September is just around the corner and, well, that means it’s time for some new wallpapers! Since more than nine years already, our monthly wallpapers series is the perfect opportunity for artists and designers from all across the globe to challenge their creative skills and dive into a little project just for fun. What tools or techniques they use — be it illustration, lettering, or photography — and what stories they want to tell with their designs is entirely up to them.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/desktop-wallpaper-calendars-september-2020/

In this article, we will be taking an in-depth look at what Django brings to the table by understanding what the generated files and folder do, this will give us a better understanding of the Django framework.

https://smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/demystifying-djangos-magic/

According to the official documentation, Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. Built by experienced developers, it takes care of much of the hassle of Web development, so you can focus on writing your app without needing to reinvent the wheel. It’s free and open source. — DjangoProject.com It is one of Python’s popular framework for building web applications and is most preferred for its scalability in creating a boilerplate with laid down configurations and files.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/demystifying-djangos-magic/

The SmashingConf team had such fun at their first SmashingConf Live! event last week. In this post, editor-in-chief Rachel Andrew shares highlights and feedback from the online conference.

https://smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/smashingconf-live-august-wrapup/

Last week, we ran our very first SmashingConf Live! event, the first in a series of online events taking us through to the end of 2020. We had an amazing two days and we hope that all of our speakers and attendees did too. In this post, I’ll round up some of the key moments and feedback we’ve had. A Team Spread Around The World Here at Smashing, we take remote, distributed working to the extreme, and are very used to dealing with all of our different timezones.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/smashingconf-live-august-wrapup/

There is an alternative to corporate bubbles online — it’s called the IndieWeb. Build your own personal websites, control your online presence, and learn on your own terms.

https://smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/autonomy-online-indieweb/

Web 2.0 celebrated the idea of everyone being able to contribute to the web regardless of their technical skill and knowledge. Its major features include self-publishing platforms, social networking websites, “tagging”, “liking”, and bookmarking. Many individuals and companies began creating these platforms so that anyone could contribute to the Web, and not just people who had the privilege to learn to code. In fact, to recognize our contributions to the web, “we” were Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/autonomy-online-indieweb/

MobX is one of the many state management tools available to React developers. In this tutorial, we’re going to learn how to use MobX to manage state in React Native applications by building a React Native application to see how this is done.

https://smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/mobx-state-manager-react-native-applications/

State management is an integral part of developing JavaScript applications especially React and React Native applications. In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to use the MobX library for state management; understand the core concepts, some use cases and build a simple example. Note: Basic knowledge of Javascript and React Native will be of great benefit as you work through this tutorial. Using MobX In React Applications State is the data that your component(s) is working with — it holds the data that a component requires and it dictates what a component renders.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/mobx-state-manager-react-native-applications/

Customer needs should be one of the primary considerations when designing a website or landing page.

https://smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/tips-customer-centric-landing-pages/

Establishing whether there’s a market for a specific product takes a lot of time and effort. Through years of exposure to the nuances of a particular industry, experienced entrepreneurs develop a keen sense for noticing “gaps in the market,” be it for entirely new services or ways to improve on existing products. Vision typically precedes plenty of legwork. Before securing financing — or pouring their own savings into developing a new product — smart businesses apply serious diligence into establishing product-market fit.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/tips-customer-centric-landing-pages/

We’re talking about Next.js. What is it, and where might it fit into our web development workflow? Drew McLellan talks to co-creator Guillermo Rauch to find out.

https://smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/smashing-podcast-episode-23/

Today, We’re talking about Next.js. What is it, and where might it fit into our web development workflow? I spoke to co-creator Guillermo Rauch to find out. Show Notes Guillermo Rauch on Twitter Next.js Weekly Update “Mastering Props And PropTypes In React” by David Adeneye “Inspired Design Decisions With Bradbury Thompson: The Art Of Graphic Design” by Andy Clarke “Setting Up An API Using Flask, Google’s Cloud SQL And App Engine”

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/smashing-podcast-episode-23/

Ever wanted to have a comments section for your blog, but were overwhelmed by the high cost and maintenance solutions? Firebase can be your savior. In this guide, we’ll learn how to add a comments section to your blog with Firebase, while learning the basics of Firebase on the way.

https://smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/comment-system-firebase/

A comments section is a great way to build a community for your blog. Recently when I started blogging, I thought of adding a comments section. However, it wasn’t easy. Hosted comments systems, such as Disqus and Commento, come with their own set of problems: They own your data. They are not free. You cannot customize them much. So, I decided to build my own comments system. Firebase seemed like a perfect hosting alternative to running a back-end server.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/comment-system-firebase/

A website earns a backlink whenever another website links to it. In this article, Suzanne Scacca explains why backlinks are so highly sought after in marketing, and why web designers should keep this in mind when designing websites for clients.

https://smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/clients-backlinks-design/

There are certain truths when it comes to what helps a website rank in search. Google wants to see: Mobile-first design Fast page speeds Top-notch security User-friendly navigation Trustworthiness and expertise … among other things. It also wants to see high-authority websites link back to your website. And if your clients aren’t obsessed with getting backlinks right now, just wait and see. They’re highly coveted and some businesses will go to great lengths to get them.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/clients-backlinks-design/

In this tutorial, you will learn how to build forms when working with Ionic React and how to make these forms interactive by adding validation rules with helpful text hints.

https://smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/forms-validation-ionic-react/

Ionic Framework is a UI Toolkit for building cross-platform mobile applications using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The release of Ionic 5 in early 2020 came with official support for React, enabling React developers to easily build mobile applications using their favorite tools. There isn’t much support for working with forms, however, and many of the existing libraries available for building forms in the React ecosystem do not play nicely with Ionic Framework’s components.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/forms-validation-ionic-react/

Flask makes it possible for developers to build an API for whatever use case they might have. In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to set up Google Cloud, Cloud SQL, and App Engine to build a Flask API.

https://smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/api-flask-google-cloudsql-app-engine/