Weeknotes 26:06

February 9, 2026

Week of February 1–7

Fixing an annoying bug

I took some time on Monday to fix a bug that I keep noticing but have not taken time to investigate. It seemed like a quirky bug that I thought only I experienced (because no one else had mentioned it).

The issue was with a Glide bullet (Glide.js). If I clicked on a bullet to change the active slide in the Glide carousel, the circle was not changing color. As I tried to identify the problem, I noticed that the bullet would not change color when I clicked it but it I clicked onto another part of the page, the bullet would take on the active color. I finally was able to determine that a focus style was the culprit.

When I add focus styles to links, I declare a style to remove the outline if the focus is put on the link by the mouse, not tabbing. It is the third declaration below:

&:focus-visible {
    outline: white dotted 2px;
    outline-offset: 8px;
}

&:focus {
    outline: white dotted 2px;
    outline-offset: 8px;
}

&:focus:not(:focus-visible) {
    outline:none;
}

To fix my issue, I had to declare another rule with the .glide__bullet--active class just after the third rule to put the correct background color:

.glide__bullet:focus:not(:focus-visible) {
    background: var(--glide-gray);
    outline: 0;
}

.glide__bullet--active.glide__bullet:focus:not(:focus-visible) {
    background-color: var(--glide-accent-color);
}

Improved component

I also took some time to improve a component I created for our annual report and then also implemented on The Wonder of the Word page. I created a timeline component that uses scroll-driven animations for browsers that support them. The section felt too sparse and like it was missing something. It finally hit me this week what it needed. A background image. I added the background image and updated a few things (I had to get rid of some color gradients on the side that made it look like the timeline faded on the edges). I also updated the font on the year numbers as I did not like the look of the serif numbers.

Original implementation
Revised version – It feels more engaging to me. Not as bland.

New UI for Essentials Course

I mentioned last week that I worked on an improved UI for our Women’s Ministry Essentials course page. It is a much more compact page and I believe it makes it easier for a quick glance to view the homework, the teaching video, linking to the community chat, and bonus resources. The changes were implemented on the production site this week. I used the <details> disclosure element for the hide/show functionality.

New version of The Wonder of the Word page

I met with a couple of teammates to discuss a new version of The Wonder of the Word. Our communication director, Emily, made a paper napkin “sketch” of several of her ideas in Photoshop. To her credit, it looked more like a mockup that I have gotten from other designers in the past. Having that visual was very helpful to understand the direction that she wanted to take with the changes to the page.

I started building a new template on Friday and look forward to putting my own fingerprints on the design. Emily has given me the freedom to take the ideas from her sketch and to improve on them as I think best.

The Fundamentals of CSS Layout

Polypane has an excellent article on the fundamentals of CSS layout. The tutorial walks through the multiple layout algorithms of CSS starting with normal flow and building upon it with positioning, flexbox and grid. The article spends a lot of time discussing different aspects of normal flow and this sets the basis for understanding many of the differences in how the other algorithms work differently.

The article is very upfront that there are things they left out–content sizing, container-queries, aspect-ratio, subgrid, and a deeper dive into flexbox and grid. They tease that that they might cover these topics in the future.

This is a great introduction to CSS layout and I would recommend it to anyone doing front-end development. I even learned some new things.

Jeff Bridgforth

@jeffbridgforth.com

TIL: I learned about box-decoration-break. I wish I had learned about this sooner as I know some problems I tried to solve in the past would have benefitted from it.

https://polypane.app/blog/understanding-the-fundamentals-of-css-layout/

Playing around

I have seen several people talk about redesigning their sites. I have been considering doing some small changes to my site. I played around with some new color schemes in Dev Tools and considered a new font. I would also like to revisit the navigation and the top banner. I am still in the sandbox phase so stay tuned.

Caught my eye

img:hover { scale: 1.2; clip-path: inset( 10% 10% 10% 10% round 20px ); } nice, n' simple codepen.io/argyleink/pe…

[image or embed]

— Adam Argyle (@nerdy.dev) February 6, 2026 at 1:05 AM

Articles I read

What I watched

  • How to use Pen Tool in Affinity Designer (Kru Mark Tutorials, YouTube) – I want to better understand how to draw curves so that I can make SVGs and custom clip-paths.
  • The West Wing (Netflix)
  • Picard: Season 3 (Paramount Plus) – I heard a lot of good things about this season. I have enjoyed the first 3 episodes I watched this week.
  • All Creatures Great & Small (PBS App) – We have watched ahead with Passport and PBS App
  • Stray Kids Dominate Experience (Theater) – My wife and I enjoyed going to this with our daughter. Gave us a peek into the K Pop fandom. I enjoy their music and it was pretty impressive to see the production that was put into their concert. Our daughter attended the concert tour this past summer in Atlanta.

Books I am reading

Walking

I was glad to get back out walking on Saturday. I also spent 20 minutes on the Gazelle on Tuesday.

  • Saturday – 3.12 miles in 57 minutes

What I played

  • MLB The Show 20 (Twins) – I won Game 4, 7-3, and swept the Cubs in the World Series on Sunday. I enjoyed playing with this team and already miss playing with them.
  • NBA 2K25 (Nuggets) – I survived a late rally by the Pacers to keep my winning streak alive.

1 Comment

  1. Weekly Links 02.09–02.15 – ntdln

    February 16th, 2026

    […] Weeknotes 26:06 (Jeff Bridgforth) […]

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