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Kilian Valkhof

@kilianvalkhof.com

I build tools for devs and designers: @Polypane.app, FixA11y, Superposition | Electron governance member | He/him

Posts

12

Publications

1

Readers

4

Kilian ValkhofOct 8, 2026

I’d like to have a universal pseudo selector in CSS

Last week, I wasted about an hour of my time figuring out why a certain element had different dimensions than the same element elsewhere in the DOM. It had the same CSS and the same defined width and height, but it still rendered differently. Yes, it was box-sizing. Of course it was box-sizing. I immediately...

Kilian ValkhofAug 19, 2026

My take on a link to a random post with only HTML/CSS

Chris Coyier recently posted about creating a "random post" link on a site that would link to a different URL using only HTML/CSS: A Button That Links to a Random Post in HTML & CSS Only . Here's my take on that. I saw that article and it reminded me of one of the random()...

Kilian ValkhofMar 6, 2026

Progressive enhancement as a benefit of CSS Nesting

Something I knew is that in browser that support CSS nesting you can nest @media queries inside of other CSS declarations. What I only fully grasped a few days ago is how well this works for progressive enhancement. I've happily used (and wrote about) CSS and @media nesting for about six years now. Primarily through...

AccessibilityCSS & HTML

Kilian ValkhofJan 26, 2026

Programming principles for front-end developers

Like many front-end developers, I don’t have a formal computer science background. I rolled into this discipline as a designer wanting more control over the end product. Because of that, a lot of computer science things are lost on me. All I know about capital-s Software Development, I learned as I went from various sources....

Kilian ValkhofAug 20, 2025

My pick of the year for the State of CSS Survey

The State of CSS survey results are always fun to read through, and the 'pick of the year' by everyone in particular. Whenever Sacha asks me if I have one I blank, and then a few days later there's an obvious answer. My 2025 Pick: text-wrap: balance; I canâ€™t remember the last time a new...

Kilian ValkhofJul 30, 2025

Show Me The Magic podcast

Last night (!) I recorded an episode of the Show me the magic podcast with Frederick Tubiermont. Frederick saw Polypane listed as one of the Paddle Launchpad Finalists (Hooray!) and reached out to ask if I wanted to record an episode with him. Thanks Frederick for having me on, and for the great conversation (on...

Kilian ValkhofMay 7, 2025

Software Engineering Daily podcast

Recently, wholesome human from the internet Josh Goldberg interviewed me for the Software Engineering Daily podcast. We talked about Polypane, the web development landscape, and how I got into web development. Listen to the Podcast: Visit Software Engineering Daily for the show notes and transcript. Thanks Joel for asking me to be on the podcast,...

Kilian ValkhofMay 1, 2025

Tag, you’re it

I got tagged by Hidde to blog some answers to questions about blogging, and since I definitely don't use this blog enough, I'm taking him up on it ...roughly a month later. Why did you start blogging in the first place? This is what I wrote back in December of 2006 (19 years ðŸ’€) in...

Kilian ValkhofApr 25, 2025

Pixel with purpose podcast

I recorded a podcast with the folks from Nordcraft on their new Pixels with Purpose podcast channel. We chatted about accessibility, education around that and of course about Polypane. Check it out: Or watch the video: Thanks Salma and and Andreas for having me on, I had a lot of fun!

Kilian ValkhofJan 6, 2025

Advent Calendars

Happy new year! In December I was lucky enough to write articles for three different advent calendars: HTMHell, 12 days of web and the Fronteers Advent calendar. Starting off right: Where autofocus shines on HTMHell the autofocus attribute is one of my favorite ways to improve very specific interactions on HTML pages, and in the...

Kilian ValkhofNov 20, 2024

An outline version of the new CSS logo

CSS got a new logo! After well over a decade of using the "CSS3" badge, there's now a new CSS logo that fits nicely next to the JS, TS and friends logo's. CSS Logo A purple square with rounded corners and the letters CSS inside in white And here it is among friends: Looks pretty...

Kilian ValkhofAug 26, 2024

How I automate electron-to-chromium updates

For the past 6 or so years I've been maintaining the electron-to-chromium package and I realise I never wrote a blog post about it. Electron-to-chromium is an NPM package that maps Electron versions to Chromium versions so you can input e.g. Electron 32 and get back Chrome 128. This is useful because a lot of...