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Web Stuff

Articles and publications tagged Web Stuff across the Atmosphere.

280articles1publication
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewSep 15, 2026
Remove start and end margins with the margin-trim property
A frequently asked multiple-column layout question is why a new paragraph at the start of the column has additional space above it. The space above the first column is the top margin of the initial paragraph. The space is the margin on the paragraph, which doesn't collapse if the paragraph is inside a multicol container....
cssmulticol
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewSep 4, 2026
CSS Layout News in the ATmosphere
In 2015 I started my CSS Layout News newsletter mostly to have my own venue to go on about CSS grid, at the time unavailable in any stable browser. I got to 2023 and 343 issues and it fizzled out. Partly because I got busy, but mostly because the newsletter signup form on the platform...
1
atprotocss
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewAug 24, 2026
Multiple-column layout, rows, rules, and floats
Recently implemented in Chrome are two of my top asks for CSS—the concept of rows in multiple-column layout, and gap decorations for rows and columns in grid, flexbox, and multicol. Rows (using column-wrap) provide a way to use multicol on the web without risking scrolling up and down to read if the columns become taller...
cssstandards
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewJul 31, 2026
How do we talk about atproto to non-developers?
The beauty of AT Protocol is that all of your data from different apps is available on your PDS, your own folder on the internet containing your stuff as JSON. This means that you can switch which app you use to view that data, without losing anything. It also makes it very easy to make...
1
atprotoWeb stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewJul 30, 2026
Understanding AT Protocol
I've been playing around with AT Protocol. The posts on this site are now published to standard.site, and I've written a (very basic) WordPress plugin to display posts from my PDS on the Now page of this site. As a developer, I've spent a good chunk of my working life building apps that stored things...
1
atprotoWeb stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewJul 20, 2026
Over 15 years of conference speaking
I'm not someone who keeps a lot of memorabilia, but I do have a large collection of conference badges. Most of these are from events I spoke at, and a few from other memorable events. While decorating my new garden office I decided to pin them to a corkboard. It turned out that I had...
public speakingSpeaking
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewMay 31, 2026
Joining the atmosphere
I don't post to or visit the social network formerly known as Twitter, but as a very early Twitter user, I can't quite bring myself to delete all my old posts. There's so much history there, not just personal history but the stories of a lot of the work I've done. This is the problem...
2
atprotosocial
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewApr 23, 2026
What would a 2026 CSS Anthology look like?
In 2004 I published the first edition of The CSS Anthology with Sitepoint. The idea for the book was to take the entire CSS 2.1 specification, and come up with 101 examples to show people how to use all of the CSS that existed. I have a copy on my shelf, but recently discovered you...
csswriting
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewMar 20, 2026
Look into the future of the web platform
Last week I spoke at the very lovely Web Day Out in Brighton. My talk was about browser support, based on the work I've done over the past almost five years on Baseline. I ran through the various things you need to consider when deciding whether to use features that don't meet your Baseline target....
baselinebrowsers
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewMay 2, 2025
Reading flow ships in Chrome 137
I'm really excited that the reading-flow and reading-order properties are in Chrome 137 (current beta, will be Chrome stable as of May 27, 2025). Finding a way to deal with the visual and source order disconnect created by grid and flex layout has been something I've kept returning to ever since grid shipped in browsers....
cssWeb stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewApr 4, 2025
CSS multicol block direction wrapping
Ever since I became an editor of the Multiple-column layout specification I've wanted to add the ability to let overflow columns wrap in the block direction, rather than extend out in the inline direction—creating the sort of horizontal scrollbar that almost nobody wants. And, now we're doing it. I'm working on the specification (which is...
Web stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewDec 31, 2024
Public speaking in 2024
In the before times—before COVID, before I was a Google employee, before the seismic shift my life took in 2020 and 2021—I travelled for around half of the year, speaking at conferences and leading workshops. These days, I don't do as much speaking, but I get to do some, and I've had some great opportunities...
cssspeaking
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewDec 20, 2024
A progress update on reading-flow
There's a First Public Working Draft of CSS Display 4, which includes the work on the new reading-flow property. The property aims to solve the issue where the source (and therefore tab) order of a page gets disconnected from layout when using CSS grid layout or flexbox. This is a problem I've been talking and...
cssstandards
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewNov 15, 2024
When is the right time to share our excitement about new web features?
When we share content about emerging web platform features, we have to be careful that we aren’t frustrating people with things they can’t use yet. However there is a place for talking about new things, and people who enjoy hearing about them. This post is about some of the ways I try to meet the...
Web stuffWriting
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewSep 21, 2024
Masonry and good defaults
I’ve been writing about and teaching people CSS layout for a very long time. People sometimes call me an expert in CSS. I don’t know about that, but I’m confident in claiming expertise in teaching and writing about CSS. I've been doing this for a long time, about 25 years. Over that time I've learned...
cssWeb stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewMay 26, 2024
Masonry and reading order
I recently wrote a post about the CSS masonry proposal on the Chrome for Developers blog. I was keen not to muddy the waters with anything that wasn't the main point of that post—which was to explain why the Chrome team felt that masonry should be specified outside of grid. Since then, a couple of...
cssstandards
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewDec 19, 2023
align-content in block layout
Despite what you might read in some corners of the internet, it's been possible to vertically centre an element inside a parent for a very long time now. The align-content property from the Box Alignment spec does the job, however browsers require that you make the parent element either a flex or a grid layout....
cssWeb stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewSep 7, 2023
Why are we not still using tables-for-layout?
I was chatting with a couple of long-time web folk today. As often happens when those of us who lived through the browser wars get together, the talk turned to old browsers, and old hacks to get round the issues in those browsers. I was thinking through the timeframe of CSS becoming usable at all...
cssstandards
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewMar 11, 2021
Good news about display: contents and Chrome
Using display: contents should allow us to use semantic elements to ensure that our content is understandable by accessibility technology, while also not displaying boxes for those elements. It is especially useful when using grid layout and flexbox, as only direct children become grid or flex items. Essentially it allows us to promote grandchildren up...
Web stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewMar 10, 2021
Talk for axe-con: Grid, content re-ordering, and accessibility
It will soon be two years since I wrote about the issues around CSS Grid and content re-ordering on this site. We aren’t any further forward with a solution to that problem. With new ways to jumble up your layout such as Grid Layout Masonry, plus new tools which allow the visual generation of layout,...
SpeakingWeb stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewMay 5, 2020
Does masonry belong in the CSS Grid specification?
When I first began to demo CSS Grid to people, in particular the dense packing mode, at a first glance it looked a bit like the layout achieved by - most notably - the Masonry JavaScript plugin. Sometimes also described as a Pinterest Layout, after the application which is best known for using this kind...
Web stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewApr 23, 2020
Running Online Workshops – The Smashing Podcast
At SmashingConf we normally run online workships alongside our conferences, with the San Francisco and Austin conferences postponed we decided to take the workshops online. We’ve so far run two workshops, and a third sell out workshop with Brad Frost is ongoing. We’ve got a great lineup of upcoming workshops with many of your SmashingConf...
Web stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewApr 17, 2020
Let’s Learn CSS Grid!
Learn With Jason is a live show, streamed on Twitch, where Jason Lengstorf pair programs with other developers and designers, and in 90 minutes creates something new. I’ve never done a show like this before and it was far more fun than I had imagined.
Web stuff
Rachel Andrew
Rachel AndrewApr 7, 2020
Making Things Better
In 2019 I presented a talk at An Event Apart about my ideas about and fears for the web platform. This post is a written version of that talk. You can see the video of the talk on the An Event Apart website, and also find the slides and resources online at Notist. Redefining the...
Web stuff