CSS-Tricks Chronicle XVI

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Chris Coyier on (Updated on )

It’s been too long since I’ve done a Chronicle. I’m going to try and get in the habit again.


It’s been a pretty rough winter here in Wisconsin. Relentlessly cold and plenty of snow. It’s been my first winter back in a number of years and it’s as much of a slog as I remember it being. There was some crazy days with a high of like -15°F. I hope to plan more escapes next year than I did this year. My only escape so far has been out to Bend, Oregon for skiing, which was incredibly fun but it sure wasn’t much warmer.


Fortunately next week I get an escape. I’m headed down for my third trip to Hilton Head Health to keep the weight loss going. I’m kind hoping this will be the last time for me as some much healthier habits are starting to take hold. This time I’m going with my dad, and I hope this kicks off a good journey for him too.


After that, the next time I get on a plane will be to An Event Apart Seattle. I’ve been working on a new talk for this, which I’ll use in the rest of my handful of talks in 2014, refining it along the way. It’s going to be all about SVG and the simple and practical ways I’ve been using it.


ShopTalk has been going strong this year. We had our 100th episode! We didn’t do anything super special, but had Rachel Andrew on and she was a great guest. The next week we had John Resig on and people loved that one.

We have guests and sponsors lined up for months to come so chug’a’lug.


As always my primary job is working on CodePen. We’ve been steadily working on that and have crossed some notable milestones like 100k registered users. We have so many ideas for CodePen. They will all happen in time. I’m finding it interesting how much more effort it takes to maintain software than to build it. Truth be told, new features slow down a bit when so much of our time is spent on maintenance and as those new features touch so many other aspects of the app.

We’ve released plenty of stuff recently though, including a WordPress plugin, an infastructural change we call Boomerang that helped fix a slew of bugs, and a feature to see details right from the editor.


Here on CSS-Tricks, I’ve actually started tinkering with a new design. Like most design iterations around here (but unlike the last huge one), it will be very incremental. Mostly a simplification both of content presentation and aesthetic. I’d guess I’ll have it out within a month or two. Stay tuned!