Detect Dark Mode Preference with JavaScript
Seemingly every website, dapp, and app offers a dark mode preference, and thank goodness. Dark mode is especially useful when I'm doing late night coding, or even worse, trading into altcoins. I'm presently working on implementing a dark theme on MetaMask and it got me to thinking: is there a way we can default to dark mode if the user's operating system also defaults to dark mode?
You can determine if the user's operating system prefers dark mode with one quick line of code:
const prefersDarkMode = window.matchMedia("(prefers-color-scheme:dark)").matches; // true
This code snippet takes advantage of the CSS prefers-color-scheme
media query with JavaScript's matchMedia API.
From a user experience standpoint, you'll need to be careful in using this snippet. This method is great for setting a default for new users without changing the value for existing users.
The HTML5 revolution has provided us some awesome JavaScript and HTML APIs. Some are APIs we knew we've needed for years, others are cutting edge mobile and desktop helpers. Regardless of API strength or purpose, anything to help us better do our job is a...
My team mate Edna Piranha is not only an awesome hacker; she's also a fantastic philosopher! Communication and online interactions is a subject that has kept her mind busy for a long time, and it has also resulted in a bunch of interesting experimental projects...
CSS sprites are all the rage these days. And why shouldn't be? They're easy to implement, have great upside, and usually take little effort to create. Dave Shea wrote an epic CSS sprites navigation post titled CSS Sprites2 - It's JavaScript Time.
We all love trusted JavaScript frameworks like MooTools, jQuery, and Dojo, but there's a big push toward using focused micro-frameworks for smaller purposes. Of course, there are positives and negatives to using them. Positives include smaller JS footprint (especially good for mobile) and less cruft, negatives...