Category: Web world

Designing in the open

Posted on by chris

It’s been a while since I last redesigned (or should I say, realigned) this site. Six years, in fact. My regular visitor, if they are still regular, will have noticed that this site has been somewhat broked for a week or so.

I’m not sure what I did, but I clearly mangled something. Anyway, it’s an excuse to realign.

This time I have some simple requirements for myself:

  1. Mobile first. The reality is that most browsing is done on a mobile device of some kind, so I want to primarily cater to those constraints. That means mobile-first CSS, Service Workers, small images only where necessary etc etc.
  2. Performance second. Closely related to the mobile thing, good performance is a must. I’m aiming for sub-second render times. I also want to use no JavaScript. This is a content site, why would I need it?
  3. More emphasis on the IndieWeb. I’ve started doing this, by pulling in my tweets. But I want to go much further down that road.

And I’m doing all this in the open, live on the site. I may fail completely, in which case it will be a public humiliation. But maybe it will force me to get on with it!

Open letter to Matt Mullenweg

Posted on by chris

Dear Matt,

I’ve been a long-time user of WordPress, clocking up well over a decade both publishing on and building plugins for it. I love it – and I even tried to get a job at Automattic (but that’s a story for another time).

Recently I’ve been really impressed with the work done around privacy, mostly prompted by GDPR. Well done for ensuring the considerable effort this required was made, and that privacy now has a much more prominent place in WordPress.

However, the trolling of privacy standards which I saw (online) at WPEU this week threatens to undermine a nascent and fragile respect of data privacy. I understand there are cultural differences between the EU and the US regarding personal data, but the WordPress community should – has to – be better than this, in the same way that we should be, and are being, better than to engage in other damaging activities (GamerGate culture, for example).

A possible immediate fall-out of these unhelpful comments was that, while 80 people were registered for Heather’s Developing for Privacy and Data Protection workshop, fewer than 35 showed up. We need *more* designers and developers to care about data protection, so anything that puts them off learning has the potential to be massively damaging to the privacy of thousands, possibly millions, of users their work will touch.

Heather has done amazing work in the UK and beyond for years, banging the drum that as a web industry we must professionalise to be taken seriously by users, legislators, and other industries. She was instrumental in the setting up of an industry body for the web in the UK. A commitment to privacy and data protection is a huge part of professionalising the web industry, in the same way that a commitment to safety is a huge part of a civil engineer’s attitude to their profession. It would be a huge shame to see WordPress further the “we got all your data, lolz suckas!” attitude shown by other big online players (looking at you, Facebook).

Please can you consider whether trolling comments like that help or hinder important work, while you continue to do a great job leading Automattic.

Kind regards, and thanks for all you’ve done for the web community.

Chris Taylor

IndieWeb

Posted on by chris

In a moment of madness – proved by the spelling mistake – I tweeted that 2018 would be the year I go full IndieWeb.

But what is it? Basically, IndieWeb is a movement of people who want to own their own data, not have it wholly controlled by corporations. So rather than posting updates to Big Corp Social Media Website, you’d post to your own site and syndicate out to other places. If the social media site goes down, goes bust, or goes evil, you still have all your content. After all, you wrote it – it should be yours.

The syndication part is possible thanks to various clever technical bits (Jeremy Keith has a great video explaning of the building blocks of IndieWeb). So you can still participate in social media sites, for example, but still own your own content.

It’s a “have your cake and eat it” situation. And I like cake.

I, over the course of this year I intend to become independent of Twitter, Pocket and GMail. That’s not to say I’ll stop using those services – I find them all valuable – but my data won’t be owned by them. Fortunately all my websites have their own self-hosted CMS systems (mainly WordPress) which makes the job a lot easier.

And who knows, I may find that this IndieWeb thing allows me to start syndicating to new places such as this Mastadon thing I keep hearing about. The choice will be, for the first time, all mine.

Introducing Web Matters

Posted on by chris

Following the end of World War Two the austerity measures which had been in place throughout the war years remained, causing considerable hardship for the British public. This austerity also caused hardship for British business, partly due to legislative restrictions which were slow to be lifted, and as they found it difficult to get hold of the materials needed for their trades.

Once such industry adversely affected by belt-tightening was upholstery – the makers of “small furniture and soft furnishings”. Finding it difficult to continue their craft, they banded together to form a group that would represent their interests: the Association of Master Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers (AMUSF).

Their website continues the tale:

They felt the need for a group voice and mutual support to tackle the difficulties this [post-war austerity] caused and, in the highly regulated environment of the time, to ensure that they could influence local and national government in the framing and enforcement of laws which affected them.

In the years that followed they were successful in garnering support, and in influencing government to ensure that the conditions under which they carried out their trade were beneficial to both tradesman and consumer. A booklet written in 1967 chronicling the first 20 years of the AMUSF states:

During the first year, no fewer than 9 branches were formed over a wide ares from Northumberland to the South Coast.

The Association continues to this day, and their member directory lists over 250 member businesses.

Everyone else has got one, why don’t we?

Membership of a trade body like the AMUSF is considered a normal part of life in many industries. You’d be hard pressed to find a doctor, nurse or teacher who isn’t a member of one industry body or another. For industries such as healthcare or education this is understandable: having an official organisation to call on is very helpful for professional development and advice. In engineering, too, there are dozens of unions, institutes, associations and societies you can join. So many that there is even an organisation called the Engineering Council, which grants licences to professional engineering institutions.

And there are hundreds if not thousands of industry bodies just in the United Kingdom. If you’re running a dating agency you may well be a member of the Association of British Introduction Agencies, or if you manufacturer carpets for a living then the The Carpet Foundation is where you belong.

What about hairdressers? Don’t worry, there’s the Hair Council who have your back. There’s even a Direct Selling Association which represents direct sellers and aims to ‘develop best practice and the highest level of business ethics in the industry’. There really is an industry body for everything.

Except the web. Don’t get me wrong; there are associations for designers and software professionals, project managers and testers. There are organisations that purport to represent technology workers, but none that I would consider of the web. Open; transparent; representing the huge diversity of people whose livelihoods rely on the web – run by the same people who build the web.

This is the time we needs such an organisation the most. When Western governments are surpassing repressive regimes in their intrusive data collection policies and attitude to personal privacy. When decisions about online security are being mismanaged at a huge scale. When the very legal framework which underpins the work we do and how people use it is being thrown up in the air by Brexit.

Far be it for me to go on a political rant (sorely tempted though I am) – surely it is at least time for a knowledgeable voice to speak out against the constant stream of bad information, misunderstandings and misleading statements from our politicians and leaders. Now, thanks to a bunch of people having an idea over some drinks, there is.

The Web Matters

Web Matters is:

Web Matters is a new, independent, member-driven industry association for those who create and work on the open web.

There’s no high bar to jump to get in, no exams to pass. If you consider your work to be ‘on the web’ then this is a group for you.

We are developers, programmers, designers, and business owners across all languages, platforms, roles, and years of experience.

If you’re thinking that sounds a bit like Open Source software development then you’re right – it’s meant to. Everything is being done in the open, from writing a manifesto to the website code itself to the discussion forums, transparency is being built into the DNA of Web Matters.

This truly is an industry body by web people for web people. It’s not there to pamper to millionaire start-up playboys in London, not designed for huge agencies and Fortune 500 companies to hold golf tournaments. It’s for the freelancer, the small business owner, the web developer in a medium sized business, the agency designer, the tester, the project manager, the business analyst, the UX designer, the API developer, the mobile app wrangler. Anyone for whom the web is their craft, and therefore for whom legislation affecting the web affects them. Your membership belongs to you, irrespective of which company or client you’re working for. We’re putting web people at the heart of Web Matters.

At this moment there are millions of people online – booking holidays; viewing new baby photos; looking up information about healthcare; chatting with friends; searching for a new job; considering a purchase; researching for an exam; playing games. We’re the people that build the world they currently inhabit. A world of global data flow, of millions of miles of cables transmitting gazillions of zeroes and ones. A world with layers of complexity they don’t see, but which affects almost every area of modern life.

The web matters. And it’s time we stood up for this medium which is both shaping and being shaped by the current political and social landscape.

We need you as much as you need us

Let’s return to the AMUSF. The pamphlet chronicling the first 20 years of their organisation, written way back in 1967, says:

For any enterprise to succeed, it must have enthusiasm, perseverence, adaptability and vision. Enthusiasm among all involved from the head down to those who have a minor though very necessary role. Perseverence is essential; no matter how carefully a programme is prepared, there will be difficulties in giving effect to it. This will always apply but particularly in this era in which Governments interfere with the activities of the ordinary citizen, possibly to a greater extent than ever before.

Will you join us?

Announcing inDIVisible, a new JavaScript framework/library

Posted on by chris

I am super excited to announce my latest Open Sauce JavaScript framework/library: inDIVisible. Let me tell you why it’s the answer to everything, and you should start using it right now.

Everyone knows HTML is old-skool. All those elements, bleurgh. Boring names, boring properties. And they aren’t dynamic – they just describe content! Clearly they are unfit for use in Modern Web Applications.

Instead, simplify your life AND get all the JavaScript goodness you crave using inDIVisible. Here’s how:

Yo peeps (not hello world)

<div>Yo peeps!</div>

Pretty simple, right? But this doesn’t do anything. Let’s bind it to our JavaScript model called div.

<div #div="div"></div>

Easy! Whenever your model changes your element updates automagically. This should be enough for you to write a Facebook killer, but there’s more!

Handling input

Want to update the div property in your div model? No problem!

<div [div@] ?div="div.div"></div>

This attribute:

[div@]

Tells inDIVisible to turn the element into an input field. That’s right! No need for pesky input elements.

And this attribute:

?div="div.div"

Updates the div.div property with the value the user enters. It couldn’t be easier!

What’s that? You need a checkbox? Piffle:

<div [div/] ?div="div.div"></div>

See that /? It looks like a tick, which is like a checkbox. Radio buttons are like this:

<div [div.] ?div="div.div"></div>

And if you want a button, just do this;

<div [div]></div>

But buttons *do* stuff, right? What you need is to call a function.

Functions

inDIVisible is a functional framework/library, too. You can invoke functions like this:

<div (div)="div.div"></div>

Just handle the click event (there aren’t any other events worth handling) you want to respond to like this:

(div)

Then name the function you want to run:

="div.div"

Woah! Genius!

Advanced usage

Need to handle loops? Behold:

<div #div="div.div" *div></div>

That cheeky little * tells inDIVisible to repeat the element for each item in the model.

And how about showing and hiding elements? It’s as easy as this to show the element only if the element is truthy:

<div #div="div.div" +div></div>

And you do this to hide the element only if the element is falsy:

<div #div="div.div" -div></div>

CLA

CLI is a Command Line Interface. But inDIVisible is better than that, so it has CLA – Command Line Awsomeness. Type commands like this in your bishbashbosh shell to make cool stuff happen:

div div /div divdiv-div

Honestly, why are you still here? Use it now, you bunch of hipster sheep.

Install

No-one downloads anything now, so there’s no link to any files. Instead you should type one of these commands, whichever one is going to work for you:

grunt install inDIVisible
gulp install inDIVisible
snort install inDIVisible
sniffle install inDIVisible
fart install inDIVisible
bower install inDIVisible
bowel install inDIVisible
flump install inDIVisible
twerk install inDIVisible
plonk install inDIVisible

Then build it and run it. I’ll leave you to figure out those commands, because I have to go drink some organic kale and quinoa juice.