March 31, 2024

S4E3: New CSS features that got us excited

Missing the old style of podcast episodes where we ramble a bunch about technical stuff? Well, here's another!

We talk about some of the new CSS features that were standardized in 2023. These features can be a big help in your everyday CSS writing!

Container queries: what are they and how are they different than regular media queries?
New viewport units: s- d- l- prefixes for your vw or vh units. How do these differ from our regular vw and vh units? Also, no more jumping interfaces when scrolling on mobile!?
Nesting in native CSS!? What does the syntax look like? Is SCSS now obsolete? (no, no it's not)
Gap property for flexbox: a small change that prevents a lot of annoying side effects of having margin or padding for spacing child elements.
Individual transform properties! No more "transform: translateX(50%) rotate(30deg) scale(1.2);" but now each property gets its own name, like: "translate: 50% 0; rotate: 30deg; scale: 1.2;". What does this mean for transitions? Are there any gotchas?
The new ":has()" selector is here! What does it do and is it true you can select the parent of an element?

All this and more in this old school episode of ECC!