Welcome to This Week on the Front End, our weekly roundup of news from the world of the front-end web.
You can check out the other editions under the frontendnews tag, and don’t forget to check out our weekly JavaScript and .Net roundups too!
News and Views
Medium now lets you sign in with your email address, rather than requiring signup via Twitter or Facebook. And without a password, which is pretty cool.
Here’s great article on dealing with the unpredictability of the web, and on how to talk about progressive enhancement while pretending not to. 
GitHub’s Atom code editor has reached version 1.0, which is pretty cool. Did you know it’s now available for Windows and Linux?
HTML5 video ftw, as Microsoft removes ActiveX and Silverlight from its latest Edge browser.
In Brief
- Facebook is getting a new logo (sort of).
- Lea Verou’s CSS Secrets book has been published. I’m betting it’s good value.
- Bye bye, Adobe
CSS
Is CSS giving you the sheets? Well, here’s an alternative—sort of.
If you do your block every time you try to understand block formatting context in CSS, then block in some time to read Ritesh’s Understanding Block Formatting Contexts in CSS.
Sass, Less, Myth and Crush not enough for you? Why not knock yourself out with Stylus?
Sick of reading? Me too, so here’s a video on how CSS affects performance and all that—by a bonza Aussie bloke, too.
Ire Aderinokun presents the astounding story of Pseudo-Classes, Pseudo-Elements, and Colon Notation. You won’t believe the ending!
And here’s a nice post on viewport sized typography with minimum and maximum sizes.
A delicate subject, but … are your media queries getting fat?
Here’s another video, this time looking at approaches to responsive design and accommodating an increasing range of connected devices.
Ah, I love a good mystery flexbox video. Here’s a recent one from CSS Day.
JavaScript
Eric Elliott reflects on life after JavaScript.
Here’s a nice little article on detecting CSS animation and transition end with JavaScript.
And here’s all of JavaScript in one big picture (and here too.) I want one of those on my wall.
HTML
Here’s a roundup of various tools for embedding HTML5 video on your site.
Meanwhile, forget about the hairy-nosed, pink-bellied jungle rat: Christian Heilmann thinks it’s web components that are most in danger of extinction.
Mind you, though, Kaelig is much more optimistic about the future of web components.
Design
Richa gives a nice argument for why minimalism still rules the web.
There’s definitely a symmetry in this article on balance in design.
Piotre looks at whether color or contrast gets more conversions. (Don’t worry—it’s not religious or anything.)
Tired of the same old fonts everywhere? Here’s a look at some new and fresh font combinations.
Here’s a refreshing rethink of the web design process.
SVG
Sara presents another great article on SVG, exploring how scalable vector graphics can be used for much more than just creating and animating shapes.
Too many words? Sit back and enjoy some SVG porn (don’t worry, it’s safe for work … unless your boss doesn’t like you getting distracted).
Typography
If you’re into typography and mathematics, you’ll be like a pig in mud with this article on mathematical web typography.
Here’s one designer’s last word on Helvetica.
Accessibility & UX
The Khan Academy has launched a handy tool for checking your site’s accessibility.
Luke W (yeah, I’m lazy) suggests only using dropdowns when really necessary—which is sweet talk for never.
If you’re into UX and comics, you can now combine the two.
Here’s a site with info on which new HTML5 UI features are accessibility supported.
The Coolness
It wouldn’t be lion to say this is really cool:
And here are some ridiculously cool card expansion effects with SVG clipPath.
If you have any links you’d like me to put in the next edition, please just message me [don’t be fooled by the dog—he’s not hungry].
If you enjoyed any of these articles, or if they got you thinking, tell us about it below. Otherwise it gets lonely in here!