functions, restitching the fabric of time in the process. https://piccalilli.link/js4e-free-lesson-quote-6

From the archives: Eric Bailey teaches us how to make a hyper-resilient component that responds not only to the container, but other languages too. https://piccalil.li/blog/making-content-aware-components-using-css-has-grid-and-quantity-queries/

Another stellar font from Dan Cederholm that's just been released. https://simplebits.shop/products/beeswacks

Above everything else, it's disrespectful behaviour. We're glad Dave has written this. https://daverupert.com/2026/04/claude-no/

The Index: Issue #182 It’s Friday, so let’s close out the week with some Good Links™ in The Index #182, sponsored by the great folks at DebugBear https://piccalil.li/the-index/182/

From the archives: Declan Chidlow takes us on a really interesting tour of the often, under-reported world of print stylesheets, how to use them and also how to debug them. https://piccalil.li/blog/printing-the-web-making-webpages-look-good-on-paper/

From the archives: To open up this CSS Fundamentals series, we’re looking at one of those most important aspects of CSS to understand: how the box model is affected by box sizing. https://piccalil.li/blog/the-box-model-and-box-sizing/

'Tech is full of people who care deeply about their area of chosen specialism, and we’re all struggling in a world where doing lots of stuff really fast has become the most important thing.' Keep caring and wait it out […]

From the archives: Scott Riley tested free and open source design tools out when researching his course, Mindful Design. They actually worked out better than Figma ever could, as he explains in this article with loads of options for you. https://piccalil.li/blog/the-open-source-design-stack/

In this free lesson from JavaScript for Everyone, @Wilto shows us to put the (eventual) results represented by one or more promises to use. https://piccalilli.link/js4e-free-lesson-quote-5

The is really impressive stuff from the speed experts at Calibre. https://calibreapp.com/blog/building-our-beloved-hex-map

Here's one from the Piccalilli archives that you might have missed to wrap up this issue. https://piccalil.li/blog/how-i-build-a-button-component/

The Index: Issue #181 It’s Friday, so let’s close out the week with some Good Links™ in The Index #181! https://piccalil.li/the-index/181/

From the archives: Whether you've got a firm grasp on modern CSS colour capabilities, or you're thinking 'I struggle to understand why I should use modern CSS colours at all', then the first part of this article series, by Kevin Powell, is for you […]

In this free lesson from JavaScript for Everyone, @Wilto teaches us how to use promises: objects that represent the result of asynchronous operations. https://piccalilli.link/js4e-free-lesson-quote-4

From the archives: JavaScript’s “this” keyword trips up all developers — junior and senior. In the first of two parts, Mat Marquis goes deep on the groundwork you need to better understand “this” and how it works. https://piccalil.li/blog/javascript-when-is-this/

This is really cool. It's like a web-based dashboard for Kindles (and other E Ink devices that have a browser). It's even got a Mario game! https://rekindle.ink/

Introducing the Mindful Design Toolkit with even more free lessons The Mindful Design Toolkit is a collection of free, open source templates, workshops, and resources, built to empower your design journey. To coincide with the launch, we’ve also opened up over two hours of free lessons from the […]

From the archives: Is CSS nesting an exciting new feature or a potential disaster waiting to happen? I note down my worries and prior experience with one of it predecessors: Sass nesting, along with some gotchas native CSS brings with it. https://piccalil.li/blog/css-nesting-use-with-caution/

Wireframes are supposed to be very lo-fi and this tool does exactly that, right in your browser. https://wiretext.app/

The Index: Issue #180 It’s Friday, so let’s close out the week with some Good Links™ in The Index #180! Sponsored by the fantastic CodePen 2.0. https://piccalil.li/the-index/180/

There's some unbelievably good tools in this collection and there are loads to choose from. Our favourite is the simple font file explorer. https://tools.rmv.fyi/

Three stoic principles for better web accessibility Some simple principles here from Steve Frenzel that you can apply whether you're highly experienced in web accessibility or a beginner. https://piccalil.li/blog/three-stoic-principles-for-better-web-accessibility/

From the archives: A CSS methodology oriented towards simplicity and consistency with a heavy dosage of pragmatism. https://piccalil.li/blog/cube-css

A handy, simple markdown/text editor that even has dictation capabilities. https://blank.page/welcome

From the archives: A double focus ring is really useful in general but especially so with complex, themed systems. Eric Bailey shows us how to develop a really smart system, using modern CSS. https://piccalil.li/blog/taking-a-shot-at-the-double-focus-ring-problem-using-modern-css/

In this free lesson from JavaScript for Everyone, @Wilto introduces us to concepts like execution threads, the event loop, and the callback and microtask queues, so we can start putting them to work. https://piccalilli.link/js4e-free-lesson-quote-3

From the archives: This one is different, I promise. It's my advice on approaching the options we have to center an element with CSS now and what pragmatic choices we should make. https://piccalil.li/blog/another-article-about-centering-in-css/

A free and open source vector editing tool that looks great. Sure, Affinity is now free to everyone, but tools like Graphite will work well if you want to get away from corporate software, for example. https://graphite.art/

The Index: Issue #179 It’s Friday, so let’s close out the week with some Good Links™ in The Index #179, sponsored by the fabulous CodePen 2.0 https://piccalil.li/the-index/179/

The end of responsive images Mat Marquis has waited 14 years to write this article. The sizes attribute has been a necessary evil but now, with an auto value capability, it’s completely transformed authoring responsive images on the web. https://piccalil.li/blog/the-end-of-responsive-images/

From the archives: For the many folks who ask how I write CSS since removing Sass, this is how I and the Set Studio team do it in 2024. https://piccalil.li/blog/a-css-project-boilerplate/

Did you know that all of our courses still have a 20% discount, using the code NEXTLEVEL? Did you also know that you can sample them all for free too? JavaScript for Everyone: https://piccalil.li/javascript-for-everyone/lessons Mindful Design […] [Original post on front-end.social]

From the archives: Modern CSS makes styling HTML tables in a considered, responsive nature a breeze. Michelle Barker breaks it all down for you in this deep dive. https://piccalil.li/blog/styling-tables-the-modern-css-way/

One for the Zelda fans out there. https://wind-waker-threejs.com/

Need to procedurally generate trees? Don't slop it and use this tool instead. https://www.eztree.dev/

A very cool tool (and write up) that's surprisingly simple. https://www.raymondcamden.com/2026/03/28/checking-if-a-movie-has-a-post-or-mid-credit-scene

Anil articulates the reality of the open web really well and gives us pragmatic advice of what we can tangibly do to protect if from the vultures in the tech industry. https://www.anildash.com/2026/03/27/endgame-open-web/

The Index: Issue #178 It’s Friday, so let’s close out the week with some Good Links™ in The Index #178, sponsored by our good friends, CodePen. https://piccalil.li/the-index/178/

Extremely clever stuff from Patrick here! https://patrickbrosset.com/articles/2026-03-09-using-css-animations-as-state-machines-to-remember-focus-and-hover-states-with-css-only/

Don't let JavaScript have the last laugh https://piccalilli.link/js4e-q-and-a-6