Page 17 of 22 of the Unsolicited Advice Archives

1. Faux placeholder clearing with CSS

   Maybe you're like me, and you're not crazy about the way the placeholder attribute works for text fields. I think the placeholder text should clear once the input has focus. Instead, the text only clears after the user starts typing. The good news is that we can modify this behavior

2. Date input in HTML5: Restricting dates, and a thought for working around limitations

   You probably know that HTML5 introduced a date input type, which constrains the value to a valid date string. largely eliminates the need for JavaScript-based date pickers such as the one found in jQuery UI. In browsers that support the type, we can pick a date using

3. Use IDL attributes to test support

   HTML5 input control types still have a ways to go before every type is supported in every browser. In the meantime, you may still find that you need to feature-test whether a particular type is supported. Do this by checking the value of the type IDL attribute. IDL attributes are

4. Range controls and padding in IE10+

   While working on a video player for a forthcoming book, I noticed a peculiar spacing issue with a range input control; that affected the layout of this player.

5. Getting to Know Mutation Observers

   'In this article, Tiffany Brown has a look at mutation observers, how they are different from mutation events, and how you can use them in your web applications.'

6. CSS 3D Transforms on Dev.Opera

   Though I am no longer with Opera, I do plan to keep contributing to their Dev.Opera site. As part of the launch of Opera 15 beta for desktop computers, they recently published a piece I wrote about CSS 3D transforms. Have a read, and feel free to ask questions

7. Understanding 3D Transforms

   'In this article we’ll dig in to 3D transforms in detail, looking at the fundamental differences between 3D and 2D transforms, the 3D transforms available, and some demos that show how these work.'

8. How every conversation about race ever on the internet goes

   Someone makes a comment or corny "joke" that is kinda racist and kinda classist, but mostly harmless.^1^ Someone else — sometimes in the group targeted, sometimes not — says "Hey THAT'S RACIST!" Someone else, usually not in the target group (read: "someone not black / Latino / Asian American / Native American, because those

9. Why doesn't my scale3d() / scaleZ() transform work?

   One of the trickier parts of 3D transforms is understanding how the scaleZ() and scale3d() functions work. When applied to an element, they will often appear to have no effect. But then at other times, or in other combinations, they will. Confusing right? So what's going on? Well, it has