Web developers build a lot of Single Page Applications using JavaScript frameworks (Angular, React, Vue). SPAs dynamically populate the contents of their pages on load which means by the time google crawls their site, the important content is yet to be injected into the site. Part of this problem can be solved by pre-rendering your application’s content. This is where server-side applications come in, and for Vuejs developers, we can build server-side applications using Nuxt.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/getting-started-nuxt/

Taking your first steps in programming is like picking up a foreign language. At first, the syntax makes no sense, the vocabulary is unfamiliar, and everything looks and sounds unintelligible. If you’re anything like me when I started, fluency feels impossible. I promise it isn’t. When I began coding, the learning curve hit me — hard. I spent ten months teaching myself the basics while trying to stave off feelings of self-doubt that I now recognize as imposter syndrome.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/collaborative-coding-ultimate-career-hack/

Since the introduction of Node.js by Ryan Dahl at the European JSConf on 8 November 2009, it has seen wide usage across the tech industry. Companies such as Netflix, Uber, and LinkedIn give credibility to the claim that Node.js can withstand a high amount of traffic and concurrency. Armed with basic knowledge, beginner and intermediate developers of Node.js struggle with many things: “It’s just a runtime!” “It has event loops!

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/nodejs-internals/

This tutorial is not an introduction to Flutter itself. There are plenty of articles, videos and several books available online with simple introductions that will help you learn the basics of Flutter. Instead, we’ll be covering the following two objectives: The current state of Flutter non-mobile development and how you can run Flutter code in the browser, on a desktop or laptop computer; How to create responsive apps using Flutter, so that you can see its power — especially as a web framework — on full display, ending with a note about routing based on URL.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/responsive-web-desktop-development-flutter/

If you want more leads or increased sales, you need compelling landing pages. According to Hubspot, those companies with over 30 landing pages, will generate seven times more leads than those with fewer than 10. A landing page is a standalone webpage created to support a specific marketing campaign or targeting a particular search term. They are where users "land" when they click a link in search results, email or an ad.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/landing-page-design/

In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, we’re talking about running online workshops. How can a traditional event adapt when participants can’t attend in person? Drew McLellan talks to Rachel Andrew to find out. Show Notes This episode of the Smashing Podcast is dedicated to the memory of Christopher Schmitt, who sadly passed away last week. A familiar name to many of us over the years as an active contributor to both the Web Standards and Accessibility communities, Christopher, along with his partner Ari, was also a pioneer in conducting online workshops and conferences, which is the subject of this podcast.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/smashing-podcast-episode-14/

Spinners and loaders have traditionally been the way to tell users that content is going to take a while to load. While this approach is great, it’s quickly becoming obsolete in modern development. Skeleton screens are becoming the perfect replacement for traditional loaders because they focus on progress rather than wait times, hence reducing loading-time frustration. In this article, we won’t be going through the basics of CSS React or JavaScript syntax, so you don’t have to be an expert in either of these languages to follow along.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/skeleton-screens-react/

Digital space obviously has its challenges, but it also provides incredible opportunities for us to connect and learn in ways we just wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. The situation with COVID-19 has challenged us to consider ways in which we could offer a similar SmashingConf experience and access to experts just as in an in-person workshop — without needing to leave your desk. With insightful takeaways, exercises, access to slides, recordings and friendly Q&As, it has been such an incredible experience already!

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/monthly-roundup-04-2020/

Before we get started, I want to note that Django’s built-in administrative capabilities, even after customization, are not meant for end-users. The admin panel exists as a developer, operator, and administrator tool for creating and maintaining software. It is not intended to be used to give end-users moderation capabilities or any other administrator abilities over the platform you develop. This article is based on a hypothesis in two parts:

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/django-highlights-models-admin-relational-database/

React Hooks are a new addition in React 16.8 that let you use state and other React features without writing a class component. In other words, Hooks are functions that let you “hook into” React state and lifecycle features from function components. (They do not work inside class components.) React provides a few built-in Hooks like useState. You can also create your own Hooks to reuse stateful behavior between different components.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/react-hooks-best-practices/

Have you ever thought about distracting visitors of your website with a fancy, glittering particle animation for a few moments, while some data is loaded in the background? Fortunately, it’s not necessary to go very deep into graphics programming with 3D libraries like three.js. All you need instead is some basic knowledge of CSS and JavaScript and a lightweight animation library such as anime.js. In the end, we should have the following result:

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/particle-trail-animation-javascript/

While good use of type helps people to read, great typography can do so much more. Typography can eloquently articulate an idea and colourfully communicate a message in ways which are as powerful as any illustration or photograph. I’m someone who loves cinema as much as I admire typography. Few things inspire me as much as seeing movie poster typography which either evokes the atmosphere of a film and adds to the telling of its story.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/inspired-design-decisions-herb-lubalin/

When React 16.8 was released officially in early February 2019, it shipped with an additional API that lets you use state and other features in React without writing a class. This additional API is called Hooks and they’re becoming popular in the React ecosystem, from open-sourced projects to being used in production applications. React Hooks are completely opt-in which means that rewriting existing code is unecessary, they do not contain any breaking changes, and they’re available for use with the release of React 16.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/react-hooks-api-guide/

Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for almost every kind of website, but its finer points remain something of a specialty. Even today SEO is often treated as something that can be tacked on after the fact. It can up to a point, but it really shouldn’t be. Search engines get smarter every day and there are ways for websites to be smarter too. The foundations of SEO are the same as they’ve always been: great content clearly labeled will win the day sooner or later — regardless of how many people try to game the system.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/structured-data-design-process/

We will take a Test-Driven Development (TDD) approach and the set up Continuous Integration (CI) job to automatically run our tests on Travis CI and AppVeyor, complete with code quality and coverage reporting. We will learn about controllers, models (with PostgreSQL), error handling, and asynchronous Express middleware. Finally, we’ll complete the CI/CD pipeline by configuring automatic deploy on Heroku. It sounds like a lot, but this tutorial is aimed at beginners who are ready to try their hands on a back-end project with some level of complexity, and who may still be confused as to how all the pieces fit together in a real project.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/express-api-backend-project-postgresql/

In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, we’re talking about online privacy. What should web developers be doing to make sure the privacy of our users is maintained? I spoke to Laura Kalbag to find out. Show Notes Laura Kalbag’s personal website Small Technology Foundation Better Blocker Site.js Weekly Update “How To Make Life Easier When Using Git,” by Shane Hudson “Visual Design Language: The Building Blocks Of Design,”

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/smashing-podcast-episode-13/

In this tutorial, I’ll demonstrate how to create your own blog using Hugo and deploy it on Firebase for free. Hugo is an open-source static site generator and Firebase is a Google platform that offers resources and services used to augment web and mobile development. If you’re a developer who does not have a blog yet but is interested in hosting one, this article will help you create one. To follow these steps, you need to know how to use Git and your terminal.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/free-developer-blog-hugo-firebase/

Ethics is a timely subject for all of us who work on digital products, so it was no surprise The Ethical Design Handbook was well received. There is a real need for practical solutions beyond just complying with the law. The book offers ways to evaluate current practices, create opportunities for change when needed, and embed ethical design into your workflow. Something Good In The Mail As printed copies started to make their way around the world, we got to see some happy responses and thoughtful reviews:

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/ethical-design-handbook-followup/

Some no-frills approaches to building websites require a developer to write every line of HTML by hand. On the other extreme, commercial no-code site builders create all of the HTML for the user automatically, often at the expense of readability in the resultant code. Templating is around the middle of that spectrum, but closer to hand-written HTML than, say, generating page structure in a single-page application using React or a similar library.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/django-highlights-templating-saves-lines/

In this tutorial, you’ll learn what Headless CMS is, and the pros and cons of Headless CMS. In the end, youll have built a shopping cart using GraphCMS (a (backend-only content management system). After that, you can go ahead and build any web app of your choice using a headless CMS and React. To follow along, you need to have Node and npm/yarn installed on your machine. If you do not have that done already, follow these quick guides to install yarn or npm on your machine.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/04/web-app-headless-cms-react/