This would be such a great addition to CSS—a parent/ancestor selector!
With the combined might of :has(), :not(), nth-child(), and calc(), CSS has become a powerful language for specifying rules to account for all kinds of situations.
You might not need (much) JavaScript for these common interface patterns.
While we all love the power and flexibility JS provides, we should also respect it, and our users, by limiting its use to only what it needs to do.
Yes! Client-side JavaScript should do what only client-side JavaScript can do.
The core idea of the event is to get you up to speed on the most powerful web platform features that you can use right now. I love that because it aligns perfectly with what I’ve been working on over the last couple of years: finding ways to break old habits to get the most out of CSS.
Here’s a little snippet of CSS that solves a problem I’ve never considered:
The problem is that Live Text, “Select text in images to copy or take action,” is enabled by default on iOS devices (Settings → General → Language & Region), which can interfere with the contextual menu in Safari. Pressing down on the above link may select the text inside the image instead of selecting the link URL.
This is a spot-on analysis of how CSS-in-JS failed to deliver on any of its promises:
CSS-in-JS was born out of good intentions — modularity, predictability and componentization. But what we got was complexity disguised as progress.
Explore the platform. Challenge yourself to discover what the modern web can do natively. Pure HTML, CSS, and a bit of vanilla JS…
Reminding myself just how much you can do with CSS these days.
Have you got the perfect talk for this event? Let me know!
A one-day event all about what you can in web browsers today: Brighton, March 12th, 2026. Tickets are just £225+VAT!
How to make the distance of link underlines proportional to the line height of the text.
Make your links beautiful and accessible.