Bostonian Adam

Tag: Code

  • How to add a circle border around a Bootstrap icon

    I previously blogged about how to add a circle border around a Font Awesome icon back in 2019, but since then things have changed and Bootstrap now has their own icons, Bootstrap Icons. Can that same code be used today for Bootstrap 5 and their icons?

    The answer is pretty much, yes! The HTML and CSS code is identical with a few small edits. I made a few notes further down below about some changes to the CSS you can make. Please note that the below code is using Bootstrap 5.2.3 and Bootstrap Icons 1.10.3, and it displays a blue building icon with a red circle around it. Obviously, you can change the colors to your liking.

    CSS Code

    <!--Copy and paste inside the <head> tag-->
<link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bootstrap@5.2.3/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet" integrity="sha384-rbsA2VBKQhggwzxH7pPCaAqO46MgnOM80zW1RWuH61DGLwZJEdK2Kadq2F9CUG65" crossorigin="anonymous">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bootstrap-icons@1.10.3/font/bootstrap-icons.css">

<style>
.icon-flex, .icon-wrapper {
    display: flex;
    justify-content: center;
    align-items: center;
}
.icon-wrapper {
    border-radius: 50%;
    overflow: hidden;
    border: 1px solid red;
    font-size: 5rem;
    width: 8rem;
    height: 8rem;
}
.icon-wrapper .bi {
    color: blue;
}
</style>

    HTML Code

    <!--Copy and paste inside the <body> tag-->
<div class="icon-flex">
  <div class="icon-wrapper"><i class="bi bi-building"></i></div>
</div>

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bootstrap@5.2.3/dist/js/bootstrap.bundle.min.js" integrity="sha384-kenU1KFdBIe4zVF0s0G1M5b4hcpxyD9F7jL+jjXkk+Q2h455rYXK/7HAuoJl+0I4" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

    A few notes about my CSS code

    • In the “.icon-wrapper” class…
      • You can change the color and thickness of the border by editing the “border”
      • You can change the size of the icon by editing the “font-size”
      • You can change the size of the circle by editing the “width” and “height”
    • In the “.icon-wrapper .bi” class…
      • You can change the color of the icon by editing the “color”

    Please let me know your thoughts about this code and if you have a better or more efficient way to do this. Always feel free to share your knowledge and thank you for reading this blog post.

  • How to zoom in using CSS transitions

    Ever mouse over an image on a website and it zooms in subtly and then you move your mouse pointer off the image, and it goes back to normal? Well, they are most likely using a CSS transition to make that effect.

    Below is some CSS and HTML code to use to make that effect. Yes, that is all the code you need. Check out the transition and transform pages on Mozilla’s MDN Web Docs for more information.

    CSS Code

    <style>
.img{
  transition: all 1.1s ease;
}
.img:hover{
  transform: scale(1.1);
}
</style>

    HTML Code

    <img src="path to your image file" class="img">

  • CSS: REMs vs EMs

    So you’ve been using pixels (px) for your font sizes since you first learned CSS, but you’ve been hearing about REM and EM units and how they should be used for today’s websites instead of pixels. Before I try to explain how they work, what exactly are they? An EM is a CSS unit mainly used today for font sizes. A REM is a root EM (this is explained more later).

    The first thing to note is that the default font size in most web browsers today is 16px. EMs and REMs lets developers scale elements up and down, which is very useful for responsive design (mobile and small screens vs large screens) and accessibility. The web browser converts the EMs/REMs into pixel values.

    How do REMs work?

    REM units look at the font size of the root element of the page, which is the html element (remember it’s 16px by default usually), and they take that size and multiply it by the REM value you set.

    So in the below REMs example, the “text-1” class is set to use 1.5rem and that will be multiplied by 16, which equals 24, so the font size will be 24px. Make sense?

    REMs example

    /*CSS*/
.text-1 {
  font-size: 1.5rem;
}

/*HTML*/
<html>
  <body>
    <p class="text-1">Testing text 1.</p>
  </body>
</html>

    How do EMs work?

    EM units look at the font size of its parent and they take that size and multiply it by the EM value you set.

    So in the below EMs example, the “text-2” class is set to use 1.5em and that will be multiplied by the font size of its parent (“text-2″‘s parent is the body element and the body’s font size is 12), so it will be 1.5 x 12, which equals 18, so the font size will be 18px. Make sense?

    EMs example

    /*CSS*/
body {
  font-size: 12px;
}
.text-2 {
  font-size: 1.5em;
}

/*HTML*/
<html>
  <body>
    <p class="text-2">Testing text 2.</p>
  </body>
</html>

    If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and ask. Also, if you found my explanation confusing or if you learn better with video, I recommend checking out the below helpful video by YouTuber Coder Coder where she goes over using REMs instead of pixels.

    px vs rem: what to use for font-size in your CSS

  • New CSS to style underlines

    Mozilla’s Jen Simmons posted a video on YouTube recently talking about some new CSS for styling underlines, “text-underline-offset,” “text-decoration-thickness,” and “text-decoration-skip-ink.” The video I am referring to is embedded below and I added a few simple code examples down below as well.

    I think these new styles will be useful and web developers can now stop using CSS borders to style underlines (for those that do) and use this new CSS instead. Just a heads up though, as Jen mentions in her video, that right now this new CSS only works in the Mozilla Firefox and Safari (and maybe soon in Chrome) web browsers.

    Video: New CSS for Styling Underlines on the Web

    (more…)

  • How to add a circle border around a Font Awesome icon

    I was recently working on building a webpage and I ran into an issue where I wanted to add a circular border around an icon. I was using Bootstrap 4 for the page’s layout and Font Awesome for the icons. I tried a few things with Bootstrap’s border utilities but it couldn’t do what I wanted, so I searched online.

    I was able to find this CodePen solution to my problem. I made some edits to the code for my webpage, which I have provided below.

    HTML Code

    <div class="icon-flex">
  <div class="icon-wrapper"><i class="far fa-user"></i></div>
</div>

    CSS Code

    .icon-flex, .icon-wrapper {
    display: flex;
    justify-content: center;
    align-items: center;
}
.icon-wrapper {
    border-radius: 50%;
    overflow: hidden;
    border: 1px solid blue;
    font-size: 3rem;
    width: 80px;
    height: 80px;
}
.icon-wrapper i {
    color: blue;
}

    Few notes about my CSS code

    • If you increase or decrease the “font-size” value in the “icon-wrapper” class, it will make the icon larger or smaller.
    • If you increase or decrease the “width” and “height” values in the “icon-wrapper” class, it will make the circular border larger or smaller.

    Let me know your thoughts about this solution. If you know of a better way to do this, please leave a comment and share your knowledge.

  • Using “srcset” for your images and more image delivery techniques

    After watching a recent video posted by Google Chrome Developers on YouTube, I wanted to blog about using the “srcset” attribute in the “img” tag in your HTML code to make more web developers aware of this easy-to-use/add code that will help your website. Definitely make sure to watch the video and check out the example HTML code using “srcset” in an “img” tag all down below.

    Reduce image size: use srcset to automatically choose the right image (from Google Chrome Developers YouTube channel)

    So to implement the “srcset” attribute into your “img” tag all you need to do is use the HTML as in the below example.

    <img src="images/default.jpg" srcset="images/default-200.jpg 200w, images/default-400.jpg 400w, images/default-600.jpg 600w">

    As stated in the above video, the web browser will do all of the hard work as it will decide what image best fits on the website and if the web browser doesn’t support “srcset” then it will default to the image in the “src” attribute. Need more information about “srcset”? Then check out MDN’s documentation on responsive images.

    July 2022 update

    Jashele, of devjashele.tech, a developer I follow on LinkedIn and Twitter, wrote an article, Simple Ways to Improve Website Image Performance, and also posted a YouTube video (see below) talking about responsive images using “srcset” step-by-step. Make sure to check out Jashele’s article and video, and give her a follow.

    Responsive Images with HTML to Improve Site Performance

  • Media query max-width and min-width

    I wanted to write a quick blog post explaining in plain English what max-width and min-width mean when setting up media queries in your CSS, so here we go first with an example of media query code in your CSS.

    Code examples of min-width and max-width

    <style>
@media (min-width: 480px) { /*add your css in here*/ }

@media (max-width: 1280px) { /*add your css in here*/ }
</style>

    Using the code example above, “min-width: 480px”, means that when your web browser’s viewport width is equal to or more than 480px, then the web browser will apply the CSS in the brackets that follow.

    Again, using the code example above, “max-width: 1280px”, means that when your web browser’s viewport width is equal to or lesser than 1280px, then the web browser will apply the CSS in the brackets that follow.

  • Standard responsive media query breakpoints

    Below are responsive media query breakpoints that are used most often on websites.

    Source: w3schools.com

  • Cool HTML5 tips for form inputs

    I wanted to share these cool quick tips that HTML5 provides to basic HTML web forms that will save you time and work in the end. Remember though, these tips only work in web browsers that support HTML5.

    Placeholder attribute
    You can now easily have “placeholder” text display inside a text field, whereas before you had to use Javascript to add text inside a text field before the user enters their own text.

    Code

    Input Type: Date
    You can have a date field where users can select a date from a visual calendar that appears and you don’t have to code the calendar.

    Code

    Input Type: Time
    You can have a time field where users can select a time.

    Code

    To see more HTML input types that are supported with web browsers that support HTML5, check out w3schools.com.

  • No more CSS conditional comments for IE10+

    I was working on an older site this past week and an issue came up where the IE10 web browser was showing different spacing compared to the Google Chrome web browser. My initial thoughts were to use CSS conditional comments to make a specific class have different padding for IE web browsers.

    Well I didn’t know that Microsoft deprecated conditional comments for IE10 and above, so I did some searching online and found a blog post, “Targeting IE10 & IE11 Browsers with CSS” on paper-leaf.com, that gave me the solution I needed.

    So if you use the below code inside a “style” tag and add your CSS specifically for IE10+ in there, it will solve this problem I ran into.