12 must have VSCode extensions
Published at Sep 02, 2023●Updated at Apr 29, 2024●7 minutes read
Table of Contents
VSCode is one of the most popular IDE's for coding everything from Java to Javascript. VSCode is super customizable and for that the community created a lot of custom extensions for VSCode. That's what we will cover in this article.
Extensions.json
This is a file you can add to .vscode folder and configure a set of extensions that are recommended by VSCode if the user don't have them.
1. VSCode Eslint
Eslint is a tool for identifying and reporting on patterns found in ECMAScript/JavaScript code
This means that its goal is to be a tool to enforce certain patterns that we can consider "Good practices" or just avoid errors and bad syntaxes. This is possible by using a big set of rules that are completely customizable, and with just one line you can turn on or off the rules that you prefer and of course there are a lot of custom rules made by the community that in addition to add more validation to Javascript, also makes an integration to other stuff you may have like React, TailwindCSS, Typescript and many more.
So Eslint is very good but why do I need the extension? Well, you can run npx eslint . every time to check if Eslint got any error or warning, but if you want something more fast and easy to do, and trust me, you do, installing the extension allows Eslint to run parallel while coding, ensuring that the error will be shown as you code.
Link for download: VSCode Eslint
2. Git Lens
Have you ever code with a partner? A friend, co-worker or relative and found a line with a very serious bug and needed went to Github to found how made that line? Well, with Git Lens solves your problem by adding a little hint of who made the last update to that line and in how much time ago. I can tell you must be thinking. How this is so useful? For me, it can be handy to have, you may forgot the extension installed but at some time I can assure you will use. Not only for to know the person how did change the line, but also to know when was the last time that line was updated.
I know Git Lens offers other uses, but for my necessities this is good enough. You can read more about it here.
Link for download: Git Lens
3. Editor Config
Editor config is a set of configurations that can maintain consistent coding across multiple IDEs, the configurations are basically about indentations, file formats, charset, unix style new lines, etc.
This extensions enables to overwrite vscode configurations with the ones set on .editorconfig file.
I always like to config this file instead my vscode because this way I know the code will be more consistent across multiple IDEs.
Link for download: Editor Config
4. Print showing Code Snapshot extension
I confess that Code Snapshot is not a super must have extension, but it is really nice and works really well. It can take screenshots from your code in MacOS style for you to post anywhere you want, like in a social media.
Link for download: Code Snapshot
5. VSCode Icons
This one has a lot of my opinion, but I really think you should have an extension to modify your icons. It help so much when finding that specific file, I always go for the icon first instead of the file extension or the name of it.
Link for download: VSCode Icons
6. Import Cost
One of the most important thing we as developer need to understand is how our site can be found by search engines like Google or Bing, and one thing I see a lot is a very large First Contentful Paint(FCP). This is basically the time when the first render of page ends and this is crucial for user experience, a bad time may result in user leaving your page. One of the strategies to decrease FCP time is the only first load the necessary and after you can load the small pieces like an api call. And this can be achieved by removing all the big bundles inside your project. The Import Cost extension helps you to do that by showing the bundle size of that lib and then you can or remove it or search for a lighter lib.
Link for download: Import Cost
7. Markdown All in One and MDX
In this topic I will put two extensions because I know not everyone is a React developer and uses MDX files as I use, so it is more reasonable for these people use Markdown All in One that gives all the essential stuff to have a great time writing your files. For React developers I suggest using MDX, a superset of Markdown allowing to use React component inside Markdown. It is super handful and as I see, MDX is becoming a popular way to write Markdown in NextJS. You can even use Content layer to type your Markdown, if that's not fantastic I don't know what is.
Link for download: Markdown All in One
Link for download: MDX
8. Code Spell Checker
Again, if you write files Markdown or anything that will probably be useful to have a grammar corrector and this extension is just like that.
Link for download: Code Spell Checker
9. Auto Rename Tag
One of the most useful extension I use is Auto Rename Tag, this as the name says, when change the tag name, the matching one will be changed too.
Link for download: Auto Rename Tag
10. Themes
In number 10 I will put a more vast collection of extensions used to change the VSCode appearance, of course I am talking about themes. There are a lot and I mean A LOT of available themes that can change the most different aspects, but most likely the colors, you can find a more lighter, darker, greener, yellowish and many more themes.
If you want a recommendation, I would certain suggest to use Dracula Theme, it is one of most famous themes out there with more than 5 million installs. The colors are great even for dark environments or bright environments.
Link for download: Dracula Theme
11. Extra ones
Well, for last I would suggest you to install the extension useful for what you are using to code, like if you are using TailwindCSS, please use the TailwindCSS extension, and this can be applied to everything in your project, Styled Components or even other language than Javascript like Python VSCode has the extension Python for VSCode. So have a look what you have installed and search if has an extension that could help you. 😊
Conclusion
Conclusion reading this article you were introduced to a set of VSCode extensions that can help improve your coding time and quality. All of that are free and can be downloaded from Microsoft VSCode MarketPlace. Thank you for reading and see you in the next article. Have a nice day. 😎✨✨✨😎
References
Amazon What is IDE. Access at
About the author
Felipe Scherer
- Software EngineerHello. I currently working as developer for more than 2 years coding sites, apps and games. In the free time I like to write articles to help people get started in this incredible world of coding. Feel free to explore my Github and use my public code 😊. Don't forget to follow me on my socials. 🌟
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One thing it changes is when you hover a class, it shows what is that CSS equivalent, is literally required for me and I do not see me not using it. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/9b5e1959-3c80-4589-867c-47b0fdf40e48" name="Tailwind VSCode Intellisense showcase" alt="Print showing when hovering the class has a popup showing CSS equivalent" /> You know, when you create custom classes, you need Tailwind Intellisense to recognize it, but I never found a way to make recognize directives like @layer. When creating custom classes like that, you do not have the hover preview :( This is unacceptable, specially because custom classes do not exist in Tailwind Docs, is the most important classes to have a register and a easy way to check the CSS equivalent. So going though Github Issues and making a lot of testing. I probably have the best solution to create custom classes in Tailwind. ## Create custom plugins As you can see there are a lot of ways to customize you styles in Tailwind, but there is superior way to customize and still get the Tailwind Intellisense working for us, it’s called 🪽 Plugins 🪽. What is and how we implement? <Blockquote cite="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_(computing)"> is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program </Blockquote> So in [Tailwind](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/plugins) is not diffent, plugins are a way to modify the base of Tailwind, you can do a lot of it, but in this article I just gonna show how you can use to create custom classes styles. Every Tailwind project has a **tailwind.config.js** or **tailwind.config.ts** which has all of Tailwind’s configuration, including the **theme** from earlier, but what we want is the **plugins** <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/27b51eae-d5a0-4c14-81cf-19c97aa76398" name="tailwind.config.ts" alt="tailwind.config.ts file" /> You will need to use a function from Tailwind called `plugin`. I highly recommend using Typescript, for its typing features, which helps a lot, but of course you can use Vanila Javascript too. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/e42b46ba-2710-4575-81b4-6ad8e864e30f" name="Plugin function" alt="Plugin function" /> In it’s parameters you put what you want to create. For this article, we want a component, so we use the addComponent param. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/bee18037-70d5-435f-810f-fa6876a62629" name="Plugin function add components" alt="Plugin function add components" /> Now just add the class name and the styles like CSS or (CSS Style Declation)[https://www.w3.org/TR/cssom/#the-cssstyledeclaration-interface] (backgroundColor insted background-color). <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/5a6db547-3f58-4eca-98ce-c5564885fbd6" name="Custom class made by plugin example" alt="Custom class made by plugin example" /> And there you go, now you have the hovering effec from Tailwind Intellisense :) <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/688da377-c59e-4cd2-ba24-b02499d4da25" name="Class in action" alt="Print showing when hovering the custom class made by plugin, showing the equivalent CSS" /> ## More dev experience Here's an additional tip to elevate your Tailwind development experience: consider using the [eslint-plugin-tailwindcss package](https://www.npmjs.com/package/eslint-plugin-tailwindcss). 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How to create good looking custom scrollbars
In my opinion one of the most difficult part in frontend is to make the layout look similar in every browser and that's because we have CSS Resets, but scrollbars can be one of the points we forget but can makes a huge difference to users. ## Introduction At my first year as developer, I always will remember a gaffe committed when introducing some new features I had developed to the CEO's company. Well, I use Mozilla Developer Edition to code, but at that time I forgot users uses Chrome in majority. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/8be10ac9-bb0f-47d5-93b7-bed3144ad9fe" source="https://gs.statcounter.com" name="Browser Market Share Worldwide Dec 2022 - Jan 2024" alt="Statcounter graph showing Chrome are used by 70% of the users" /> So the CEO. Yes, the scrollbar's feature was horrible in Chrome because the scrollbars are not aesthetic as Firefox. In the end, I did not got any in any trouble, the CEO only just pointed out and I did the fix in the next patch. I learnt to never forget scrollbars again, it cannot be neglected. ## Problems The main issue with scrollbars it is different styles in each browser which makes really hard to us track how the final layout is gonna be delivered to the user. And is not only the visuals, some browsers make the scrollbars take a size of the container, which can lead to layout looking weird. We gonna follow the name convention in [this fantastic article by Zach Leatherman - Two Browsers Walked Into a Scrollbar](https://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/scrollbars/): <Blockquote cite="https://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/scrollbars"> - Obtrusive scrollbars: scrollbars that take up screen real estate. These do not overlay on top of the content, but appear next to it. - Unobtrusive scrollbars: scrollbars that sit on top of the content. These don't subtract screen real estate away from the container they belong to. </Blockquote> I personally would prefer that every browser had unobtrusive scrollbars most because we as developer would not need to worry about taking some space in our layout. But I know that's not possible and probably would ruin a lot of layouts out there. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying some browser is better than other, I really think that every browser has some kind of problem when talking about scrollbars. Let's point out: ### Mozilla Firefox Firefox has unobtrusive and really aesthetic scrollbar which is great but I don't like how only "grows" the scrollbar on hover, not the container, but the scrollbar. I think if it has to grow, that should grow on hover the content to be easy accessed and not the scrollbar. Like if I already have reached the scrollbar, it does not need to grow, right? The grow is to make the bar more accessible... <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/ad1747c2-699f-492f-9f07-be5b8f2f97aa" name="Mozilla Firefox default scrollbar" alt="Gif showing that Firefox only grows the scrollbar if hovered IN the scrollbar" /> ### Chromium Browsers I love chromium browsers specially Chrome and Opera GX, I use them both in different situations, like coding I like Chrome and Mozilla Firefox Developer, but for daily routines I prefer Opera GX. But most of the scrollbars are not that great. First, they are obtrusive which for sole already brings some problems. Second, it is so wider even if user is not hovering the content, which is really ugly... <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/d0c6360e-0546-4999-a296-8c11c2f62947" name="Chrome default scrollbar" alt="Gif showing the default behavior scrollbar in Mozilla Firefox" /> ### Edge One scrollbar I really like is from Edge Browser, yes, the successor of Internet Explorer. I think Edge has a lot of similar stuff with Chrome and the scrollbar is no different. Edge still has a wide scrollbar, but the borders are rounded which gives like a Firefox feeling. I really like, but I think could be better if were a little thinner. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/64badb1a-3fb8-4174-8c73-ba4222560296" name="Edge default scrollbar" alt="Gif showing the default behavior scrollbar in Edge" /> ## Mobile In mobile we have a little different problem. In my opinion mobile, the scrollbar can have the same problems above depending on which mobile browser you are, but with additional that scrollbars are only shown if you are actually scrolling, how I am supposed to know if that container has scroll if does not have a scrollbar? ## Objectives In this article I gonna show you how you can make your scrollbars aesthetic as can be in many different browsers, only using CSS. I am already warning you that is not possible to make like a reset to them, like we have done to **h1**, **p** and so on. CSS has its limitations and to achieve the fully goal probably will you need some Javascript code or maybe create all the logic with it. The method I am gonna show you is relative simple and can works on most browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Brave, Opera GX, Edge and Safari, there will be an image with properties browser support in the end of the article. I think that's enough of talk, let's code. ## Solution First, please, do not ever style the main scrollbar. This is not standard, this do not need to follow your layout, it's good to look native to users do get lost. I think is good to style your scrollbars inside something you created, because this is "part" of your layout, different from the main scrollbar that is "part" of browser's layout. Did get it? Well, for the solution, I searched a lot and got really frustrated when finding out the perfect solution do not exist, but we can came to a really nice result. Most of the sites uses some kind of Javascript or very difficult CSS approaches, so I filtered out the really necessary styles and merge them in a class **styled-scrollbars** you can use in the overflowing container. Most of these styles were gotten from [Reddit's aside menu](https://www.reddit.com). ## CSS code There is no error, we gonna use two properties for Firefox (**scrollbar-color** and **scrollbar-width**) and some webkit for Chromium's browsers. ``` css /* Firefox Only */ /* Approaches mobile first, because here, the scrollbar-color will be set and always will be that color, but on desktop, that we have hover effect, we can give a transparent color, but how this is mobile first, we give the color here, and treat the desktop in other style */ .styled-scrollbars { scrollbar-color: var(--some-really-nice-color-here); scrollbar-width: thin; } /* Chrome and others Browsers */ .styled-scrollbars::-webkit-scrollbar { width: 4px; height: 4px } /* Chrome and others Browsers */ .styled-scrollbars::-webkit-scrollbar-track { background: transparent; } /* With device has hover (Desktop or TV, etc) give a little effect on hover */ @media (hover: hover) { .styled-scrollbars { scrollbar-color: var(--some-really-nice-color-here-not-hover) transparent ; scrollbar-width: thin; border-radius: 8px; transition: cubic-bezier(0.165, 0.84, 0.44, 1) 500ms all ; } .styled-scrollbars:hover { scrollbar-color: var(--some-really-nice-color-here) transparent } .styled-scrollbars:hover::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb { background: var(--some-really-nice-color-here); border-radius: 8px; -ms-overflow-style: none; scrollbar-width: thin; } } ``` To find the browser's support, please look at: - [webkit-scrollbar](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/::-webkit-scrollbar) - [scrollbar-color](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/scrollbar-color) - [scrollbar-width](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/scrollbar-width) ## Final results <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/4af5a2b1-b06a-444d-a135-3b5f85472089" name="Mozilla Firefox" alt="Gif showing the result of aesthetic scrollbar in Firefox" /> <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/24d9ca86-69a8-4335-9dea-b68f0278701d" name="Chrome" alt="Gif showing the result of aesthetic scrollbar in Chrome" /> <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/9e114c2b-06ca-459b-aa95-aecc4b02e57d" name="Edge" alt="Gif showing the result of aesthetic scrollbar in Edge" /> ## Additional tips One very interesting stuff I found by searching content for this article is a solution for components that has a special css for hovering effects, is to use **media query hover** to only enable this on hover support devices. You can checkout the [full video by the master of CSS Kevin Powell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuluAyw9AI0). I highly recommend. ## Conclusion In this article we saw a very clean way, consistent and CSS only to style your scrollbars to be aesthetic as possible between many different browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Brave, Opera GX, Edge and Safari. Of course this approach is not 100% effective in all platforms, but works on most of them. Have a nice day. 😎✨✨✨😎
How to create morse code translator
Did you know what is morse code? It is a method of communication using short and long signals that are common represented as dots and dashes. Developed to transmit human language to math language and as only translate letters it became and international standard. ## Short Answer To create a morse code encrypter and decrypter you have two methods. One can use the [ASCII table](https://www.lookuptables.com/text/ascii-table) as described in this [answer of Stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/a/26059284). But my preferred way is making a dictionary mapping all valid characters, which would be letters A from Z, number 0 to 9 and a blank space to separate words, anything else would be `undefined` and you can handle as you want. 1. 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It is a method to encode human words characters into just short and long sequences that can be anything from lights, sounds, smoke, anything you can make a short or long signal can be used to represent any word or number from *a-z* and *0-9*. It became very popular in telegraph - grandfather of communication that used morse code to transmit messages from short and long bip. They even had a profession to people hearing and translating the messages- [telegraphist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphist). Morse code works by using a [sequence of short or long signal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code) to represent one letter/number. For example, the letter **t** can be represent by a long signal **-**, but the letter **g** is two long signal and one short signal **--.**. With this you can make a very good system of communication to transform human language into natural language. It's also very popular on pop culture as almost every riddle movie has a part using morse to encrypt or decrypt some kind of message. ### Alphabet |Character | Morse Equivalent| |----|----| | 0 | ----- | | 1 | .---- | | 2 | ..--- | | 3 | ...-- | | 4 | ....- | | 5 | ..... | | 6 | -.... | | 7 | --... | | 8 | ---.. | | 9 | ----. | | a | .- | | b | -... | | c | -.-. | | d | -.. | | e | . | | f | ..-. | | g | --. | | h | .... | | i | .. | | j | .--- | | k | -.- | | l | .-.. | | m | -- | | n | -. | | o | --- | | p | .--. | | q | --.- | | r | .-. | | s | ... | | t | - | | u | ..- | | v | ...- | | w | .-- | | x | -..- | | y | -.-- | | z | --.. | ### Google learn morse If you stay curious to learn more about morse code, I highly recommend you try [Google's morse learn](https://morse.withgoogle.com/learn). They use images to help us remember the letters. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/65e73bb9-c4a8-4316-9391-a001b0d77d2a" source="https://kpronline.com/blog/learn-morse-code-with-the-morse-typing-trainer" name="Code cues used in the Morse Typing Trainer" alt="List of all codes cues used in morse typing trainer" /> ### Javascript/Typescript functions To create a morse code encrypter and decrypter you have two methods. - Using ASCII table You can use the [ASCII table](https://www.lookuptables.com/text/ascii-table) as described in this [answer of Stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/a/26059284). By knowing that ASCII table characters *a - z* goes from *97* to *122* and numbers *0 - 9* goes from *48* to *57* you can do something like this. 1. First create 2 arrays containing the characters and one constant for the space. ```typescript // Characters in order A - Z and 0 - 9 const charactersAZ = ['.-', '-...','-.-.','-..','.','..-.','--.','....','..','.---','-.-','.-..','--','-.','---','.--.','--.-','.-.','...','-','..-','...-','.--','-..-','-.--','--..'] const numbers09 = ['-----', '.----', '..---', '...--', '....-', '.....', '-....', '--...', '---..', '----.'] const characterSpace = '/' ``` 2. Now you need to remove all weird characters that does not have an index on our arrays ```typescript function cleanRawText(rawText: string) { return rawText.toLowerCase().replace(/[^a-z0-9\s]/g, ""); } ``` 3. Finally make a function to return the encrypted character. ```typescript const isNumberRegex = /^\d+$/ function transformToMorse(rawText: string) { const formatText = cleanRawText(rawText); return formatText.split('').map(letter => { if(letter === " ") return characterSpace; asciiCode = letter.charCodeAt(letter); if(isNumberRegex.test(letter)) return numbers09[asciiCode - 48]; else return charactersAZ[asciiCode - 97]; }).join(' '); } ``` 4. Test the functions ```typescript transformToMorse('Hello world') // result .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -.. ``` -Using dictionary My preferred way is making a dictionary mapping all valid characters, which would be letters A from Z, number 0 to 9 and a blank space to separate words, anything else would be `undefined` and you can handle as you want. 1. Create a dictionary containing all valid characters: ```typescript const dictionary = { 'a': '.-', 'b': '-...', 'c': '-.-.', 'd': '-..', 'e': '.', 'f': '..-.', 'g': '--.', 'h': '....', 'i': '..', 'j': '.---', 'k': '-.-', 'l': '.-..', 'm': '--', 'n': '-.', 'o': '---', 'p': '.--.', 'q': '--.-', 'r': '.-.', 's': '...', 't': '-', 'u': '..-', 'v': '...-', 'w': '.--', 'x': '-..-', 'y': '-.--', 'z': '--..', '0': '-----', '1': '.----', '2': '..---', '3': '...--', '4': '....-', '5': '.....', '6': '-....', '7': '--...', '8': '---..', '9': '----.', ' ': '/' } ``` 2. Add function to transform letters into morse code: ```typescript function transformToMorse(rawText: string) { return rawText.split('').map(letter => dictionary[letter.toLowerCase()]).join(' ') } ``` 3. Test it ```typescript transformToMorse('Hello world') // result .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -.. ``` Which one of them should I choose? Well, I think is up to you, personally I will not go to performance side because both has `map` method and the others doesn't make that much difference. I would choose based on readability as the first one the arrays seems a bit confusing and object making a dictionary seems much more readable for me. Okay, but this is only an encrypter, where is the decrypter? For this, just invert the logic, make a dictionary containing morse code as keys, letters with values and the backslash for white space. ### Bonus: UI - NextJS - Tailwind This article only shows how to convert, but not how to create an application with these logics. I'am gonna leave this for you to create a design. I personally recommend to create a [NextJS](https://nextjs.org/docs/getting-started/installation) project with [TailwindCSS](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/installation) for styling and [Vercel](https://vercel.com) as free host. [You can checkout the source code to get inspired](https://github.com/fescherer/morse-secret-scripter) <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/e3c04fd3-5140-484a-8063-541abe46f66f" source="https://morse-secret-scripter.felipescherer.com" name="Morse secret scripter home page" alt="Home page of morse secret scripter containing input and output text areas for encrypt and decrypt" /> ### Conclusion In this article you learnt the history of morse code and how to create simple functions to translate/encrypt/decrypt morse code using Javascript/Typescript. Feel free to leave any suggestions, corrections and tips. Thank you for reading and see you in the next article. Have a nice day. 😎✨✨✨😎
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Create custom classes Tailwind
Tailwind CSS is a popular modern CSS framework known for its utility-first approach. Unlike component-based frameworks like Bootstrap, Tailwind provides a collection of low-level utility classes that you combine to achieve your desired styles. This approach offers greater flexibility and granular control over your styles. It also boasts excellent build optimizations, including generating only the classes used in your project. While Tailwind offers built-in customization options, this article explores various methods for creating custom classes, with a focus on maintaining a positive developer experience. ## Tailwind CSS: Beyond the Basics - Crafting Custom Classes Tailwind CSS has a lot of classes, but there is some time you find yourself the need to use a class that are not in the default package, so what you do? There are a lot of ways to create custom classes, described in [docs](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/adding-custom-styles). I am gonna go though all of them, but be aware my favorite is the last one- By creating a plugin, so if you want, just skip to here ## Arbitrary values-properties-variants Tailwind is built for really hard customization, and that’s so true, you can literaly create any class just combining some prefix or sufix and the compiler will generate for you the classes for build. So, Why we avoid this approach when dealing to customization? The answer is because this goes agains the reusability concept of Tailwind, and if you use more than one that that arbitrary value, I recommend to create a custom utility for it. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/76b33e7a-bd3f-4940-aabd-e3232034fc7b" name="Arbitrary property Tailwind example" alt="code example of tailwind arbitrary using a color of background" /> <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/9994a2a8-a1df-4be8-813a-759d7ea15e64" name="Build file " alt="Build file showing the arbitrary property became other class" /> ## Customizing the theme If you want to change the properties already build in, like the font-size or color, it’s perfect and really easy to do just customizing the Tailwind theme file. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/3fcdaf65-9624-4966-8ccd-49aa74daf8c1" name="tailwind.config.ts" alt="Creating a class my-blue in Tailwind file" /> <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/61559e23-be18-43ea-a0a5-04dc0fbca834" name="Code example" alt="Using the custom classes created in a div" /> <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/810e5dfc-70f1-4505-88df-bc1a25c8653d" name="Build file- This may looks weird, but is the same blue I configured, but just with some Tailwind optimization." alt="Build file showing that Tailwind handle better using theme" /> The problem is when you need to create a custom component class, like you repeat that same classes and that became redundant and hard to read. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/5920d701-17f9-476e-8df4-c5c3024c4594" name="Example of reduntant classes" alt="File showing a lot of container with same classes" /> Isn’t better having just one class like `hello-world-container`? Yes. ## @layer and @apply directive There is a way to add custom classes using some Tailwind directives in CSS files. Like this: <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/53c6e419-42b5-472e-a321-1af95569e58b" name="Example of reduntant classes" alt="File showing a lot of container with same classes" /> You can literaly put any CSS valid property just like the way you would do in normal CSS, but noticed I put the classes inside some directives, why? Tailwind is composed by layers that can be overwritten, eg. You have a base style for your button but you want to change it’s color just in one component, to make that you will need to overwrite it, in normal CSS you will probably use !important, and trust me in my experience if you had use !important, probabily there is something wrong with your code. So use layers with wisdom. I recommend using: - [@layer base](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/adding-custom-styles#adding-base-styles) for tag styles, like I used in the example for tag `code`. - [@layer components](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/adding-custom-styles#adding-component-classes) for classes that has more than one style like the `hello-world-container` which has **display: flex;flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;background-color:purple;padding:1rem**. Most customization you will need is gonna be made here. - [@layer utilities](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/adding-custom-styles#adding-custom-utilities) is the highest priority, so use carefully. I recommend using just for one single property like **transparent:background-color:transparent**. This will mostly be used for classes that do not exist in default Tailwind. Well, so we learned about the @layer directive, but what is that @apply in the example? This is a way to use your Tailwind token in the styling file. For build does not matter if you use the **hello-world-container** or **hello-world-container-2**, both produces the same result, so @apply helps your code readbility. Using directives may seen the best way to create custom classes in Tailwind, but as I said in the beginning of the article, this is not my favorite way. I prefer much more creating a custom plugin. ## Why I do not like Tailwind directives like @layer and @apply Fist I need to say why I love the experience of working with Taiwlind insted other CSS framework similar like Bootstrap. Tailwind has been investing not just in optimizations and fast files, but in development experience too. Tailwind has a very nice VSCode plugin called [Tailwind Intellisense](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/editor-setup#intelli-sense-for-vs-code) I personally do not recommend you use Tailwind without this plugin. One thing it changes is when you hover a class, it shows what is that CSS equivalent, is literally required for me and I do not see me not using it. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/9b5e1959-3c80-4589-867c-47b0fdf40e48" name="Tailwind VSCode Intellisense showcase" alt="Print showing when hovering the class has a popup showing CSS equivalent" /> You know, when you create custom classes, you need Tailwind Intellisense to recognize it, but I never found a way to make recognize directives like @layer. When creating custom classes like that, you do not have the hover preview :( This is unacceptable, specially because custom classes do not exist in Tailwind Docs, is the most important classes to have a register and a easy way to check the CSS equivalent. So going though Github Issues and making a lot of testing. I probably have the best solution to create custom classes in Tailwind. ## Create custom plugins As you can see there are a lot of ways to customize you styles in Tailwind, but there is superior way to customize and still get the Tailwind Intellisense working for us, it’s called 🪽 Plugins 🪽. What is and how we implement? <Blockquote cite="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_(computing)"> is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program </Blockquote> So in [Tailwind](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/plugins) is not diffent, plugins are a way to modify the base of Tailwind, you can do a lot of it, but in this article I just gonna show how you can use to create custom classes styles. Every Tailwind project has a **tailwind.config.js** or **tailwind.config.ts** which has all of Tailwind’s configuration, including the **theme** from earlier, but what we want is the **plugins** <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/27b51eae-d5a0-4c14-81cf-19c97aa76398" name="tailwind.config.ts" alt="tailwind.config.ts file" /> You will need to use a function from Tailwind called `plugin`. I highly recommend using Typescript, for its typing features, which helps a lot, but of course you can use Vanila Javascript too. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/e42b46ba-2710-4575-81b4-6ad8e864e30f" name="Plugin function" alt="Plugin function" /> In it’s parameters you put what you want to create. For this article, we want a component, so we use the addComponent param. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/bee18037-70d5-435f-810f-fa6876a62629" name="Plugin function add components" alt="Plugin function add components" /> Now just add the class name and the styles like CSS or (CSS Style Declation)[https://www.w3.org/TR/cssom/#the-cssstyledeclaration-interface] (backgroundColor insted background-color). <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/5a6db547-3f58-4eca-98ce-c5564885fbd6" name="Custom class made by plugin example" alt="Custom class made by plugin example" /> And there you go, now you have the hovering effec from Tailwind Intellisense :) <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/fennec-tales-blog/assets/62115215/688da377-c59e-4cd2-ba24-b02499d4da25" name="Class in action" alt="Print showing when hovering the custom class made by plugin, showing the equivalent CSS" /> ## More dev experience Here's an additional tip to elevate your Tailwind development experience: consider using the [eslint-plugin-tailwindcss package](https://www.npmjs.com/package/eslint-plugin-tailwindcss). This ESLint plugin offers various features to help you write cleaner and more maintainable Tailwind code. ## Summary This article explored various methods for creating custom classes in Tailwind CSS, emphasizing the importance of a positive development experience. By leveraging Tailwind plugins, you can create custom styles while maintaining IntelliSense support and overall code clarity. This approach empowers you to extend Tailwind's capabilities while keeping your development workflow efficient and enjoyable. Thanks for reading see you in the next article, have a nice day 😊
How to create good looking custom scrollbars
In my opinion one of the most difficult part in frontend is to make the layout look similar in every browser and that's because we have CSS Resets, but scrollbars can be one of the points we forget but can makes a huge difference to users. ## Introduction At my first year as developer, I always will remember a gaffe committed when introducing some new features I had developed to the CEO's company. Well, I use Mozilla Developer Edition to code, but at that time I forgot users uses Chrome in majority. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/8be10ac9-bb0f-47d5-93b7-bed3144ad9fe" source="https://gs.statcounter.com" name="Browser Market Share Worldwide Dec 2022 - Jan 2024" alt="Statcounter graph showing Chrome are used by 70% of the users" /> So the CEO. Yes, the scrollbar's feature was horrible in Chrome because the scrollbars are not aesthetic as Firefox. In the end, I did not got any in any trouble, the CEO only just pointed out and I did the fix in the next patch. I learnt to never forget scrollbars again, it cannot be neglected. ## Problems The main issue with scrollbars it is different styles in each browser which makes really hard to us track how the final layout is gonna be delivered to the user. And is not only the visuals, some browsers make the scrollbars take a size of the container, which can lead to layout looking weird. We gonna follow the name convention in [this fantastic article by Zach Leatherman - Two Browsers Walked Into a Scrollbar](https://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/scrollbars/): <Blockquote cite="https://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/scrollbars"> - Obtrusive scrollbars: scrollbars that take up screen real estate. These do not overlay on top of the content, but appear next to it. - Unobtrusive scrollbars: scrollbars that sit on top of the content. These don't subtract screen real estate away from the container they belong to. </Blockquote> I personally would prefer that every browser had unobtrusive scrollbars most because we as developer would not need to worry about taking some space in our layout. But I know that's not possible and probably would ruin a lot of layouts out there. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying some browser is better than other, I really think that every browser has some kind of problem when talking about scrollbars. Let's point out: ### Mozilla Firefox Firefox has unobtrusive and really aesthetic scrollbar which is great but I don't like how only "grows" the scrollbar on hover, not the container, but the scrollbar. I think if it has to grow, that should grow on hover the content to be easy accessed and not the scrollbar. Like if I already have reached the scrollbar, it does not need to grow, right? The grow is to make the bar more accessible... <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/ad1747c2-699f-492f-9f07-be5b8f2f97aa" name="Mozilla Firefox default scrollbar" alt="Gif showing that Firefox only grows the scrollbar if hovered IN the scrollbar" /> ### Chromium Browsers I love chromium browsers specially Chrome and Opera GX, I use them both in different situations, like coding I like Chrome and Mozilla Firefox Developer, but for daily routines I prefer Opera GX. But most of the scrollbars are not that great. First, they are obtrusive which for sole already brings some problems. Second, it is so wider even if user is not hovering the content, which is really ugly... <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/d0c6360e-0546-4999-a296-8c11c2f62947" name="Chrome default scrollbar" alt="Gif showing the default behavior scrollbar in Mozilla Firefox" /> ### Edge One scrollbar I really like is from Edge Browser, yes, the successor of Internet Explorer. I think Edge has a lot of similar stuff with Chrome and the scrollbar is no different. Edge still has a wide scrollbar, but the borders are rounded which gives like a Firefox feeling. I really like, but I think could be better if were a little thinner. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/64badb1a-3fb8-4174-8c73-ba4222560296" name="Edge default scrollbar" alt="Gif showing the default behavior scrollbar in Edge" /> ## Mobile In mobile we have a little different problem. In my opinion mobile, the scrollbar can have the same problems above depending on which mobile browser you are, but with additional that scrollbars are only shown if you are actually scrolling, how I am supposed to know if that container has scroll if does not have a scrollbar? ## Objectives In this article I gonna show you how you can make your scrollbars aesthetic as can be in many different browsers, only using CSS. I am already warning you that is not possible to make like a reset to them, like we have done to **h1**, **p** and so on. CSS has its limitations and to achieve the fully goal probably will you need some Javascript code or maybe create all the logic with it. The method I am gonna show you is relative simple and can works on most browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Brave, Opera GX, Edge and Safari, there will be an image with properties browser support in the end of the article. I think that's enough of talk, let's code. ## Solution First, please, do not ever style the main scrollbar. This is not standard, this do not need to follow your layout, it's good to look native to users do get lost. I think is good to style your scrollbars inside something you created, because this is "part" of your layout, different from the main scrollbar that is "part" of browser's layout. Did get it? Well, for the solution, I searched a lot and got really frustrated when finding out the perfect solution do not exist, but we can came to a really nice result. Most of the sites uses some kind of Javascript or very difficult CSS approaches, so I filtered out the really necessary styles and merge them in a class **styled-scrollbars** you can use in the overflowing container. Most of these styles were gotten from [Reddit's aside menu](https://www.reddit.com). ## CSS code There is no error, we gonna use two properties for Firefox (**scrollbar-color** and **scrollbar-width**) and some webkit for Chromium's browsers. ``` css /* Firefox Only */ /* Approaches mobile first, because here, the scrollbar-color will be set and always will be that color, but on desktop, that we have hover effect, we can give a transparent color, but how this is mobile first, we give the color here, and treat the desktop in other style */ .styled-scrollbars { scrollbar-color: var(--some-really-nice-color-here); scrollbar-width: thin; } /* Chrome and others Browsers */ .styled-scrollbars::-webkit-scrollbar { width: 4px; height: 4px } /* Chrome and others Browsers */ .styled-scrollbars::-webkit-scrollbar-track { background: transparent; } /* With device has hover (Desktop or TV, etc) give a little effect on hover */ @media (hover: hover) { .styled-scrollbars { scrollbar-color: var(--some-really-nice-color-here-not-hover) transparent ; scrollbar-width: thin; border-radius: 8px; transition: cubic-bezier(0.165, 0.84, 0.44, 1) 500ms all ; } .styled-scrollbars:hover { scrollbar-color: var(--some-really-nice-color-here) transparent } .styled-scrollbars:hover::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb { background: var(--some-really-nice-color-here); border-radius: 8px; -ms-overflow-style: none; scrollbar-width: thin; } } ``` To find the browser's support, please look at: - [webkit-scrollbar](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/::-webkit-scrollbar) - [scrollbar-color](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/scrollbar-color) - [scrollbar-width](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/scrollbar-width) ## Final results <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/4af5a2b1-b06a-444d-a135-3b5f85472089" name="Mozilla Firefox" alt="Gif showing the result of aesthetic scrollbar in Firefox" /> <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/24d9ca86-69a8-4335-9dea-b68f0278701d" name="Chrome" alt="Gif showing the result of aesthetic scrollbar in Chrome" /> <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/9e114c2b-06ca-459b-aa95-aecc4b02e57d" name="Edge" alt="Gif showing the result of aesthetic scrollbar in Edge" /> ## Additional tips One very interesting stuff I found by searching content for this article is a solution for components that has a special css for hovering effects, is to use **media query hover** to only enable this on hover support devices. You can checkout the [full video by the master of CSS Kevin Powell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuluAyw9AI0). I highly recommend. ## Conclusion In this article we saw a very clean way, consistent and CSS only to style your scrollbars to be aesthetic as possible between many different browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Brave, Opera GX, Edge and Safari. Of course this approach is not 100% effective in all platforms, but works on most of them. Have a nice day. 😎✨✨✨😎
How to create morse code translator
Did you know what is morse code? It is a method of communication using short and long signals that are common represented as dots and dashes. Developed to transmit human language to math language and as only translate letters it became and international standard. ## Short Answer To create a morse code encrypter and decrypter you have two methods. One can use the [ASCII table](https://www.lookuptables.com/text/ascii-table) as described in this [answer of Stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/a/26059284). But my preferred way is making a dictionary mapping all valid characters, which would be letters A from Z, number 0 to 9 and a blank space to separate words, anything else would be `undefined` and you can handle as you want. 1. Create a dictionary containing all valid characters: ```typescript const dictionary = { 'a': '.-', 'b': '-...', 'c': '-.-.', 'd': '-..', 'e': '.', 'f': '..-.', 'g': '--.', 'h': '....', 'i': '..', 'j': '.---', 'k': '-.-', 'l': '.-..', 'm': '--', 'n': '-.', 'o': '---', 'p': '.--.', 'q': '--.-', 'r': '.-.', 's': '...', 't': '-', 'u': '..-', 'v': '...-', 'w': '.--', 'x': '-..-', 'y': '-.--', 'z': '--..', '1': '.----', '2': '..---', '3': '...--', '4': '....-', '5': '.....', '6': '-....', '7': '--...', '8': '---..', '9': '----.', '0': '-----', ' ': '/' } ``` 2. Add function to transform letters into morse code: ```typescript function transformToMorse(rawText: string) { return rawText.split('').map(letter => dictionary[letter.toLowerCase()]).join(' ') } ``` --- ## Long Answer ### What is morse code? Morse code was created by [Samuel Morse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse) and [Alfred Vail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Vail). It is a method to encode human words characters into just short and long sequences that can be anything from lights, sounds, smoke, anything you can make a short or long signal can be used to represent any word or number from *a-z* and *0-9*. It became very popular in telegraph - grandfather of communication that used morse code to transmit messages from short and long bip. They even had a profession to people hearing and translating the messages- [telegraphist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphist). Morse code works by using a [sequence of short or long signal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code) to represent one letter/number. For example, the letter **t** can be represent by a long signal **-**, but the letter **g** is two long signal and one short signal **--.**. With this you can make a very good system of communication to transform human language into natural language. It's also very popular on pop culture as almost every riddle movie has a part using morse to encrypt or decrypt some kind of message. ### Alphabet |Character | Morse Equivalent| |----|----| | 0 | ----- | | 1 | .---- | | 2 | ..--- | | 3 | ...-- | | 4 | ....- | | 5 | ..... | | 6 | -.... | | 7 | --... | | 8 | ---.. | | 9 | ----. | | a | .- | | b | -... | | c | -.-. | | d | -.. | | e | . | | f | ..-. | | g | --. | | h | .... | | i | .. | | j | .--- | | k | -.- | | l | .-.. | | m | -- | | n | -. | | o | --- | | p | .--. | | q | --.- | | r | .-. | | s | ... | | t | - | | u | ..- | | v | ...- | | w | .-- | | x | -..- | | y | -.-- | | z | --.. | ### Google learn morse If you stay curious to learn more about morse code, I highly recommend you try [Google's morse learn](https://morse.withgoogle.com/learn). They use images to help us remember the letters. <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/65e73bb9-c4a8-4316-9391-a001b0d77d2a" source="https://kpronline.com/blog/learn-morse-code-with-the-morse-typing-trainer" name="Code cues used in the Morse Typing Trainer" alt="List of all codes cues used in morse typing trainer" /> ### Javascript/Typescript functions To create a morse code encrypter and decrypter you have two methods. - Using ASCII table You can use the [ASCII table](https://www.lookuptables.com/text/ascii-table) as described in this [answer of Stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/a/26059284). By knowing that ASCII table characters *a - z* goes from *97* to *122* and numbers *0 - 9* goes from *48* to *57* you can do something like this. 1. First create 2 arrays containing the characters and one constant for the space. ```typescript // Characters in order A - Z and 0 - 9 const charactersAZ = ['.-', '-...','-.-.','-..','.','..-.','--.','....','..','.---','-.-','.-..','--','-.','---','.--.','--.-','.-.','...','-','..-','...-','.--','-..-','-.--','--..'] const numbers09 = ['-----', '.----', '..---', '...--', '....-', '.....', '-....', '--...', '---..', '----.'] const characterSpace = '/' ``` 2. Now you need to remove all weird characters that does not have an index on our arrays ```typescript function cleanRawText(rawText: string) { return rawText.toLowerCase().replace(/[^a-z0-9\s]/g, ""); } ``` 3. Finally make a function to return the encrypted character. ```typescript const isNumberRegex = /^\d+$/ function transformToMorse(rawText: string) { const formatText = cleanRawText(rawText); return formatText.split('').map(letter => { if(letter === " ") return characterSpace; asciiCode = letter.charCodeAt(letter); if(isNumberRegex.test(letter)) return numbers09[asciiCode - 48]; else return charactersAZ[asciiCode - 97]; }).join(' '); } ``` 4. Test the functions ```typescript transformToMorse('Hello world') // result .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -.. ``` -Using dictionary My preferred way is making a dictionary mapping all valid characters, which would be letters A from Z, number 0 to 9 and a blank space to separate words, anything else would be `undefined` and you can handle as you want. 1. Create a dictionary containing all valid characters: ```typescript const dictionary = { 'a': '.-', 'b': '-...', 'c': '-.-.', 'd': '-..', 'e': '.', 'f': '..-.', 'g': '--.', 'h': '....', 'i': '..', 'j': '.---', 'k': '-.-', 'l': '.-..', 'm': '--', 'n': '-.', 'o': '---', 'p': '.--.', 'q': '--.-', 'r': '.-.', 's': '...', 't': '-', 'u': '..-', 'v': '...-', 'w': '.--', 'x': '-..-', 'y': '-.--', 'z': '--..', '0': '-----', '1': '.----', '2': '..---', '3': '...--', '4': '....-', '5': '.....', '6': '-....', '7': '--...', '8': '---..', '9': '----.', ' ': '/' } ``` 2. Add function to transform letters into morse code: ```typescript function transformToMorse(rawText: string) { return rawText.split('').map(letter => dictionary[letter.toLowerCase()]).join(' ') } ``` 3. Test it ```typescript transformToMorse('Hello world') // result .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -.. ``` Which one of them should I choose? Well, I think is up to you, personally I will not go to performance side because both has `map` method and the others doesn't make that much difference. I would choose based on readability as the first one the arrays seems a bit confusing and object making a dictionary seems much more readable for me. Okay, but this is only an encrypter, where is the decrypter? For this, just invert the logic, make a dictionary containing morse code as keys, letters with values and the backslash for white space. ### Bonus: UI - NextJS - Tailwind This article only shows how to convert, but not how to create an application with these logics. I'am gonna leave this for you to create a design. I personally recommend to create a [NextJS](https://nextjs.org/docs/getting-started/installation) project with [TailwindCSS](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/installation) for styling and [Vercel](https://vercel.com) as free host. [You can checkout the source code to get inspired](https://github.com/fescherer/morse-secret-scripter) <Img src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/e3c04fd3-5140-484a-8063-541abe46f66f" source="https://morse-secret-scripter.felipescherer.com" name="Morse secret scripter home page" alt="Home page of morse secret scripter containing input and output text areas for encrypt and decrypt" /> ### Conclusion In this article you learnt the history of morse code and how to create simple functions to translate/encrypt/decrypt morse code using Javascript/Typescript. Feel free to leave any suggestions, corrections and tips. Thank you for reading and see you in the next article. Have a nice day. 😎✨✨✨😎