Every time I have checked my email over the last two weeks, it has been full of Black Friday deals. We will get a short respite before the New Year offers start to roll in. I like a bargain as much as anyone, however, I think that plenty of sites will be covering the best offers on electronics and tech. I thought we would do something different this year at Smashing.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/black-friday-2019/

In the first part of this series, we learned the key concepts to build an application that is as CMS-agnostic as possible. In this second and final part, we will proceed to abstract a WordPress application, making its code ready to be used with Symfony components, Laravel framework, and October CMS (which is based on Laravel). Accessing Services Before we start abstracting the code, we need to provide the layer of dependency injection to the application.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/abstracting-wordpress-code-reuse-with-other-cms-implementation/

So far as I can tell, it is uncommon to come across educational content in the field of software development which provides an appropriate mixture of theoretical and practical information. If I was to guess why, I assume it is because individuals who focus on theory tend to get into teaching, and individuals who focus on practical information tend to get paid to solve specific problems, using specific languages and tools.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/guide-oop-inheritance-interfaces-abstract-classes/

The web is full of services that host rich content such as videos, images, music and podcasts, maps and graphs, and all manner of different delights. Chances are, when you add your content to a site, it will offer you a way to embed that content in a web page somewhere else. Sites like YouTube have their own embeddable player that is popular to use in blog posts and even product pages.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/programmatically-discovering-sharing-code-oembed/

Let’s do a quick exercise. Say you’ve been working professionally as a developer for more than five years. You’ve gained hands-on experience through dozens of projects and kept your skillset sharp by learning about new techniques, tools, and frameworks. You contribute to different libraries, routinely refactor the code you write, and periodically exchange code reviews with your colleagues. But then someone comes up and asks you that one question you haven’t had the chance to figure out: Where do you see yourself, ten years from now?

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/future-beyond-writing-great-code/

This article is the second part in a series, with part one located here, which provided basic and (hopefully) intuitive insight into Node.js, ES6+ JavaScript, Callback Functions, Arrow Functions, APIs, the HTTP Protocol, JSON, MongoDB, and more. In this article, we’ll build upon the skills we attained in the previous one, learning how to implement and deploy a MongoDB Database for storing user booklist information, build an API with Node.js and the Express Web Application framework to expose that database and perform CRUD Operations upon it, and more.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/express-es6-javascript-stack-mongodb-mongoose-servers/

Consumers are motivated by need and desire. And sometimes, just sometimes, they’re motivated by FOMO. That’s right: we can now add the ‘Fear Of Missing Out’ to the list of drivers that get consumers onto our websites and into our apps. With that said, when we take a closer look at what FOMO really means and the negative impact it can have on consumers, is it something we really want to be encouraging as we build digital experiences for them?

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/fomo-increase-conversions/

I have been an iOS developer for over a decade now and have rarely seen articles that consolidate all possible ways to perform animations in iOS. This article aims to be a primer on iOS animations with the intent of exhaustively covering the different ways of doing the same. Given the extensiveness of the topic, we would cover each part succinctly at a fairly high level. The goal is to educate the reader with a set of choices to add animations to his/ her iOS app.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/performing-ios-animations-views-uikit-uiview/

We’ve called them an ‘opening and closing panel’ so far, but they are also described as expansion panels, or more simply, expanding panels. To clarify exactly what we’re talking about, head on over to this example on CodePen: Easy show/hide drawer (Multiples) by Ben Frain on CodePen. Easy show/hide drawer (Multiples) by Ben Frain on CodePen. That is what we’ll be building in this short tutorial. From a functionality point of view, there are a few ways to achieve the animated open and close that we are looking for.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/expanding-contracting-content-panels/

In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, we’re talking about Design Tokens. What are they, what problem do they solve, and how can they be used within an existing Design System? Drew McLellan talks to someone who is much more than a token expert: Jina Anne. Show Notes “What Are Design Tokens?,” by Robin Rendle “Design Tokens For Dummies,” by Louis Chenais “Style Dictionary,” a build system for creating cross-platform styles.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/smashing-podcast-episode-3/

Making code that is agnostic of the CMS or framework has several benefits. For instance, through its new content editor Gutenberg, WordPress enables to code components which can be used for other CMSs and frameworks too, such as for Drupal and for Laravel. However, Gutenberg’s emphasis on re-utilization of code is focused on the client-side code of the component (JavaScript and CSS); concerning the component’s backend code (such as the provision of APIs that feed data to the component) there is no pre-established consideration.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/abstracting-wordpress-code-cms-concepts/

On behalf of the Smashing team, welcome to another monthly update to keep you all in the loop about all things smashing. Join us as we share the latest news and highlight the things we have enjoyed reading over the past month. Many of the included posts are sourced from the most popular links from our Smashing Newsletter. If you don’t get our newsletter yet, then sign up here to receive useful techniques and goodies (including a free eBook on accessibility)!

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/monthly-roundup-11-2019/

Creating an HTML email can feel like stepping back a few years as a web developer. All of our new layout functionality is unavailable to us &mdasj; email clients render the same layout in completely different ways. Just when we think we have it all fixed, another email client shows up with a new set of bugs. Not too long ago, R'emi Parmentier, an HTML Email developer, ran a session with practical front-end techniques for building modern, cross-client emails.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/html-email-webinar/

Interruptions, administrative tasks, and too many meetings are among the common complaints voiced by today’s professionals. When was the last time someone complained about a canceled meeting? In other words, everyone understands what hinders productivity, right? Not so fast, says computer scientist Cal Newport. While we all realize that interruptions and fragmented time are troublesome, we fail to recognize: The frequency of interruptions: We convince ourselves that we are focusing on one task at a time, such as a complex interaction design problem.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/better-design-deep-thinking/

The formal notion of the Agile software development method is about as old as I am (the Agile Manifesto was published in February 2001). I point this out not to make you feel old, but instead to demonstrate that Agile has had a long time to infiltrate software development. While the methodology advocates for “co-located, dedicated teams,” in its ubiquity Agile is frequently applied to teams partially or fully composed of part-time workers.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/adapting-agile-part-time-teams/

We love running our event in New York, and given that it sold out a long way in advance we think that you do too. If you didn’t manage to get a ticket, this post should give you a feel for what happened. We also have the video of the presentations to share with you. Enjoy this roundup, and if you want to be there in person for one of our events next year, tickets are on sale right now!

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/smashingconf-ny-2019/

As a web designer, you do your best to remove friction from the decision-making process. You place only one CTA above the fold. You keep interactive elements to a minimum. You make the menu only as large as it needs to be. But what happens when the content itself causes analysis paralysis? There’s an overabundance of choice all around the web, from e-commerce stores with thousands of products to content generation machines pushing out new posts every day.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/stop-analysis-paralysis-design/

It’s easy to get caught up in the latest trends in web design. Web technology is constantly improving, and today developers have a formidable range of features at their disposal. This makes for a forward-thinking, innovative space — as it should — but also one at risk of being unrooted. Every art has its ancient masters. In the case of websites, it’s newspapers. When you dig into the basic principles of news design, overlaps with the web are frequent and oftentimes indistinguishable.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/newspapers-teach-web-design/

The web is full of interfaces that leave people out. Of course, it’s not designers’ malicious intent or developers’ lack of empathy that bring us there. It’s just really difficult to foresee a wide range of situations in which our users might find themselves in. We need to build robust and reliable solutions in a world that’s inherently chaotic and unpredictable. Where do we even start? Because we often build and deploy under tough deadlines, we tend to break accessibility without even noticing it.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/inclusive-components-prerelease/

Accessibility can sometimes become an unfortunate afterthought as we race to meet deadlines and search for tips and tricks to meet client demands. We can cause problems for keyboard or screenreader users, and leave our products fragile and potentially vulnerable to legal action from people who find themselves locked out due to their accessibility needs. How can we get better? One way to find out would be by joining our live stream with Heydon Pickering who will be sharing insights about the relationship between accessibility and design systems, and exploring how to build accessible components, and why he decided to write a book on accessible interface design patterns.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/inclusive-design-accessibility-live-stream-heydon-pickering/