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10 Best Website Builders for 2023

October 24th, 2022 No comments

When you need a website, you have two options, you can hire someone who’s an expert in website building to design it for you, or you can make it yourself.

Hiring someone with experience building a website means you’ll get a more professional result, and you should achieve a good return on your investment. However, hiring a freelancer or a design agency has plenty of pitfalls. Budgets can spiral, timescales get stretched, and the end result might not meet your expectations.

The answer might be to build your own website using a website builder. And the best site builders are designed to help you do just that — most don’t require any design or coding knowledge.

Creating a website with a website builder is usually cheaper than outsourcing the job, and the results can be almost as good as a bespoke website. There are even some free website builders out there.

The key is to choose the right website builder that ticks all your boxes and delivers what you want without paying through the nose for bells and whistles you don’t need.

We’ve tested the best website builders on the market. We’ve quizzed professionals and first-time users. We’ve poked around in the dark corners of UIs. All to bring you this guide to the top website builders on the web. This comprehensive guide to the best website builders for 2023 contains everything you need to know when selecting a site builder.

What To Look For in a Website Builder

The most significant obstacle people face when using website builders is you don’t know what you don’t know. There’s so much information online that it’s hard to know where to start.

That’s why we put together this guide to the best website builders, so small businesses everywhere can make an informed decision about website building.

Choose a Site Builder With High-Quality Code

The first thing you need to look for is production-ready code. That means source code that is modern, robust, and hack-free. (All of the website builders on this list meet those criteria.)

Identify What A Successful Website Looks Like To You

Professional designers start by identifying a website’s purpose. Websites perform best when they have a clear purpose.

If you’re a wedding photographer, you will want to showcase your portfolio and generate new leads. You’ll want to sell products online if you own a clothing store. If you’re a community group, you want to raise awareness and encourage public interest.

Whatever your goal, a website builder listed below will help you achieve it. And choosing the best option for you will be a more straightforward process if you’re clear about that goal to start with.

Think About Design Flexibility

One of the defining characteristics of any website builder is how flexible its designs are. Some of the best website builders give you complete control over every detail of your design. Other website builders limit you to choosing from a selection of pre-designed blocks.

If you’re prepared to compromise on your design, you will have more options. On the other hand, if you want to achieve a specific look, you may need to opt for a more flexible website builder.

Be Honest With Yourself

Next, consider your own level of experience and the amount of time you have to invest in learning to use a tool and build a website. Some website builders will get you online fast, but even some of the best website builders take a little time to learn.

Some people can spare 3–4 hours every weeknight to learn how to leverage a complex website builder — that helps a lot when building a complex site like an online store. Other people have family commitments or social engagements and just need to get something done fast.

There’s no right or wrong answer. You don’t need prior experience, and you don’t need to commit to an evening course to get online. If you want to put a website online in 15 minutes and then forget about it, that’s fine. Make sure you choose a website builder that can help you do that.

Check Out the Support Options

Speaking of your experience, we don’t want to put a damper on things, but what will you do if something goes wrong?

Websites experience problems from which website builders are not exempt. Most of the best website builders use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) for web hosting. But CDNs aren’t infallible.

Some site builders offer a free domain, and all of the best website builders allow you to use a custom domain name and free SSL certificate. What happens if there’s a problem with it? Does the site builder’s support extend to domains?

Happily, most website builders offer an excellent level of customer support. So before you start, check what help you’re entitled to and how to get assistance should a problem arise.

Make Full Use of Any Free Trial

Most of the best website builders offer a free trial or even a free-forever package. The free trial is your opportunity to try out the UI (User Interface) and get a feel for the product.

All the website builders we’ve listed below specialize in a particular type of site. Most cater to small business owners. Each has pros and cons and can help you achieve your online goals. However, in the end, the success of your site comes down to you; you can use a free web builder and still succeed if you’re willing to put in the work.

Trust your instincts: if you find a particular site builder intuitive, then the chances are you’ll be able to create a great website with it.

Wix: Best Website Builder for Small Business Owners

Wix is widely considered to be one of the best website builders of 2022, and a quick glance at its extensive list of features will tell you why we expect it to still be the top website builder platform in 2023.

First up is a vast number of templates giving you more selection than almost any rival. There’s so much choice that you’ll probably spend longer choosing your template than actually building your site!

Wix’s editor uses an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that enables anyone to create just about any design. It’s not the most straightforward editor on the market. Still, Wix has extensive documentation, so if you have the time to tackle a modest learning curve, you should quickly get to grips with the UI.

Of course, Wix also includes core features like custom domain names and free SSL certificates.

On top of these features, Wix provides various marketing tools to help your site grow toward profitability.

Finally, for freelancers and web design agencies, Wix provides Editor X, a professional solution for creating multiple websites for clients. Editor X is an excellent addition to Wix’s lineup. However, it’s not the best option for design agencies (keep reading to find out which tool we think tops Editor X).

Wix Features

Wix is the biggest website builder in the world and includes hundreds of features that make building a website simple. Here are just some of the highlights.

Huge Range of Templates

Wix boasts a huge range of 800+ customizable templates for every kind of business, from online stores to simple marketing sites.

Intuitive Drag and Drop Editor

Wix’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor makes it a simple task to achieve almost any design with little to no design experience.

There are a couple of downsides to this approach. Firstly, many small business owners opt for a website builder because they need a guided design process — unlimited options can actually make things harder. Secondly, the highly flexible design system Wix offers can introduce unexpected bugs at different device sizes.

Editor X

Editor X is Wix’s solution for freelance designers and web design agencies. It allows you to build client sites with dedicated tools for professionals.

App Market

Wix’s AppMarket is a dedicated app store with hundreds of plugins that enable you to expand your website’s capabilities quickly and easily. You’ll find everything from table reservation apps for restaurants to social media integrations.

Velo

Velo is Wix’s open development platform for building web applications. This is an ambitious project that aims to move web builders into areas in which they typically cannot compete: complex web apps.

For most businesses, Velo is far beyond what you need; for most app developers, it isn’t enough yet. But it’s great to know this opportunity is on the horizon.

Ecommerce

Wix has a range of tools to help your ecommerce business grow. There are coupons, discounts, bookings, and shipping tools.

Ascend

Ascend is Wix’s built-in marketing suite. It includes a CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) which is excellent for fostering long-term business relationships and eliminates the need for a third-party app.

Email Marketing Tools

Email is still the most effective way of staying in touch with your customers. Wix’s built-in email marketing tools make it easier to manage email campaigns, all from your Wix dashboard.

Free Domain

Wix will even give you a free domain for a year on everything except its basic package.

Pros

  • Relatively intuitive design process
  • Excellent documentation and quick-start guides
  • Reliable and secure system
  • Huge range of tools
  • Extensive plugin market

Cons

  • Sites are less responsive than some rivals
  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization) options are limited
  • Difficult to change templates once you’ve selected one
  • Image and video-heavy sites perform poorly on mobile devices
  • Design flexibility can introduce unexpected bugs

Pricing

Wix has multiple tiers of pricing depending on the features you require.

Note that the availability of some Wix plans varies depending on your location.

Website Plans

Website Plans are aimed at those users creating an individual site.

Combo: $16 per month — 2 Gb bandwidth and 3 Gb of storage, plus 30 minutes of video streaming.

Unlimited: $22 per month — Unlimited bandwidth, 5Gb storage, 1 hour of video streaming, and access to marketing tools.

Pro: $27 per month — Unlimited bandwidth, 50Gb storage, 2 hours of video, marketing tools, social media tools and priority support,

VIP: $45 per month — Unlimited bandwidth, 100Gb storage, 5 hours of video, marketing tools, social media tools, and priority support.

Business & Ecommerce Plans

If you want to accept payments online with Wix, you’ll need a business plan.

Business Basic: $27 per month — 20Gb storage space, 5 hours of video, online payments

Business Unlimited: $32 per month — 35 Gb of storage, 10 hours of video, multiple currencies, multi-channel selling, dropshipping, product reviews

Business VIP: $59 per month — 50Gb of storage, unlimited video, marketing, and sales tools, dropshipping, product reviews, and a loyalty program

Enterprise Plans

Wix provides custom solutions for enterprise customers. If you have a large site with complex needs, then Wix can design a complete solution for your brand. Contact Wix directly for pricing.

Bottom Line

Wix is one of the best website builders available for creating your own website. Its flexibility, massive range of features, and ability to scale are ideal for many new and established businesses. But, if anything, Wix’s vast range of options can be a hindrance and make its learning curve a little steeper than necessary.

Wix is a great allrounder, but it’s not the easiest, cheapest, or fastest website builder. So keep reading to discover the best alternatives to Wix.

Squarespace: Best Website Builder for Creatives

Squarespace is the ideal website builder for anyone for whom aesthetics are a primary concern; it boasts the most beautiful templates of any website builder.

On its higher tier packages, Squarespace allows ecommerce sites to host their own checkout. This is radically different from some website builders further down this list and ensures a consistent customer experience while maintaining a secure checkout.

For professional designers, Squarespace offers Circle, an invite-only program for professionals creating multiple sites in Squarespace. To qualify, you must build at least three websites on the Squarespace platform.

Squarespace Features

Beautiful Templates

Squarespace has hundreds of templates, widely considered to be amongst the most beautiful designs of any website builder.

Additionally, you can purchase Squarespace templates at a number of different design marketplaces, giving you even more options.

Powerful Ecommerce Features

Squarespace has everything you need to power an online store, from selling an individual item to a huge product range. You can even sell online classes.

Integrated Marketing Tools

Squarespace includes integrated marketing tools like email campaigns that carry your branding from your site to your customers’ inboxes.

Squarespace also includes a very capable blogging app with all the features you need to start publishing content that will engage your users and boost your position on SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages).

Circle

Circle is Squarespace’s partner program for professional web designers. You will need to build at least three Squarespace websites to qualify.

Members of Circle get free educational content to keep their skills up to date and access to product betas.

Pros

  • Award-winning templates
  • Incredible customer support
  • Seamless integrations
  • Simple but powerful ecommerce features
  • Create a stunning site in 15 minutes

Cons

  • Steeper learning curve
  • Limitations on navigation
  • Slower than average page speed
  • Premium-priced plugins
  • No free domain
  • Custom CSS restricted to the business plans

Pricing

Squarespace offers four simple pricing plans. Additionally, you can save up to 30% by opting to pay annually instead of monthly.

Personal: $23 per month — 2 contributors, curated templates, simple analytics, mobile version of sites

Business: $33 per month — unlimited contributors, business tools, advanced analytics, ecommerce with 3% transaction fees

Basic Commerce: $36 per month — unlimited contributors, business tools, ecommerce analytics, merchandising tools, 0% transaction fees.

Advanced Commerce: $65 per month — Everything in the basic commerce package plus abandoned cart recovery, subscriptions, advanced shipping options, and discounts, as well as APIs for third-party integrations.

Bottom Line

Squarespace offers undeniably beautiful sites. Its editing experience takes a little getting used to but is far from complex. Its simple, transparent pricing means your costs are predictable, and there is genuine value in its 30% discount for paying annually.

Due to its shallower navigation, it’s best suited to smaller online stores with dozens rather than hundreds of products. However, artists and craftspeople will love selling their work on Squarespace.

Shopify: Best Website Builder for Online Stores

Shopify is the best-known website builder for creating an online store, and for a good reason. Few website builders manage to handle online sales with the grace of Shopify’s ecommerce features.

That does not mean it’s without its failings. The biggest issue for most Shopify users is the restriction on the number of product variants, which is capped at 100, and always seems to be reached too quickly. Another common gripe is the styling restrictions placed on the cart in the name of security, which prevent anything but basic styling from being applied to your checkout process.

Shopify is one of the best online website builders, but it eschews the usual drag-and-drop interface approach and instead uses templates and editable code.

Templates typically come with styling options, and there is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) style editor for adding content. However, you’ll need to hire a developer or learn basic coding to customize your template significantly.

The upside of this approach is that there’s a vast Shopify ecosystem, with thousands of templates and plugins available in the dedicated store and on third-party marketplaces.

Shopify Features

Vast Number of Templates to Choose From

Shopify has a huge number of templates, there are hundreds of native templates, and there are thousands more available from third-party marketplaces.

Extensive Plugin Store

Shopify has an extensive plugin store with 6500+ add-ons, from apps to improve your UX to helpers to simplify third-party integrations with SaaS (Software as a Service) like Mailchimp and AliExpress.

Social Media Integration

Shopify isn’t just an online store; it makes selling products across multiple channels, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even email, a simple process.

Industry-Leading Education

Shopify has a plethora of resources to help you create an online store and maximize your sales. It provides online courses and community resources and a dedicated and knowledgeable customer support team.

Pros

  • Highly optimized checkout
  • Recognized and trusted platform
  • Sell across multiple channels like Etsy and Facebook
  • Huge app store
  • Manage large inventories easily
  • Fast customer support

Cons

  • Checkout has limited styling options
  • Coding knowledge is needed to fully extend Shopify
  • No simple drag-and-drop editor
  • Additional costs if buying a template or plugins
  • Steep learning curve compared to other website builders
  • Limits on the number of variations per product

Pricing

Shopify offers three website plans. You can save 50% if you pay annually instead of monthly.

Note: in addition to your plan, Shopify charges a per-sale percentage plus $0.30 for online transactions.

Basic: $29 per month — Basic reports, 2 staff accounts, 4 inventory locations, up to 77% shipping discount, 2.9% + $0.30 fee per transaction

Shopify: $79 per month — Professional reports, 5 staff accounts, 5 inventory locations, up to 88% shipping discount, 2.6% + $0.30 fee per transaction

Advanced: $299 per month — Custom reports, 15 staff accounts, 8 inventory locations, up to 88% shipping discount, 2.4% + $0.30 fee per transaction

Shopify is aimed at small businesses but also provides ShopifyPlus, an enterprise-grade solution for high-volume businesses that starts at $2,000 per month.

Bottom Line

Shopify sets the bar for ecommerce solutions. When it comes to selling online, it’s the first choice for many businesses.

Shopify occupies the middle ground between website builders and custom solutions. As such, making changes is difficult. Once you’ve chosen your template and exhausted the built-in features of the template, your only recourse for further changes is to hire a developer (or learn to code).

Shopify is laser-focused on ecommerce, so it’s a poor choice for anything but ecommerce. However, if you’re aiming to quickly establish an online store with scope to grow, Shopify is impossible to beat.

Webflow: Best Website Builder for Design Agencies

Webflow is a website builder geared solidly towards freelancers and design agencies concerned with building a website for their clients.

For professional website designers who possess at least a passing understanding of HTML & CSS, Webflow is an ideal way to create a website.

With its white labeling and a complete CMS (Content Management System), Webflow allows you to serve sites to clients as custom builds. Clients can then edit content in a simplified dashboard called Editor; this lessens the learning curve for clients and avoids the risk of them fiddling with site-breaking settings.

Webflow Features

Full CMS

Webflow employs a full CMS (Content Management System) to separate design and content and allow you to use data to create a website rapidly. In this respect it’s like a the best elements of Wix and WordPress combined.

Powerful Design Process

With Webflow you have the option to fully customize almost every aspect of your design, without code.

Start with a blank canvas, or a template, then use the drag-and-drop editor to add HTML elements onto your page. Create reusable symbols to speed up your site creation.

White Labeling

White labeling means teams can create client sites in Webflow without the client knowing how the site is built — design agencies don’t have to worry about clients cutting out the middleman and going straight to Webflow to save money.

Webflow Enterprise

Most website builders are out of their depth when it comes to enterprise-grade sites with high volumes of traffic. Not so Webflow, which delivers advanced security, traffic scaling, and guaranteed uptime for its enterprise customers.

Pros

  • Comprehensive SEO tools
  • Extensive customization options
  • Industry-leading documentation
  • Excellent for client work
  • Fast customer support
  • Awesome free plan

Cons

  • Not beginner-friendly
  • No plugin store
  • HTML & CSS knowledge advisable
  • Membership sites are only in beta
  • Complicated pricing
  • Eye-wateringly expensive

Pricing

Webflow offers a multitude of pricing options depending on whether you’re an individual, a reseller, or an online store.

If you’re running an individual site you’ll need either a website plan or an ecommerce plan. If you’re an agency planning to resell Webflow to your clients you’ll need a workspace plan for your team in addition to a website or ecommerce plan for every client site you publish.

Website Plans

If you’re an individual, Webflow provides three plans to choose from. You can save up to 22% by opting to pay annually instead of monthly.

Basic: $18 per month — 0 CMS items, 500 form submissions per month, 50Gb bandwidth.

CMS: $29 per month — 2,000 CMS items, 1,000 for submissions per month, 200Gb bandwidth, and up to 3 guest editors

Business: $49 per month — 10,000 CMS items, 2,500 form submissions per month, 400Gb bandwidth, up to 10 guest editors

Ecommerce Plans

To unlock features specifically designed for online selling, you need to opt for one of Webflow’s ecommerce plans. You can save up to 30% by opting to pay annually instead of monthly.

Standard: $42 per month — includes everything in the individual CMS plan, plus 500 products, 2% transaction fee, and a maximum of $50,000 in annual sales

Plus: $84 per month — includes everything in the individual business plan, plus 1,000 products, 0% transaction fee and a maximum of $200,000 in annual sales

Advanced: $235 per month — includes everything in the individual business plan, plus 3,000 products, 0% transaction fee, and unlimited annual sales

Team Plans

For teams, Webflow offers workspace plans in addition to website and ecommerce plans. There is a free plan while you learn Webflow, and you can save up to 33% by paying annually.

Note that team plans are charged per seat, so for example, the cost for four designers of the Growth package is $240 per month (not $60 per month).

Core: $28 / seat per month — for small in-house teams, up to 3 seats, a maximum of 10 unhosted sites, custom code and code export.

Growth: $60 / seat per month — for growing in-house teams, up to 9 seats, unlimited hosted sites, custom code, custom export.

Freelancer: $24 / seat per month — for freelancers or small agencies, up to 3 seats, full CMS access on unhosted sites

Agency: $42 / seat per month — for agencies, up to 9 seats, full CMS access on unhosted sites

Large teams with more than 9 team members will need to contact Webflow for its enterprise plan, which promises unlimited seats.

Bottom Line

Webflow is aimed at design agencies and freelancers who need a web host for client work and is one of the best website builders for managing multiple sites.

Due to its advanced feature set, Webflow is relatively complex to use. However, it is far simpler than a bespoke site, and anyone with a cursory understanding of web technologies should master it in a short space of time. Additionally, its Editor feature simplifies it for clients.

Unfortunately, Webflow’s ecommerce plans are expensive and ecommerce features are limited. Anyone looking to sell online might want to consider other site builders instead.

If you’re a design agency building multiple client sites, Webflow is an excellent platform to adopt…if you can afford the team plans.

Duda: Best Website Builder for SEO

Duda website builder has been outperforming its rivals since 2021, when Google introduced Core Web Vitals and, in the process, made SEO all about speed.

Duda produces blazing-fast, reliable sites and, in doing so, ticks all of Google’s boxes for a quality site that it wants to rank highly.

On top of this, Duda provides a white-label option, allowing design agencies to build sites for clients on the platform. In fact, this is what Duda was initially created for.

Duda offers beautiful design in a simple-to-use package. As such, it produces some of the best no-code websites.

Duda Features

Simple Editor

Duda offers a Simple Editor option that allows you to provide your clients with a simple website builder of their own. Predesign elements that work together, then let your clients combine them in whatever way they please.

Clients will feel empowered, and you get a website project out the door with less work and fewer revisions.

White Labeling

Duda is aimed squarely at freelancers and design agencies that want to foster an ongoing relationship with their clients.

Team Libraries

Build your own library of widgets, templates, and sections. Share across your entire team, so client projects are created with your in-house approach.

Omni-Channel Ecommerce

Duda enables ecommerce sales across the web and social media, with your inventory synced everywhere you sell, from Facebook to eBay and Amazon.

Managing a store is simple with store management apps for iOS and Android.

Pros

  • Extremely fast page speed
  • Beautiful templates
  • Award-winning customer support
  • Intuitive drag-n-drop interface

Cons

  • Relatively expensive
  • Limited plugin store

Pricing

Website Plans

Duda offers three pricing plans for websites, and you can save up to 33% by paying annually instead of monthly.

Basic: $19 per month — 1 website, email customer support only, no team or client collaboration

Team: $29 per month — 1 website, email chat and phone customer support, up to four team members, white label client access

Agency: $59 per month — 4 websites, priority email chat and phone customer support, up to ten team members, white label client access, widget builder, export control 

Duda also offers custom plans for clients with enterprise-grade sites; contact them directly for pricing.

Ecommerce Plans

Duda provides ecommerce features as an add-on, which means if you want to use Duda to create an online store, you need to sign up for one of their website plans as well as one of their ecommerce plans.

Note: you can pair any of the ecommerce plans with any of the website plans; they don’t need to scale together.

You can save up to 25% on Duda’s ecommerce plans by paying annually instead of monthly.

Standard: $8 per month — Up to 100 products

Advanced: $22 per month — Up to 2,500 products, sell subscriptions

Unlimited: $49 per month — Unlimited products, sell subscriptions, Square PoS integration

Bottom Line

SEO is a complex subject, and many factors feed your ranking on Google, Bing, and other search engines.

What is universally accepted is that fast pages translate into a better ranking.

If you’re looking for a blazing-fast website builder to help you establish a strong online presence, Duda must be near the top of your shortlist.

WordPress.com: Best WordPress Website Builder

WordPress is a juggernaut of an app; its rise has been unstoppable, and 43% of the web is made up of WordPress sites. Furthermore, WordPress.com — not to be confused with WordPress.org — is a WordPress site builder. That means all you need to do is log in and have all the power and flexibility of WordPress at your fingertips.

The downside to all this power is that WordPress.com is a big step up in complexity from most of the site builders on this list. It’s not as complex as its self-hosted sibling, but you’ll still need to spend some time getting acquainted with the advanced features.

You’ve probably heard that WordPress is insecure. We’re sorry to say that’s true. WordPress’ main vulnerability is its third-party themes and plugins — the commonality of a WordPress site means criminals consider it worth exploiting. WordPress.com web hosting is considerably more secure than self-hosted WordPress.org, but hey, it’s still WordPress.

But if you decide the security risk is acceptable, WordPress.com offers an ecosystem of themes and plugins unparalleled for its range and variety.

WordPress.com Features

Huge Ecosystem

WordPress has a vast ecosystem, perhaps the largest of any design software. There are thousands of professionally designed themes, and over 50,000 plugins, providing enormous scope for customization.

When vulnerabilities are found, more often than not, it’s the result of a flaw in a plugin update. So if you install a lot of plugins, you are exposing yourself to increasing security risks.

Unfortunately, in order to take advantage of the WordPress ecosystem, you need to be on one of WordPress.com’s higher-priced plans.

Secure Web Hosting Service

WordPress sites are notoriously insecure, but WordPress.com solves most of the issues thanks to a dedicated security team.

Drag-and-Drop Editor

The whole WordPress community has been working on evolving the design process from coded templates to a drag-and-drop editor called Gutenberg. Gutenberg started out small, but it gets better all the time and now offers a good level of design control without overwhelming beginners with too many options.

Pros

  • Generous free plan
  • Intuitive drag-and-drop editor
  • No installation required
  • Great live chat support
  • Ideal for blogging
  • 50,000+ plugins
  • Vast number of templates
  • Secure web hosting service

Cons

  • Unintuitive
  • Slow page-load times
  • Persistent security concerns
  • Premium templates and plugins are restricted to more expensive plans.
  • SEO locked behind more expensive plans

Pricing

There is a generous free plan that is ideal for getting started. Beyond that WordPress.com offer four price tiers. You can save up to 50% by paying annually instead of monthly.

Note: many of WordPress.com’s best plugins are not free; make sure you budget for the cost of any plugins you intend to use.

Personal: $4 per month — Remove WordPress.com ads, collect payments

Premium: $8 per month — Remove WordPress.com ads, collect payments, earn ad revenue, install premium themes, Google Analytics integration

Business: $25 per month — Remove WordPress.com ads, collect payments, earn ad revenue, Google Analytics integration, install plugins, automated site backups.

eCommerce: $45 per month — Remove WordPress.com ads, collect payments, earn ad revenue, Google Analytics integration, install plugins, automated site backups, accept payments in 60+ countries, top shipping carrier integration, premium design options.

WordPress.com also provides WordPress VIP, an enterprise-grade package that starts at $25,000 per year.

Bottom Line

Opting to use WordPress.com boils down to one thing: building a website with the WordPress ecosystem. That means you must select at least the Premium price tier (to install premium themes) or the Business price tier (to install plugins). As a result, WordPress.com, on the lower packages, has limited appeal.

WordPress.com is one of the better choices on this list for blogging. If you hope to attract a lot of organic traffic from search engines, then WordPress.com’s blogging heritage will serve you well.

GoDaddy: Best Website Builder for Marketing

GoDaddy is best known for website hosting but does not have the best reputation regarding reliable software; however, its web builder dispels that myth by producing good quality code and decent page speed.

Unfortunately, it achieves its performance by limiting your design options. For example, you can’t add individual elements to your site; you must add whole sections and customize them. However, suppose you don’t feel particularly confident with design. In that case, having someone else make those decisions for you can be a real bonus.

A big flaw with GoDaddy’s ecommerce features is that the checkout isn’t hosted under your domain name; it’s hosted on a third-party website. Consumers are increasingly concerned about scams, and the site URL changing this way can feel like a real red flag.

GoDaddy website builder has a version control system built in. This helpful feature allows you to revert back to an older version of your site. So if you make a change, undoing it is just a couple of clicks. That’s great for websites that want to make temporary, seasonal changes to their website and then revert back to the everyday design.

GoDaddy Features

AI-Powered Advice

GoDaddy uses a surprisingly effective AI to offer advice, helping you to establish an online presence and boost your business.

Integrated Marketing Features

GoDaddy has some of the most comprehensive marketing tools of any website builder. SEO, social media, and email marketing can all be employed to connect with and retain customers.

Hundreds of Themes

GoDaddy offers hundreds of customizable themes that you can edit with no technical skill or experience.

Free Image Library

Lots of businesses struggle with images when they first start out. GoDaddy has a built-in library of professional images that you can use until you have your own.

Pros

  • Award-winning 24/7 support
  • Very simple to use
  • Quick build process
  • Add-on tools

Cons

  • No plugin store
  • Limited SEO, especially on lower plans
  • Limited styling options
  • Ecommerce checkout hosted elsewhere

Pricing

GoDaddy offers four simple pricing tiers. You can save up to 37% by paying annually instead of monthly.

Note: The availability of GoDaddy Plans varies depending on your territory.

Basic: $9.99 per month — 1 social media platform, 5 social posts per month, 100 email marketing sends per month

Premium: $14.99 per month — Unlimited social media, 25,000 email marketing sends per month, SEO tools, group events, paid appointments

Ecommerce: $16.99 per month — Unlimited social media, 25,000 email marketing sends per month, SEO tools, group events, paid appointments, product listings, flexible payments, promotional features 

Bottom Line

GoDaddy isn’t the best overall website builder, and neither is it the cheapest website builder. But it is a good, solid, middle-of-the-road choice for small businesses.

Where GoDaddy website builder does excel is in the business tools that come with its site builder platform. Its marketing tools are excellent, and its new AI-powered hints are a great way of guiding you toward a profitable site.

Wrap all of this up at a competitive price, and GoDaddy is worth a look if you want to do all your web design and promotion in one place.

Carrd: Best Website Builder for One-Pagers

Carrd is website builder software for anyone building a one-page site. One-page sites are ideal for product microsites, event sites, small companies, time-limited promotions, contact forms, and many other websites.

One of the most complicated tasks when a software company sets out to create a website builder is navigation. Carrd circumvents that problem by eliminating the need for navigation, which results in a more straightforward UI, compact code, and faster page speeds.

There is a bit of a learning curve with Carrd. For example, it helps if you understand the basic principles of CSS. But if you don’t, the documentation will help. And getting to the nuts and bolts under the hood of your site can give you a real sense of ownership.

Carrd allows you to build and publish three sites for free. But if you want to publish more than three and use pro features like custom domains, it will charge you $19 per year — that’s just $1.58 per month.

Carrd Features

Sensational Value

Carrd is one of the cheapest website builders around. At just $19 for an entire year, you normally struggle to find plain web hosting this cheaply.

The price reflects the limited feature set — Carrd lacks the marketing and SEO tools that the top website builders have — but for many small businesses who just want to establish an online presence quickly, a one-page site is exactly what they need.

Custom Code

Unlike many of the premium website builders on this list, Carrd allows you to use custom code on its sites.

Custom code requires a little more knowledge than the average site builder, and many people prefer a drag-and-drop interface. However, adding custom code to Carrd is far easier than adding it to Shopify, for example.

Widgets

Carrd refers to its plugins as widgets. It doesn’t have a full app market or ecommerce features, but you can add widgets from services like Stripe and PayPal to expand the capabilities of your Carrd site.

Pros

  • Very low cost
  • Perfect for one-page sites

Cons

  • Steeper than expected learning curve
  • Limited to one-page sites
  • No free domain or free SSL certificate

Pricing

Carrd allows you to publish three branded sites for free. It only has one paid plan, which is billed per year. Carrd also provides a free seven-day trial.

Note: Carrd’s Pro plan allows you to build multiple sites.

Carrd Pro: $1.58 per month (billed annually at $19) — build more than three sites, custom domains, signup forms, payment forms, Google Analytics, widgets, custom code

Bottom Line

Carrd is an excellent website builder that outputs solid production code. If you need to get a one-page site online fast, then Carrd is a perfect choice.

At just $19 for a whole year, Carrd is one of the best-value website builders on this list.

Unfortunately, one-page sites typically have a limited lifespan, and sooner or later, you’ll want to expand. At this point, Carrd will cease to be a viable option and you’ll have to look at other website builders.

But at this price, you could have a one-pager up in the next 15 minutes. That’s hard to knock.

Square Online: Best Website Builder for IRL Businesses

Square Online is part of the Square product range that includes one of the most popular PoS (Point of Sale) solutions. Square Online is an excellent option for brick-and-mortar businesses that exist IRL (In Real Life). It’s also one of the few entries on this list that qualifies as a free website builder.

Square acquired the Weebly website builder in 2018 and redeployed staff to develop Square Online. Although Weebly continues to exist, all development seems channeled into making Square Online’s ecommerce features the best option for building an online store.

Square Online is more straightforward than Shopify for building an online store and offers a range of tools to integrate online and offline business.

Square Online is perfect for businesses that need an online store but feel website building is too technical. Its broader ecosystem of business tools means you can do everything digital in one place, with a consistent set of UIs and workflows, which makes things easier.

Square Online Features

POS Migration

If you’re already a customer of Square’s PoS (Point of Sale) products, then you can export your inventory from your PoS device and import it into your online store, saving yourself hours while ensuring that your products are synced.

Multichannel Sales

Square Online is just part of the Square group of products. Consequently, your sales aren’t limited to your website. As well as the obvious PoS option, Google, Instagram, and Facebook integrations are available.

Restaurant Tools

Square is particularly well-suited to restaurants, bars, and cafes. It provides scheduling software, team management, and loyalty cards, all of which make running a service business online a cinch.

Pros

  • Simple e-commerce features
  • Intuitive UI
  • Integration with the Square ecosystem
  • Generous free plan

Cons

  • Limited design options
  • Lengthy website building process

Pricing

Square Online offers three price plans, all of which are priced monthly but billed annually. Its lowest-priced tier is free, except for card processing fees.

Note: different pricing plans are available in different territories.

Free: $0 per month — Unlimited products, sell on social media, SEO tools

Plus: $?? per month (billed annually) — Free tier features, Advanced item settings, Accept PayPal

Premium: $?? per month (billed annually) — Plus tier features, reduced processing rate, real-time shipping rates

In addition, Square Online offers an enterprise solution for high-volume, multi-location businesses. Contact Square directly for pricing.

Bottom Line

With the financial backing of its parent company Square Online has the resources to evolve into a world-leading website builder; it just hasn’t gotten there yet.

Like a couple of other website builders on this list, Square Online is aimed directly at anyone who wants to build an online store — or, in fact, commerce in general. So you should look elsewhere if selling online isn’t central to your site.

But suppose you’re already invested in the Square ecosystem with PoS devices in physical locations. In that case, using Square Online is a no-brainer.

And if you’re willing to look past some of the design restrictions in favor of good customer service and the potential of a growing platform, then Square Online is a solid choice too.

Zyro: Best Budget Website Builder

Zyro is exceptionally cheap, especially for building an online store. But don’t let that fool you into thinking Zyro website builder is low on quality. On the contrary, hidden behind the low-ball sales pitch is a competent website builder with many features.

Zyro gives you complete control over the placement of your content, something that only Wix can rival. 

Zyro offers an outstanding balance of powerful customization but not too many tools, so you won’t be overwhelmed by all the options.

Zyro doesn’t have a built-in app store like some rivals, which means you have limited options to expand the functionality of your site. However, it does offer some third-party integrations to services, so you’re not entirely without options.

Zyro Features

Intuitive Editor

Zyro does a tremendous job of getting new businesses online because you don’t need any experience to use this very simple site builder.

Unlimited Storage & Bandwidth

Many website builders usually scrimp on the extras and claw back a little money by charging extra for hosting. Not so Zyro, which provides unlimited storage and bandwidth.

Branding Tools

Zyro includes a logo maker, so if you’re starting from scratch, you can get give yourself some professional gloss with a shiny new logo.

Pros

  • Affordable
  • Great value ecommerce
  • Responsive templates
  • High-level control of design elements
  • Live chat support
  • Drag-and-drop editor

Cons

  • Basic blog options
  • Only basic SEO tools
  • No built-in app market

Pricing

Zyro offers two price plans, one for simple small business websites and one for ecommerce.

Note: Zyro offers regular discounts of up to 75% off its packages. These discounts are time-limited, but once they expire, they reset. So you won’t miss out if you decide to think it over.

Website: $2.99 / month — free domain, free email for 3 months, marketing integration, logo maker

Business: $3.99 / month — All of the features of the Website tier, plus sell up to 500 products

Bottom Line

With its AI-powered logo maker, fast build times, and simple options, Zyro is committed to getting you online fast.

We really didn’t like the deception of placing a fake countdown on the price discount. And hiding the increased renewal price in small print isn’t a good look for Zyro either. That type of blackhat UX doesn’t have a place on the modern web.

However, the prices beat almost everything except free website builder plans. In addition, Zyro’s ecommerce package is one of the most affordable options on the market, with an equally generous 1% transaction processing fee.

If you want to set up a side business over a weekend or even over your lunch hour, then Zyro is an excellent choice.

Website Builder FAQs

What is a website builder?

A website builder, or site builder, is a service for creating a website without any design or coding skills. The most popular website builders are designed to democratize the web by helping anyone build a website quickly and easily.

It sometimes helps to have some design ideas, and some website builders will allow you to add custom code if you want to, but neither is required.

With a website builder, all you need is the desire to create a website.

Are websites built with website builders as good as professionally built bespoke websites?

Because website builders are created with many potential uses in mind, they use generic source code. Unfortunately, this means that their code is typically less streamlined than a bespoke site.

However, over the past few years, the code quality that website builders generate has improved enormously. Now, many professional design agencies use website builders instead of coding their own websites.

If you have a very specialized site in mind, like a SaaS (Software as a Service, then even the best website builder won’t be able to create it. But for marketing websites and online stores, website builders are an ideal way to build a website.

How much do website builders cost?

The cost of a website builder varies from product to product. There are free website builders available, but many of the top website builders charge a monthly fee.

For one of the best website builders, you can expect to pay a subscription based on the features you require. Expect to pay more for e-commerce features, marketing features, and a flexible drag-and-drop interface.

There are sometimes hidden costs, such as a card processing fee for online sales.

If you opt for a website builder that uses templates or plugins, you may need to pay for those in addition to the subscription.

You don’t need to pay for web hosting services; web hosting should be included.

Most website builders offer a limited free plan or a free trial, so you can test out features before opening your wallet.

Is a website builder suitable for a small business?

It depends on the nature of your business. For example, suppose you’re setting up an online store or a professional service like plumbing or landscaping. In that case, a website builder or perhaps a specialist e-commerce website builder could be ideal for you.

On the other hand, if you’re running a business like a car dealership or a travel agency — where you need lots of individual listings — that is a little beyond what website builders can do. In that case, you’ll probably need a complete CMS (Content Management System).

If you are building a complex app or SaaS, then sorry, but website builders can’t manage that; you’ll need to hire a professional developer or improve your coding knowledge.

How hard is it to use a website builder?

You don’t need web design experience to use a website builder; they are designed to get new businesses online without professional assistance.

Some website builders are more complicated than others. Typically, the more features there are, the more time you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the user interface. A website can be created quickly with a drag-and-drop editor, but you may find you need to put in a little more work if you’re creating an online store.

As a guide, if you can use email, a web browser, or a document processor like Word or Pages, you’ll be able to use a website builder to build a website.

Can you use a custom domain name with a website builder?

Custom domains, like myawesomewebsite.com, can usually be used with website builders.

Be aware that some website builders charge more for this option. But equally, you may be offered free domain name registration, at least for the first year.

Do I need web hosting services to use a website builder?

You don’t need to worry about a web host; that’s part of what you’re paying the website builder to provide.

Many website builders even host your site on CDNs (Content Delivery Networks), making your site faster for a global audience.

Depending on your package, most website builders restrict the storage space you can use (the total size of all of your files combined). Some website builders also limit the bandwidth you can use (the total size of all the files users access on your site combined).

Do website builders perform well on search engines?

Getting your site to page one on Google is the primary aim for most businesses.

Many professional techniques boost your site up search engine rankings, but they all boil down to publishing good content and fast page load times.

You’ll find plenty of blog posts online claiming that website builders output low-quality and slow code. This used to be true, but in recent years the code website builders’ output has improved significantly.

A good website builder (like the ones on this list) won’t guarantee good search engine ranking, but the top website builders include marketing features that will help.

How long does it take to build a website with a website builder?

Some website builders can get you online in under five minutes. Others require hours of build time.

Typically, the more complex a site is, the longer it will take. Ecommerce, for example, will take longer than a simple résumé webpage.

Additionally, websites are not a once-and-done task. You will need to update your site, change information, and add features throughout its life.

But you’ll find that most website builders make this easy by taking away the hard work. As a result, most first-time website builders discover that they enjoy making websites, and some even decide to become professional website designers!

What is a drag-and-drop editor?

A drag-and-drop editor is exactly what it sounds like. You drag an element into position by clicking on it, and you drop it into place by releasing the mouse button when it’s positioned as you want it.

A drag-and-drop editor is considered a premium feature of the best website builders, but some people do prefer to make changes with code or via a simple form interface.

Which is the best website builder?

There isn’t a catch-all approach to building a website. The right website builder for you might not be the right website builder for someone else.

As you can see from the list above, Wix is a solid all-rounder, whereas Shopify is excellent for creating an online store. However, there are many occasions when other website builders would be a better choice.

Sometimes it comes down to something as simple as feeling an affinity with the website builder’s philosophy. If you find a website builder intuitive and it provides all the features you need, it’s the right website builder for you.

 

Featured image by upklyak on Freepik

Source

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Tips to Secure Shadow Data

October 21st, 2022 No comments

Shadow data is, first and foremost, a concern for the security and compliance teams. What can they do to ensure the security and compliance of data stores they are unaware of or have little or no control over? 

There is an inherent tension between DevOps and security teams amplified by regulatory frameworks, such as GDPR and CCPA, that set and enforce high privacy standards for data.

In this blog post, we will discuss what shadow data is, why you should not ignore it, and how to secure it effectively.

What Does Data Shadow Mean?

The term shadow data refers to your organization’s data that is likely copied, backed up, or located in a data store that is neither governed, under the same security structure or updated on a regular basis. The following are examples of shadow data:

  • Customer data that has been copied from production to development for testing purposes
  • Data stores that contain sensitive information for an application that is no longer in use
  • An application’s byproducts, such as log files, may collect sensitive information
  • Applications that use hard-to-find local databases
  • The data generated by shadow IT 
  • A siloed set of data that is only available to a specific line of business

As a matter of fact, shadow data is primarily a problem for security and compliance professionals. If they are not aware of or have little or no control over data stores, how can they be responsible for their security and compliance? Regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA, that establish and enforce high data privacy standards have amplified the tension between DevOps and security teams.

Shadow data also affects operations teams since unmanaged data sprawl can increase infrastructure costs. Cloud budgets are exceeded, with little or no visibility into how the overspend was incurred or how it can be contained. Here are some real-life examples of shadow data

  • Public, unmanaged databases: The developer implemented an SQLite database for storing sensitive data input by web application users. What is the problem? A standard web server was used to deploy the database, which was, by definition, publicly accessible. The company’s security and compliance guardrails were violated, exposing sensitive data to threats without the security team’s knowledge.
  • The data generated by backend applications: Backup files, log files and debug dumps serve the needs of DevOps engineers but are typically not monitored by security professionals. Shadow data, however, may contain sensitive information. 
  • Unmanaged cloud resources: Developers may create an S3 bucket in restricted geolocation as part of internal testing procedures that are not audited. These testing resources unnecessarily add to infrastructure costs if they are not properly decommissioned, posing security and compliance risks.

It’s time to stop ignoring shadow data

It is now challenging to ignore shadow data due to the prevalence of hybrid and multi-cloud environments. According to a recent report, 92% of enterprises today have a multi-cloud strategy, of which 82% have adopted a hybrid approach. A lack of visibility in these environments makes it difficult to monitor them effectively, and shadow data is likely to accumulate as a result.

Shadow data is also increasing due to the adoption of cloud-based continuous integration and delivery methods. In today’s market, developers have more freedom to introduce new products and features. Additionally, the self-service cloud model allows developers to provision data stores with just a few clicks, often without consideration of the organization’s governance or compliance policies. 

The proliferation of cloud-native applications based on micro-services, containers, and server-less functions has brought the issue of shadow data to the fore since decentralized workload-based data stores contribute significantly to data sprawl.

What is the difference between shadow data and dark data?

The term dark data refers to all the data within an organization that is unused, untapped, and unknown as the result of users’ daily interactions online with countless devices and systems – everything from machine data to server log files to unstructured data derived from social media interaction.

The data may be considered outdated, incomplete, redundant, or inaccessible due to a format that can’t be accessed using available tools. They don’t even know it exists most of the time.

However, it is essential to note that dark data may be one of an organization’s most valuable untapped resources. Data has become a major organizational asset, and competitive organizations must capitalize on its full potential. Furthermore, more stringent data regulations may require organizations to manage their data entirely.

Shadow data differs from dark data in that it is created within an organization’s IT infrastructure during routine business operations, serves no other purpose, and becomes unaccounted for over time. Shadow data can be viewed as a subset of dark data. A dark data set is a collection of sensitive information that was once used for legacy applications or irrelevant information generated by an application. 

Shadow data, on the other hand, is created in two main ways: by shadow IT, which is intentionally developed outside an organization’s IT infrastructure to leverage cloud-managed and SaaS applications that DevOps teams, DBAs, and others would not be able to access otherwise; or by over-sharing within an organization. Shadow data is unaccounted-for data that poses the same security risks in either case.

A three-step process for securing shadow data

  1. Visibility: It is essential that your security teams identify every cloud-managed environment and SaaS application in which your organization may have sensitive data. There is no way to apply security controls to data that is stored in repositories that you cannot access.
  2. Discovery and classification of data: Data in all of your repositories must be identified and classified so that security controls can be applied. There is a need to extend discovery and classification capabilities beyond traditional structured data; semi-structured and unstructured data must also be able to be classified. You can quickly detect anomalous behavior by consolidating your data repositories into a single source and allowing dashboard access to see what is happening across all data sources.
  3. Control the privileges of data access: Shadow data can only be mitigated by preventing insiders from creating it inadvertently. When it comes to rooting out malicious user behavior, a rigorous analysis of anomalous behavior is very effective. It is possible to baseline typical access for privileged users and send alerts if it deviates from that. It is also possible to use machine learning analytics to determine what data is business-critical and if it can be accessed by privileged users.

Minimizing the risks associated with shadow data

Data management best practices can mitigate shadow data risks in several ways, including:

  • Understand your data: Maintain a catalog of data assets that are categorized according to their sensitivity and criticality as you scan your workloads continuously. It is important that the data catalog is comprehensive, accessible to all stakeholders, and searchable according to a variety of parameters, such as owner, sensitivity, used by, version, and so on.  
  • Follow your data: A next-generation data catalog should also incorporate visualizations that highlight relationships, flows, and dependencies among data stores in a typical mid-sized to large organization. The ability to build outflows and identify who is interacting with what data will allow you to identify shadow data that is not being used. It is not only a waste of storage resources to store this data, but it can also pose a threat to cybersecurity, such as data exfiltration, due to its unused nature.
  • Clean your data: A key component of IT hygiene is keeping your data assets lean and mean. In general, each time a developer replicates a data store for testing or a database is mirrored before an upgrade, the developer or operation person should delete it when the testing environment is decommissioned, or a successful upgrade has been completed. Your environment, however, is full of redundant, incomplete, or low-value data. Ensure that shadow data is regularly disposed of.
  • Protect your data: A risk-based data protection policy and process must include shadow data. Risk assessments, which should be as automated as possible, will take into account the type of shadow data and its location, as well as any compliance requirements related to its sensitivity. After establishing the appropriate guardrails, you should include access controls, minimal privileges, monitoring for anomalous behavior, alerting to threats, and resolving misconfigurations.

Conclusion

By eliminating shadow data and including new data that can be useful, businesses and organizations can significantly improve their analytics, reporting, machine learning, and AI. It consequently leads to faster, and more intelligent decision-making across the enterprise.

The best way to combat shadow data is to begin by educating your entire firm’s staff about the issue. 

Educate people in your vicinity about shadow data and why they shouldn’t ignore it. Engage experts who have demonstrated their ability to successfully manage data-intensive operations if you want to gain a greater understanding of the shadow data.

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Are Video Ads a Big Factor in Your Business Success?

October 21st, 2022 No comments

Video marketing is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways to improve your business and get more sales/leads. With the popularity of online videos continuing to rise with the help of sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok, business owners must tap into this medium to stay ahead of the game. 

Yes, video ads are a big factor in both business success and failure. Video Ads are one of the best ways to attract customers and convert them into sales because they have the power to create an emotional bond with your audience. When done right and with great video production software, they can also be a powerful retention tool for your current customers.

The Concept Behind Video Ads

Video ads are similar to traditional display ads in that they’re hosted on a website or app where users can view them. However, video ads are made of moving images and sound instead of static images or text.

When users click on a video ad, they’re taken either to a landing page or directly to a website. This allows them to learn more about the advertised product without leaving the host site they were visiting.

Video advertising is a form of online advertising that uses short, entertaining videos to promote products and services. Video advertising is growing in popularity because it can be more cost-effective than other forms of online advertising while still being highly effective.

Video ads typically appear in one of two places: pre-rolls before a video plays on the page or mid-rolls interrupting an existing video. Pre-rolls are usually full-screen ads that play before the desired content is displayed, while mid-rolls take up less screen real estate but interrupt what’s already playing on a page.

Video ads can be used for almost any business, from selling products to promoting services and events to selling subscriptions or services like insurance or banking. When used well, video ads can be incredibly powerful tools for driving conversions for your business — but only if you know how to use them effectively!

Why Use Video Ads?

Video Ads can be a great way to reach your audience, but they don’t work for every business. Before you jump in with both feet and start creating videos, there are some things you should know.

Video Ads are one of the most effective ways to reach your audience online. They’re more engaging than text-based ads and can help you stand out from the crowd. If done right, they can even help you generate leads and sales!

But if you’re not using them correctly, they might not be worth the time or money it takes to create them.

Video Ads vs Standard Ads

The biggest advantage of video ads is that they are more likely to get noticed than standard banner ads or text-based content on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. This makes them more likely to drive traffic back to your site or to generate leads through calls-to-action (CTAs). The greater visibility of videos means that people are more likely to click on them than other forms of online advertising, such as banner ads or social media posts competing for attention alongside other distractions like news feeds and status updates from friends and family members.

Benefits of Video Ads

There are many benefits of video ads including higher click-through rates (CTRs). Video ads can also increase brand awareness and engagement with your audience. Here are some additional benefits:

Reach a wider audience

Video ads have an incredible reach. AdWeek says more than half of all internet traffic is from YouTube alone. Video ads can also be viewed on Facebook’s Audience Network and Instagram’s Stories, which puts your message in front of billions more people each month.

Video ads are one of the most effective ways to reach a wider audience. They can be watched on mobile devices and will automatically play when a user is using their browser. Video ads are more engaging than text or banner ads and encourage repeat engagement.

They can also help you increase your brand awareness and reputation by allowing users to see your products in action. By including a call-to-action button, users can click on it and be taken directly to your website, where they can learn more about your company and its products or services.

Video ads help drive conversions because they allow you to provide more information about your product or service than other advertising formats. This includes embedded links that viewers can click through on their terms and schedules, not yours.

Increased conversions

Video ads have a much higher conversion rate than standard banner ads because they grab users’ attention and keep them engaged. Video ads also tell a story and provide information consumers want when looking online for products or services. Users can also interact with videos by clicking on them or playing them in full-screen mode.

More engagement

The main benefit of video ads is that they get more attention from viewers than other types of ads. Video ads are often watched in full, which is not the case with many other ads.

Video ads have a higher click-through rate (CTR) than text and image display ads. A study by Animoto found that video ads have an average CTR of 4.8%, 

Data collection

Video ads allow you to collect data on customers’ behavior — when they watch the ad, where they click, and how long they stay on the page. You can use this information to understand your target audience better and create more relevant content for them in the future.

Video ads can collect data about visitors’ demographics, interests, and behaviors. You can then use this information to create targeted advertisements for specific audiences or adjust your website content based on what users want from it.

Success Measurement

Video ads are a powerful tool for measuring success. They allow you to track performance using different metrics: views, clicks, actions taken (downloads and registrations), and more. 

This means that you can adjust your strategy accordingly and improve results over time. Video ads also offer real-time reporting so that you know how many people are viewing each ad at any given time. This allows you to make adjustments quickly and effectively as needed.

Takeaway

Overall, it’s clear that attracting video ads positively affects a business’s success, sometimes even more so than with other forms of advertising. Within this context, the best advice for business owners is to experiment and see what works best for them. No matter what form of advertising you choose, it is essential that you be willing to try new things to stand out from the competition truly.

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Fancy Image Decorations: Masks and Advanced Hover Effects

October 21st, 2022 No comments
Detailing the parts of the image that correspond to CSS variables.

You may have noticed that the conic gradient of this example has a different syntax from the previous example. Both are supposed to create the same shape, so why are they different? It’s because we can reach the same result using different syntaxes. This may look confusing at first, but it’s a good feature. You are not obliged to find the solution to achieve a particular shape. You only need to find one solution that works for you out of the many possibilities out there.

Here are four ways to create the outer square using gradients:

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There are even more ways to pull this off, but you get the point.

There is no Best™ approach. Personally, I try to find the one with the smallest and most optimized code. For me, any solution that requires fewer gradients, fewer calculations, and fewer repeated values is the most suitable. Sometimes I choose a more verbose syntax because it gives me more flexibility to change variables and modify things. It comes with experience and practice. The more you play with gradients, the more you know what syntax to use and when.

Let’s get back to our inner transparent border and dig into the hover effect. In case you didn’t notice, there is a cool hover effect that moves that transparent border using a font-size trick. The idea is to define the --d variable with a value of 1em. This variables controls the distance of the border from the edge. We can transform like this:

--_d: calc(var(--d) + var(--s) * 1em)

…giving us the following updated CSS:

img {
  --b: 5px;  /* the border thickness */
  --d: 20px; /* the distance from the edge */
  --o: 15px; /* the offset on hover */
  --s: 1;    /* the direction of the hover effect (+1 or -1)*/

  --_d: calc(var(--d) + var(--s) * 1em);
  --_g: calc(100% - 2 * (var(--_d) + var(--b)));
  mask:
    conic-gradient(from 90deg at var(--_d) var(--_d), #0000 25%, #000 0)
     0 0 / calc(100% - var(--_d)) calc(100% - var(--_d)),
    linear-gradient(#000 0 0) 50% / var(--_g) var(--_g) no-repeat;
  font-size: 0;
  transition: .35s;
}
img:hover {
  font-size: var(--o);
}

The font-size is initially equal to 0 ,so 1em is also equal to 0 and --_d is be equal to --d. On hover, though, the font-size is equal to a value defined by an --o variable that sets the border’s offset. This, in turn, updates the --_d variable, moving the border by the offset. Then I add another variable, --s, to control the sign that decides whether the border moves to the inside or the outside.

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The font-size trick is really useful if we want to animate properties that are otherwise unanimatable.

Welcome to Part 2 of this three-part series! We are still decorating images without any extra elements and pseudo-elements. I hope you already took the time to digest Part 1 because we will continue working with a lot of gradients to create awesome visual effects. We are also going to introduce the CSS mask property for more complex decorations and hover effects.

Fancy Image Decorations series

  • Single Element Magic
  • Masks and Advanced Hover Effects (you are here!)
  • Outlines and Complex Animations (coming October 28 )

Let’s turn to the first example we’re working on together…

The Postage Stamp

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Believe or not, all it takes to make postage stamp CSS effect is two gradients and a filter:

img {
  --r: 10px; /* control the radius of the circles */
  padding: calc(2 * var(--r));
  filter: grayscale(.4);
  background: 
    radial-gradient(var(--r),#0000 98%,#fff) round
      calc(-1.5 * var(--r)) calc(-1.5 * var(--r)) / calc(3 * var(--r)) calc(3 * var(--r)),
    linear-gradient(#fff 0 0) no-repeat
      50% / calc(100% - 3 * var(--r)) calc(100% - 3 * var(--r));
}

As we saw in the previous article, the first step is to make space around the image with padding so we can draw a background gradient and see it there. Then we use a combination of radial-gradient() and linear-gradient() to cut those circles around the image.

Here is a step-by-step illustration that shows how the gradients are configured:

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Note the use of the round value in the second step. It’s very important for the trick as it ensures the size of the gradient is adjusted to be perfectly aligned on all the sides, no matter what the image width or height is.

From the specification: The image is repeated as often as will fit within the background positioning area. If it doesn’t fit a whole number of times, it is rescaled so that it does.

The Rounded Frame

Let’s look at another image decoration that uses circles…

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This example also uses a radial-gradient(), but this time I have created circles around the image instead of the cut-out effect. Notice that I am also using the round value again. The trickiest part here is the transparent gap between the frame and the image, which is where I reach for the CSS mask property:

img {
  --s: 20px; /* size of the frame */
  --g: 10px; /* the gap */
  --c: #FA6900; 

  padding: calc(var(--g) + var(--s));
  background: 
    radial-gradient(farthest-side, var(--c) 97%, #0000) 
      0 0 / calc(2 * var(--s)) calc(2 * var(--s)) round;
  mask:
    conic-gradient(from 90deg at calc(2 * var(--s)) calc(2 * var(--s)), #0000 25%, #000 0)
      calc(-1 * var(--s)) calc(-1 * var(--s)),
    linear-gradient(#000 0 0) content-box;
}

Masking allows us to show the area of the image — thanks to the linear-gradient() in there — as well as 20px around each side of it — thanks to the conic-gradient(). The 20px is nothing but the variable --s that defines the size of the frame. In other words, we need to hide the gap.

Here’s what I mean:

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The linear gradient is the blue part of the background while the conic gradient is the red part of the background. That transparent part between both gradients is what we cut from our element to create the illusion of an inner transparent border.

The Inner Transparent Border

For this one, we are not going to create a frame but rather try something different. We are going to create a transparent inner border inside our image. Probably not that useful in a real-world scenario, but it’s good practice with CSS masks.

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Similar to the previous example, we are going to rely on two gradients: a linear-gradient() for the inner part, and a conic-gradient() for the outer part. We’ll leave a space between them to create the transparent border effect.

img {
  --b: 5px;  /* the border thickness */
  --d: 20px; /* the distance from the edge */

  --_g: calc(100% - 2 * (var(--d) + var(--b)));
  mask:
    conic-gradient(from 90deg at var(--d) var(--d), #0000 25%, #000 0)
      0 0 / calc(100% - var(--d)) calc(100% - var(--d)),
    linear-gradient(#000 0 0) 50% / var(--_g) var(--_g) no-repeat;
}

You may have noticed that the conic gradient of this example has a different syntax from the previous example. Both are supposed to create the same shape, so why are they different? It’s because we can reach the same result using different syntaxes. This may look confusing at first, but it’s a good feature. You are not obliged to find the solution to achieve a particular shape. You only need to find one solution that works for you out of the many possibilities out there.

Here are four ways to create the outer square using gradients:

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There are even more ways to pull this off, but you get the point.

There is no Best™ approach. Personally, I try to find the one with the smallest and most optimized code. For me, any solution that requires fewer gradients, fewer calculations, and fewer repeated values is the most suitable. Sometimes I choose a more verbose syntax because it gives me more flexibility to change variables and modify things. It comes with experience and practice. The more you play with gradients, the more you know what syntax to use and when.

Let’s get back to our inner transparent border and dig into the hover effect. In case you didn’t notice, there is a cool hover effect that moves that transparent border using a font-size trick. The idea is to define the --d variable with a value of 1em. This variables controls the distance of the border from the edge. We can transform like this:

--_d: calc(var(--d) + var(--s) * 1em)

…giving us the following updated CSS:

img {
  --b: 5px;  /* the border thickness */
  --d: 20px; /* the distance from the edge */
  --o: 15px; /* the offset on hover */
  --s: 1;    /* the direction of the hover effect (+1 or -1)*/

  --_d: calc(var(--d) + var(--s) * 1em);
  --_g: calc(100% - 2 * (var(--_d) + var(--b)));
  mask:
    conic-gradient(from 90deg at var(--_d) var(--_d), #0000 25%, #000 0)
     0 0 / calc(100% - var(--_d)) calc(100% - var(--_d)),
    linear-gradient(#000 0 0) 50% / var(--_g) var(--_g) no-repeat;
  font-size: 0;
  transition: .35s;
}
img:hover {
  font-size: var(--o);
}

The font-size is initially equal to 0 ,so 1em is also equal to 0 and --_d is be equal to --d. On hover, though, the font-size is equal to a value defined by an --o variable that sets the border’s offset. This, in turn, updates the --_d variable, moving the border by the offset. Then I add another variable, --s, to control the sign that decides whether the border moves to the inside or the outside.

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The font-size trick is really useful if we want to animate properties that are otherwise unanimatable. Custom properties defined with @property can solve this but support for it is still lacking at the time I’m writing this.

The Frame Reveal

We made the following reveal animation in the first part of this series:

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We can take the same idea, but instead of a border with a solid color we will use a gradient like this:

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If you compare both codes you will notice the following changes:

  1. I used the same gradient configuration from the first example inside the mask property. I simply moved the gradients from the background property to the mask property.
  2. I added a repeating-linear-gradient() to create the gradient border.

That’s it! I re-used most of the same code we already saw — with super small tweaks — and got another cool image decoration with a hover effect.

/* Solid color border */

img {
  --c: #8A9B0F; /* the border color */
  --b: 10px;   /* the border thickness*/
  --g: 5px;  /* the gap on hover */

  padding: calc(var(--g) + var(--b));
  --_g: #0000 25%, var(--c) 0;
  background: 
    conic-gradient(from 180deg at top var(--b) right var(--b), var(--_g))
     var(--_i, 200%) 0 / 200% var(--_i, var(--b)) no-repeat,
    conic-gradient(at bottom var(--b) left  var(--b), var(--_g))
     0 var(--_i, 200%) / var(--_i, var(--b)) 200% no-repeat;
  transition: .3s, background-position .3s .3s;
  cursor: pointer;
}
img:hover {
  --_i: 100%;
  transition: .3s, background-size .3s .3s;
}
/* Gradient color border */

img {
  --b: 10px; /* the border thickness*/
  --g: 5px;  /* the gap on hover */
  background: repeating-linear-gradient(135deg, #F8CA00 0 10px, #E97F02 0 20px, #BD1550 0 30px);

  padding: calc(var(--g) + var(--b));
  --_g: #0000 25%, #000 0;
  mask: 
    conic-gradient(from 180deg at top var(--b) right var(--b), var(--_g))
     var(--_i, 200%) 0 / 200% var(--_i, var(--b)) no-repeat,
    conic-gradient(at bottom var(--b) left  var(--b), var(--_g))
     0 var(--_i, 200%) / var(--_i, var(--b)) 200% no-repeat,
    linear-gradient(#000 0 0) content-box;
  transition: .3s, mask-position .3s .3s;
  cursor: pointer;
}
img:hover {
  --_i: 100%;
  transition: .3s, mask-size .3s .3s;
}

Let’s try another frame animation. This one is a bit tricky as it has a three-step animation:

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The first step of the animation is to make the bottom edge bigger. For this, we adjust the background-size of a linear-gradient():

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You are probably wondering why I am also adding the top edge. We need it for the third step. I always try to optimize the code I write, so I am using one gradient to cover both the top and bottom sides, but the top one is hidden and revealed later with a mask.

For the second step, we add a second gradient to show the left and right edges. But this time, we do it using background-position:

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We can stop here as we already have a nice effect with two gradients but we are here to push the limits so let’s add a touch of mask to achieve the third step.

The trick is to make the top edge hidden until we show the bottom and the sides and then we update the mask-size (or mask-position) to show the top part. As I said previously, we can find a lot of gradient configurations to achieve the same effect.

Here is an illustration of the gradients I will be using:

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I am using two conic gradients having a width equal to 200%. Both gradients cover the area leaving only the top part uncovered (that part will be invisible later). On hover, I slide both gradients to cover that part.

Here is a better illustration of one of the gradients to give you a better idea of what’s happening:

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Now we put this inside the mask property and we are done! Here is the full code:

img {
  --b: 6px;  /* the border thickness*/
  --g: 10px; /* the gap */
  --c: #0E8D94;

  padding: calc(var(--b) + var(--g));
  --_l: var(--c) var(--b), #0000 0 calc(100% - var(--b)), var(--c) 0;
  background:
    linear-gradient(var(--_l)) 50%/calc(100% - var(--_i,80%)) 100% no-repeat,
    linear-gradient(90deg, var(--_l)) 50% var(--_i,-100%)/100% 200% no-repeat;  
  mask:
    conic-gradient(at 50% var(--b),#0000 25%, #000 0) calc(50% + var(--_i, 50%)) / 200%,
    conic-gradient(at 50% var(--b),#000 75%, #0000 0) calc(50% - var(--_i, 50%)) / 200%;
  transition: 
    .3s calc(.6s - var(--_t,.6s)) mask-position, 
    .3s .3s background-position,
    .3s var(--_t,.6s) background-size,
    .4s transform;
  cursor: pointer;
}
img:hover {
  --_i: 0%;
  --_t: 0s;
  transform: scale(1.2);
}

I have also introduced some variables to optimize the code, but you should be used to this right now.

What about a four-step animation? Yes, it’s possible!

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No explanation for this because it’s your homework! Take all that you have learned in this article to dissect the code and try to articulate what it’s doing. The logic is similar to all the previous examples. The key is to isolate each gradient to understand each step of the animation. I kept the code un-optimized to make things a little easier to read. I do have an optimized version if you are interested, but you can also try to optimize the code yourself and compare it with my version for additional practice.

Wrapping up

That’s it for Part 2 of this three-part series on creative image decorations using only the element. We now have a good handle on how gradients and masks can be combined to create awesome visual effects, and even animations — without reaching for extra elements or pseudo-elements. Yes, a single tag is enough!

We have one more article in this series to go. Until then, here is a bonus demo with a cool hover effect where I use mask to assemble a broken image.

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Fancy Image Decorations series

  • Single Element Magic
  • Masks and Advanced Hover Effects (you are here!)
  • Outlines and Complex Animations (coming October 28 )

Fancy Image Decorations: Masks and Advanced Hover Effects originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

Categories: Designing, Others Tags:

Futuristic CSS

October 21st, 2022 No comments

I run the yearly State of CSS survey, asking developers about the CSS features and tools they use or want to learn. The survey is actually open right now, so go take it!

The goal of the survey is to help anticipate future CSS trends, and the data is also used by browser vendors to inform their roadmap.

This year, Lea Verou pitched in as lead survey designer to help select which CSS features to include. But even though we added many new and upcoming features (some of which, like CSS nesting, aren’t even supported yet), some features were so far off, far-fetched, and futuristic (or just plain made-up!) that we couldn’t in good conscience include them in the survey.

But it’s fun to speculate. So today, let’s take a look at some CSS features that might one day make their way to the browser… or not!

CSS Toggles

The CSS checkbox hack has been around for over ten years, and it still remains the only way to achieve any kind of “toggle effect” in pure CSS (I actually used it myself recently for the language switcher on this page).

But what if we had actual toggles, though? What if you could handle tabs, accordions, and more, all without writing a single line of JavaScript code?

That’s exactly what Tab Atkins and Miriam Suzanne’s CSS Toggles proposal wants to introduce. The proposal is quite complex, and the number of details and edge cases involved makes it clear that this will be far from trivial for browser vendors to implement. But hey, one can dream, and in fact, an experimental implementation recently appeared in Chrome Canary!

CSS Switch Function

A major trend in recent years — not only in CSS but in society at large — has been recognizing that we’ve often done a poor job of serving the needs of a diverse population. In terms of web development, this translates into building websites that can adapt not only to different devices and contexts but also to different temporary or permanent disabilities such as color blindness or motion sickness.

The result is that we often need to target these different conditions in our code and react to them, and this is where Miriam Suzanne’s switch proposal comes in:

.foo {
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: switch(
    auto /
     (available-inline-size > 1000px) 1fr 2fr 1fr 2fr /
     (available-inline-size > 500px) auto 1fr /
   );
}

While the initial proposal focuses on testing available-inline-size as a way to set up grid layouts, one can imagine the same switch syntax being used for many other scenarios as well, as a complement to media and container queries.

Intrinsic Typography

Intrinsic typography is a technique coined by Scott Kellum, who developed the type-setting tool Typetura. In a nutshell, it means that instead of giving the text a specific size, you let it set its own size based on the dimensions of the element containing it:

Instead of sizing and spacing text for each component at every breakpoint, the text is given instructions to respond to the areas it is placed in. As a result, intrinsic typography enables designs to be far more flexible, adapting to the area in which it is placed, with far less code.

This goes beyond what the already quite useful Utopia Type Scale Calculator can offer, as it only adapts based on viewport dimensions — not container dimensions.

The only problem with Typetura is that it currently requires a JavaScript library to work. As is often the case, though, one can imagine that if this approach proves popular, it’ll make its way to native CSS sooner or later.

We can already achieve a lot of this today (or pretty soon, at least) with container query units, which lets you reference a container’s size when defining units for anything inside it.

Sibling Functions

It’s common in Sass to write loops when you want to style a large number of items based on their position in the DOM. For example, to progressively indent each successive item in a list, you could do the following:

@for $i from 1 through 10 {
  ul:nth-child(#{$i}) {
    padding-left: #{$i * 5px}
  }
}

This would then generate the equivalent of 10 CSS declarations. The obvious downside here is that you end up with ten lines of code! Also, what if your list has more than ten elements?

An elegant solution currently in the works is the sibling-count() and sibling-index() functions. Using sibling-index(), the previous example would become:

ul > li {
  padding-left: calc(sibling-index() * 5px); 
}

It’s an elegant solution to a common need!

CSS Patterns

A long, long time ago, I made a little tool called Patternify that would let you draw patterns and export them to base64 code to be dropped inline in your CSS code. My concept was to let you use patterns inside CSS but with CSS Doodle. Yuan Chuan had the opposite idea: what if you used CSS to create the patterns?

Now pure-CSS pattern-making has been around for a while (and recently got more elaborate with the introduction of conic gradients), but Yuan Chuan definitely introduced some key new concepts, starting with the ability to randomize patterns or easily specify a grid.

Obviously, CSS Doodle is probably far more intricate than a native pattern API would ever need to be, but it’s still fun to imagine what we could do with just a few more pattern-focused properties. The @image proposal might be a step in that direction, as it gives you tools to define or modify images right inside your CSS code.

Native HTML/CSS Charts

Now we’re really getting into wild speculation. In fact, as far as I know, no one else has ever submitted a proposal or even blogged about this. But as someone who spends a lot of their time working on data visualizations, I think native HTML/CSS charts would be amazing!

Now, most charts you’ll come across on the web will be rendered using SVG or sometimes Canvas. In fact, this is the approach we use for the surveys through the DataViz library Nivo.

The big problem with this, though, is that neither SVG nor Canvas are really responsive. You can scale them down proportionally, but you can’t have the same fine-grained control that something like CSS Grid offers.

That’s why some have tried to lay out charts using pure HTML and CSS, like charting library Charts.css.

The problem here becomes that once you go past simple blocky bar charts, you need to use a lot of hacks and complex CSS code to achieve what you want. It can work, and libraries like Charts.css do help a lot, but it’s not easy by any means.

That’s why I think having native chart elements in the browser could be amazing. Maybe something like:

<linechart>
  <series id=”series_a”>
    <point x=”0” y=”2”/>
    <point x=”1” y=”4”/>
    <point x=”2” y=”6”/>
  </series>
  <series id=”series_b”>
    <point x=”0” y=”6”/>
    <point x=”1” y=”4”/>
    <point x=”2” y=”2”/>
  </series>
</linechart>

You would then be able to control the chart’s spacing, layout, colors, and so on by using good old CSS — including media and container queries, to make your charts look good in every situation.

Of course, this is something that’s already possible through web components, and many are experimenting in this direction. But you can’t beat the simplicity of pure HTML/CSS.

And Also…

Here are a couple more quick ones just to keep you on your toes:

Container Style Queries

You might already know that container queries let you define an element’s style based on the width or height of its containing element. Container style queries let you do the same, but based on that container’s — you guessed it — style, and there’s actually already an experimental implementation for it in Chrome Canary.

As Geoff Graham points out, this could take the form of something like:

.posts {
  container-name: posts;
}

@container posts (background-color: #f8a100) {
  /* Change styles when `posts` container has an orange background */
  .post {
    color: #fff;
  }
}

This is a bit like :has(), if :has() lets you select based on styles and not just DOM properties and attributes, which, now that I think about it, might be another cool feature too!

Random Numbers

People have tried to simulate a random number generator in CSS for a long time (using the “Cicada Principle” technique and other hacks), but having true built-in randomness would be great.

A CSS random number generator would be useful not just for pattern-making but for any time you need to make a design feel a little more organic. There is a fairly recent proposal that suggests a syntax for this, so it’ll be interesting to see if we ever get CSS randomness!

Grid Coordinates Selector

What if you could target grid items based on their position in a grid or flexbox layout, either by styling a specific row or column or even by targeting a specific item via its x and y coordinates?

It might seem like a niche use case at first, but as we use Grid and Subgrid more and more, we might also need new ways of targeting specific grid items.

Better Form Styling

Styling form inputs has traditionally been such a pain that many UI libraries decide to abstract away the native form input completely and recreate it from scratch using a bunch of divs. As you might imagine, while this might result in nicer-looking forms, it usually comes at the cost of accessibility.

And while things have been getting better, there’s certainly still a lot we could improve when it comes to forming input styling and styling native widgets in general. The new element proposal is already a great start in that direction.

Animating To Auto

We’ve all run into this: you want to animate an element’s height from 0 to, well, however big it needs to be to show its contents, and that’s when you realize CSS doesn’t let you animate or transition to auto.

There are workarounds, but it would still be nice to have this fixed at the browser level. For this to happen, we’ll also need to be able to use auto inside calc, for example calc(auto / 2 + 200px / 2).

Predicting The Future

Now let’s be real for a second: the chances of any of these features being implemented (let alone supported in all major browsers) are slim, at least if we’re looking at the next couple of years.

But then again, people thought the same about :has() or native CSS nesting, and it does look like we’re well on our way to being able to use those two — and many more — in our code sooner than later.

So let’s touch base again five years from now and see how wrong I was. Until then, I’ll keep charting the course of CSS through our yearly surveys. And I hope you’ll help us by taking this year’s survey!

Thanks to Lea Verou and Bramus Van Damme for their help with this article.

Categories: Others Tags:

How to Make a Folder “Slit” Effect With CSS

October 19th, 2022 No comments

When you put something — say a regular sheet of paper — in a manilla folder, a part of that thing might peek out of the folder a little bit. The same sort of thing with a wallet and credit cards. The cards poke out just a smidge so you can get a quick glance of which cards you’re carrying.

Credit: Stephen Phillips on Unsplash

I call this sort of thing a “slit”. A slit is where we create the illusion of an opening through which we can tease a visual element peeking out of it. And we can do that in CSS!

The crucial part of the design is the shadow, which is what gives the visual cue of there being a slit. Then there’s the cover for the slit which provides the space for the exhibited element to peek through from under.

Here’s what we’re going to make together:

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Let’s begin with creating the shadow

You might be surprised that the shadow in the example is not created with an actual CSS shadow, like box-shadow or a drop-shadow() filter. Instead, the shadow is a separate element in itself, dark and blurred out. This is important in order to make the design more adaptable, both in its default and animated states.

The cover is the other element in the design. The cover is what I call the element that overlaps the shadow. Here’s a figure depicting how the shadow and cover come together.

The shadow is made from a small upright rectangle that has a gradient background. The gradient is darker in the middle. So when the element is blurred, it creates a shadow that’s darker in the middle; hence more dimensional.

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Now, the left half of the recreated shadow is covered with a rectangle on top, colored exactly the same as the background of its container.

Both the cover and the shadow are then moved to the left ever so slightly so it appears to be layered

Working on the cover

For the cover to blend with the design’s background, its background color is inherited from its containing element. Alternatively, you can also try to blend the cover to its background using standards like CSS masks and blend modes, depending on your design choices and requirements.

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To learn some basics on how these standards might be applied, you can refer to these articles: Sarah Drasner’s “Masking vs. Clipping: When to Use Each” provides an excellent primer on masks. I’ve also written about CSS blend modes in this article where you can brush up on the topic.

In the source code of my example, you’ll notice that I aligned and stacked the elements inside the

element using CSS Grid, which is a layout standard I often use in my demos. If you’re recreating a similar design, use a layout method that fits the best for your application to align the different parts of the design. In this case, I’ve set up a single-column grid on the
element which allows me to center align the cover, shadow, and image.

What CSS Grid also allows me to do is set all three of those divs so they are all full-width in the

container:

main > div {
  grid-area: 1 / 1;
}

This gets everything to stack on top of one another. Normally, we work hard to avoid covering elements with other elements in a grid. But this example relies on it. I’ve given the .slit-cover at width of 50% which naturally reveals the image underneath it. From there, I set a transform on it that moves it 50% in the negative direction, plus the small amount I shifted the shadow earlier (25px) to make sure that is revealed as well.

.slit-cover {
  width: 50%;
  transform: translatex(calc(-50% - 25px));
  /* etc. */
}

And there we have it! A pretty natural-looking slit that mimics something peeking out of a folder, wallet, or whatever.

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There are more ways to do this! For one, Flexbox can get elements to line up in a row and align in the center like this. There are lots of ways to get things side-by-side. And maybe you have a way to use the box-shadow property, drop-shadow() filter, or even SVG filters to get the same sort of shadow effect that really sells the illusion.

And you can totally riff on this to get your own look and feel. For example, try swapping the position of the shadow and image. Or play with the color combinations and change the blur() filter value. The shape of the cover and the shadow can also be tweaked — I bet you can create a curved shadow instead of a straight one and share it with us in the comments!

How to Make a Folder “Slit” Effect With CSS originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

Categories: Designing, Others Tags:

Why Do WordPress Theme Backends Have to Suck? (Hint: They Don’t!)

October 18th, 2022 No comments

Whether you’ve worked with a few WordPress themes to design websites or worked with many of them, you’ll no doubt agree that plenty of WordPress themes that are visually gorgeous on the front end can be terribly unattractive and extremely awkward to use on the backend. 

Working with a WordPress theme can sometimes be difficult, but it can be different.

Want proof? Look no further than with BeTheme. 

BeTheme, with 260,000+ sales and counting and a 4.83-star user rating, is one of the top 5 best-selling WordPress themes of all time.

In this article, we’ll show you one of the many reasons why this is the case by focusing on how BeTheme’s backend is designed to make web design tasks more manageable.

Enhance your workflow experience with a WordPress theme backend that won’t stress you out 

Once you install BeTheme, you’ll almost immediately notice it’s different. Instead of a drab and often unintuitive WordPress backend, you’ll suddenly be confronted with a clean, well-organized dashboard and toolset.

You haven’t actually lost anything. WordPress, with its impressive assortment of content management tools, is still there. Be’s backend is a visually appealing space in which you will take pleasure to work.

If only the rest of WordPress could follow suit.

If you haven’t worked with BeTheme recently (or at all), why not let us walk you through several of its most helpful backend features.

Starting with:

1. Dashboard Design

BeTheme’s dashboard is conveniently located directly beneath the main WordPress Dashboard link. So you won’t waste time sifting through the sidebar trying to find your theme’s settings, and everything displayed in the dashboard is designed to help you get the most out of your WordPress theme. 

Clicking on the BeTheme or the Dashboard link gives you immediate access to the following: 

  • Theme registration information
  • BeTheme’s step-by-step website creator
  • A Navigation bar that directs you to BeTheme’s frequently used tools
  • Plugin status and updates and new features announcements
  • The latest additions to BeTheme’s ever-growing library of pre-built websites
  • Beloved BeTheme integrations

It takes a minute to fully appreciate how helpful this dashboard will be. 

BeTheme

2. Dark/Light Mode

Research on dark mode benefits is inconclusive. But since so many people seem to like it, it is offered as an option in many popular apps and devices.

Dark mode users will tell you that they experience less eye strain, they sleep better, and their device’s batteries last longer than is the case with light mode.

BeTheme’s backend offers a dark mode option, and you are encouraged to try it.

If you feel it beneficial, so much the better, and you needn’t concern yourself with what the research indicated, or didn’t indicate.

BeTheme

3. Step-by-Step Website Creator

When you first install a WordPress theme, it’s not uncommon to spend some time trying to figure out what to do next. The theme’s advertisements may highlight a selection of impressive demos, but where are they more exactly?

Of course, you’ll eventually find them, but is whatever difficulty you may have encountered necessary?

BeTheme removes that impediment. 

You will notice the Setup Wizard under BeTheme (and in the dashboard as well.) Click on the wizard, and with its step-by-step website, you can: 

  • Give your website a name.
  • Select the page builder you want to work with and choose your preferred editing mode.
  • Pick an ideal pre-built website based on your new website’s industry or niche.
  • Easily replace existing content with your own.

The entire process of loading your brand-new site and page builder into WordPress takes a minute (or more like 30 seconds once you are used to it).

BeTheme

4. Pre-Built Site Previews

With BeTheme, you can choose from more than 650 pre-built websites. New ones are being added as we speak, and they’re delightfully easy to find. Just look under the dashboard’s Websites link or Pre-built Websites in BeTheme’s sidebar menu, and there they are!

You’ll be familiarized with the available design aids and options in no time, and you’ll find it easy to incorporate the latest design trends into your websites. BeTheme has even placed previews of its newest pre-built websites in your dashboard to help you along.

You may choose one of the latest pre-built websites to work with, or you might find one or more others you particularly like. Pre-built sites you do not plan to work with can still be sources of inspiration.

Whatever your choices, you’ll find it easy to incorporate the latest trends into website designs.

BeTheme

5. Plugin Manager

BeTheme’s Plugins area differs from what you see in the WordPress plugins area. You’ll find several of these differences to be particularly helpful in that BeTheme’s plugins manager enables you to: 

  • View the active plugins you’ve installed.
  • Update plugins when necessary.
  • Install and activate plugins only when it’s required.

The last item is essential in that plugins do not appear in the WordPress plugin manager until you have installed them. Not having to install plugins you will not need will help keep your website operating at a high level of performance.

BeTheme

6. BeTheme Support

WordPress is a powerful content management system and an extremely popular one. It may, in fact, be the most powerful and popular system of its type.

WordPress is also community-driven to a considerable extent, which can sometimes create user inconvenience. As a user, you might sometimes have to dig to find answers to your questions or get help when needed.

You don’t have to experience that inconvenience to get support from BeTheme.

To gain access to BeTheme’s support center, you need go no further than BeTheme’s sidebar or dashboard to access self-support options or open a ticket for direct assistance.

BeTheme

7. Theme Options

Plenty of well-known WordPress themes have theme settings customization capabilities. With BeTheme, it’s easy to set brand colors, choose custom fonts, and establish global layouts. The same holds for configuring responsiveness, performance, and accessibility, all of which are essential for optimizing UX and search engine functionalities.

The problem with most theme options is that they can only be modified from the main WordPress dashboard. So if, while designing on a page, you suddenly realize a portion of its design hasn’t been configured correctly, or you’re dissatisfied with any design segment, you’ll have to save your changes and go to your theme’s backend to make the necessary fixes.

From the BeTheme dashboard inside the BeBuilder BeTheme, you can modify your Theme Options without having to interrupt your workflow.

BeTheme

8. White-Label Mode

A final feature of the BeTheme WordPress theme’s backend you should become familiar with is BeCustom. This critical feature is located under BeTheme in the sidebar.

BeCustom enables you to access some white-label regions in BeTheme. 

  You can use BeCustom to:

  • Substitute Be’s branding with your business’s branding to reinforce your name with your clients.
  • Disable any features your clients have no use for and deny access to any features you do not want them to modify while at the same time making the WordPress theme’s backend easier to work with.
  • Create an extra user-friendly and secure WordPress login.
  • Customize the dashboard’s “Welcome” message.

BeTheme

Make Your WordPress Design Projects Simple to Handle With BeTheme

Is there anything BeTheme doesn’t do?

Most likely, but nothing that would adversely impact your design effort.

This multipurpose WordPress theme’s hundreds of pre-built websites will help you get virtually any website project off to a rapid start and headed in the right direction.

BeTheme features the fastest and most powerful page builder for WordPress.

You will have total control over every feature and facet of your website’s UI.

In short, BeTheme offers the finest way to manage any web design project within WordPress.

 

[- This is a sponsored post on behalf of BeTheme -]

Source

The post Why Do WordPress Theme Backends Have to Suck? (Hint: They Don’t!) first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Categories: Designing, Others Tags:

Top 12 Alternatives to Amazon for the Best Online Shopping Experience

October 18th, 2022 No comments

Amazon has been the top online retailer since its founding in 1994, and it remains one of the most-used and visited sites on the internet. After all, it’s difficult to beat an online shopping site with such an enormous selection of products available at unbeatable prices. 

But nowadays, online shopping has become easier and more enjoyable than ever before, and it also comes with its own set of problems. While major sites like Amazon make it simple to buy anything you want without leaving your home, you may find yourself frustrated by the lengthy delivery times, lack of product selection, or other customer service issues that may arise on these huge websites. Thankfully, there are plenty of alternatives to Amazon out there that can provide an improved shopping experience when you’re ready to give them a try.

If you’re looking for the best online shopping experience, here are the top alternatives to Amazon, so you have more options to choose from when it comes time to buy the perfect product.

1. eBay

If you’re looking for a place that offers similar features as Amazon but with more flexibility, eBay is a great choice. You can buy new and used items here, as well as from individual sellers and shop owners. The site has an advanced search engine that will help you find what you need, and if you want to avoid buying from China or other countries outside of your country’s borders, eBay’s seller requirements make it possible.

Moreover, eBay is one of the few sites that accept PayPal as a form of payment. With free shipping on many items and easy returns, it’s a good alternative to try out.

And if you like bargain hunting and second-hand items then eBay might be the website for you. You can find just about anything there, new or old, at a fraction of the cost as long as you don’t mind waiting for shipping. The products are often in brand-new condition with limited or no cosmetic damage such as scuffs or scratches. With so many sellers on eBay, there are always deals available at rock-bottom prices!

2. Overstock

If you’re looking for a place to shop online, but you think Amazon is not for you, then Overstock is the place to be. This website offers an array of products that are perfect for any occasion, from fashion items to home furnishings. You can find anything from apparel and jewelry to electronics and furniture on this site. 

Another reason Overstock is an excellent choice is that it offers competitive product prices. The website also has a convenient rewards program called Club O Rewards. It’s free to join, and members will get 5% rewards with every purchase they make on their accounts. 

The rewards never expire, so customers can use them whenever they please, even years after they have joined Club O Rewards. The best part about these rewards is that there are no limits on how much customers can earn. So, if you make many purchases throughout the year, you’ll end up getting more money back than what was initially spent!

3. Target

If you’re looking for a better online shopping experience, Target won’t disappoint. The website offers competitive prices and more customer-friendly policies. You can return items at any time in person or by mail, with its generous return policy. 

Target also guarantees free two-day shipping on orders of $35 or more. And there are no surprises with this store: Shipping costs are already built into the price of each item on the site, so you know exactly what you’re going to spend before checkout! Plus, Target’s selection is expansive enough that it’s guaranteed to have something for everyone.

Overall, Target is a solid alternative to Amazon because it offers features that other retailers don’t – like those flexible returns – without sacrificing the convenience factor of an easy purchase process. 

4. Kohl’s

Another popular alternative to Amazon is Kohl’s. Unlike Target, Kohl’s doesn’t offer unlimited free returns in stores or by mail; but they do offer full refunds as long as your return meets their requirements within 90 days of purchase. 

For an even better shopping experience, you can download the Kohl’s app. You can use it to store all your Kohl’s coupons and even your Kohl’s Cash. And when you use it in the physical store, you can get 10 free reward points!

Plus, customers love that they get 10% off every day with their Kohl’s Charge card! For more information about the product offerings at Kohl’s, feel free to explore the website. 

5. Macy’s

If you’re looking for a place to buy clothing, then Macy’s is another good alternative to Amazon. You’ll find affordable prices and a wide range of clothing at this store. Plus, there are deals all year round!  

There is also free shipping on orders over $99, which can be combined with in-store discounts or rewards card incentives. 

Macy’s offers high-quality products that anyone would feel comfortable buying as gifts for others or yourself. 

6. Costco

Costco is one of the largest retailers in the United States, with more than 500 locations and $116 billion in revenue. Not only can you buy groceries there, but you can also find a variety of clothing and home items. 

The best part is that Costco has a Gold Star Membership program that offers savings on almost everything they sell, including some items up to 23% off. 

With a membership, you’ll be able to get your shopping done without any worry about going over budget because all memberships come with an annual renewal payment of just $60. 

Costco is hands down one of many shopper’s favorite alternatives to Amazon because it’s easy to navigate and full of great deals!

7. Etsy

Etsy is an online marketplace that lets you buy and sell handmade or vintage items. Sellers can post as many items as they want, and buyers can search by keyword. You can also find products from local boutiques and artisans. 

Also, Etsy offers a more personal experience because each seller has their own profile page with photos of themselves and their workspace where they produce their goods. 

People love Etsy because it’s a great place to find unique gifts that are not mass-produced, like shoes made out of recycled materials or handmade bracelets created with beads from all over the world. You’ll never know what you’ll find on Etsy! 

There are even shops selling craft supplies, so if you’re looking for something specific and don’t have time to look around in other stores, this could be your best bet. It’s also really easy to get feedback about your order: after buying something on Etsy, you can review it on the site, so other shoppers will know if your experience was good or bad. 

8. Alibaba

Alibaba is a Chinese eCommerce company founded in 1999 by Jack Ma and 16 other people. It is one of the largest online shopping sites in the world, which offers more than 550 million products from 240,000 businesses. Alibaba has also been valued at over $100 billion making it one of the most valuable privately owned companies in the world.

Alibaba’s website is operated as a desktop site and as an app for Android devices. The interface is available in several languages, including English, Spanish, Russian and German. With a mission to create opportunities for small and medium enterprises, Alibaba has set up trading hubs that provide business-to-business (B2B) platforms with international trade data, such as import duties.

Here, you can purchase a vast range of items in bulk, which makes it ideal for entrepreneurs who want to put up physical stores or start their own online stores. 

9. Wish

Wish is an online shopping site with plenty of great deals on electronics, clothing, and home goods. It’s similar to other sites like eBay or Etsy, where sellers list the items that they want to sell. 

But Wish is different in that buyers can make offers on these items, which gives them some negotiating power. The downside of this site is the shipping costs are higher than some of the other sites we mentioned, and there are often reports of counterfeit products from unscrupulous sellers. 

For most people, it may not be worth paying a little more for free 2-day shipping from another site if you’re going to buy something small. For example, you’re likely better off ordering something worth less than $20 on Amazon because you’ll get free 2-day shipping instead of paying $6+ in additional cost with Wish. 

However, if you’re looking for something bigger, like furniture or clothes, then Wish might be your best bet since they offer faster delivery times and lower prices compared to many other retailers (including Amazon). Plus, the option to negotiate prices means you have more control over your spending.

10. Gilt

Gilt is one of the biggest players in the online shopping space, and with new deals every day, it’s easy to see why. The site offers everything from clothes and shoes to furniture and décor, all at up to 60% off. 

If you’re looking for something in particular, Gilt has a search functionality that will help you find it. One downside: there are no big discounts on beauty products or household items (though you can still buy them at full price).

Still, it’s one alternative to Amazon that you shouldn’t miss!

11. Zappos

Zappos is one of the best alternatives to Amazon because it provides excellent customer service and even has its own return and exchange policy. The website also offers free returns on all orders, which is an excellent deal. You can find everything from clothes, shoes, home goods, jewelry, and more at Zappos. 

They have nearly any product that you could want. And you know, if they don’t have what you’re looking for, they will order it for you and ship it right away. What’s not to love about that? 

There are many other online shopping sites that offer great deals, but none compare to how good Zappos is. 

12. AliExpress

AliExpress is a shopping site that’s popular with people in China and offers a vast selection of products, be it the latest Nike shoe design or a book about computer threats, such as vzwpix. It’s similar to eBay, but the main difference is that you can buy items from other countries, not just items made in China. You can also find some higher-end brands at AliExpress that are cheaper than they would be on other sites.

In addition, AliExpress will often have deals or discounts on certain products, which makes it good for finding bargains. It also has an English interface, so it’s easy to navigate if you don’t speak Chinese. The drawback with AliExpress is that there isn’t always customer service available, so if you want to return an item, then make sure to keep the packaging and receipts.

The basic version of AliExpress is free, but some premium features are only available to paying members who can use their PayPal account or credit card to make payments through Alipay. 

AliExpress offers free shipping with no minimum order size on eligible items sold by US sellers and 4-day free shipping on all orders placed within China if you are using Standard Shipping. Customers can find out about the seller’s feedback score before buying their goods, too, so they know if they are getting what they paid for!

Shop with Confidence on These Amazon Alternatives!

Amazon might be the first thing you think of when you want to buy something online, but it shouldn’t be the only one. While Amazon has been hugely successful over the years, it’s not the only option out there – and many of them offer features and conveniences that Amazon simply can’t match. If you’re looking for something different from your standard online shopping experience, consider these alternatives to Amazon as possible options! They all have free trial offers, so you can try them before you buy!

The post Top 12 Alternatives to Amazon for the Best Online Shopping Experience appeared first on noupe.

Categories: Others Tags:

Pure CSS Bezier Curve Motion Paths

October 17th, 2022 No comments
Bézier 2 big

Are you a Bezier curve lover like I am?

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Besides being elegant, Bezier curves have nice mathematical properties due to their definition and construction. No wonder they are widely used in so many areas:

  • As a drawing/design tool: They are often refered to as “paths” in vector drawing software.
  • As a format of representing curves: They are used in SVG, fonts and many other vector graphic formats.
  • As a mathematical function: Often used to control animation timing.

Now, how about using Bezier curves as motion paths with CSS?

Quick Recap

Depending on the context, when referring to a “Bezier curve”, we often assume a 2D cubic Bezier curve.

Such a curve is defined by four points:

MarianSigler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Note: In this article, we generally refer to P0 and P3 as endpoints, P1 and P2 as control points.

The word “cubic” means the underlying function of the curve is a cubic polynomial. There are also “quadratic” Bezier curves, which are similar, but with one fewer control point.

The Problem

Say you are given an arbitrary 2D cubic Beizer curve, how would you animate an element with pure CSS animation, such that it moves precisely along the curve?

As an example, how would you recreate this animation?

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In this article we will explore three methods with different flavors. For each solution we will present an interactive demo, then explain how it works. There are lots of mathematical calculations and proofs behind the scene, but don’t worry, we will not go very deep.

Let’s start!

Method 1: Time Warp

Here’s the basic idea:

  • Set up @keyframes to move the element from one endpoint of the curve to the other.
  • Distort the time for each coordinate individually, using animation-timing-function.

Note: There are lots of examples and explanations in Temani Afif’s article (2021).

Using the cubic-bezier() function with correct parameters, we can create a motion path of any cubic Bezier curve:

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This demo shows a pure CSS animation. Yet canvas and JavaScript are used, which serve two purposes:

  • Visualize the underlying Bezier curve (red curve).
  • Allow adjusting the curve with the typical “path” UI.

You can drag the two endpoints (black dots) and the two control points (black squares). The JavaScript code will update the animation accordingly, by updating a few CSS variables.

Note: Here’s a pure CSS version for reference.

How it works

Suppose the desired cubic Bezier curve is defined by four points: p0, p1, p2, and p3. We set up CSS rules as following:

/* pseudo CSS code */
div {
  animation-name: move-x, move-y;
  /*
    Define:
    f(x, a, b) = (x - a) / (b - a)
    qx1 = f(p1.x, p0.x, p3.x)
    qx2 = f(p2.x, p0.x, p3.x)
    qy1 = f(p1.y, p0.y, p3.y)
    qy2 = f(p2.y, p0.y, p3.y)
  */
  animation-timing-function: 
    cubic-bezier(1/3, qx1, 2/3, qx1),
    cubic-bezier(1/3, qy1, 2/3, qy2);
}

@keyframes move-x {
  from {
    left: p0.x;
  }
  to {
    left: p3.x;
  }
}

@keyframes move-y {
  from {
    top: p0.y;
  }
  to {
    top: p3.y;
  }
}

The @keyframes rules move-x and move-y determine the starting and finishing locations of the element. In animation-timing-function we have two magical cubic-bezier() functions, the parameters are calculated such that both top and left always have the correct values at any time.

I’ll skip the math, but I drafted a brief proof here, for your curious math minds.

Discussions

This method should work well for most cases. You can even make a 3D cubic Bezier curve, by introducing another animation for the z value.

However there are a few minor caveats:

  • It does not work when both endpoints lie on a horizontal or vertical line, because of the division-by-zero error.

Note: In practice, you can just add a tiny offset as a workaround.

  • It does not support Bezier curves with an order higher than 3.
  • Options for animation timing are limited.
    • We use 1/3 and 2/3 above to achieve a linear timing.
    • You can tweak both values to adjust the timing, but it is limited compared with other methods. More on this later.

Method 2: Competing Animations

As a warm-up, imagine an element with two animations:

div {
  animation-name: move1, move2;
}

What is the motion path of the element, if the animations are defined as following:

@keyframes move1 {
  to {
    left: 256px;
  }
}

@keyframes move2 {
  to {
    top: 256px;
  }
}

As you may have guessed, it moves diagonally:

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Now, what if the animations are defined like this instead:

@keyframes move1 {
  to {
    transform: translateX(256px);
  }
}

@keyframes move2 {
  to {
    transform: translateY(256px);
  }
}

“Aha, you cannot trick me!” you might say, as you noticed that both animations are changing the same property, “move2 must override move1 like this:”

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Well, earlier I had thought so, too. But actually we get this:

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The trick is that move2 does not have a from frame, which means the starting position is animated by move1.

In the following demo, the starting position of move2 is visualized as the moving blue dot:

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Quadratic Bezier Curves

The demo right above resembles the construction of a quadratic Bezier curve:

Bézier 2 big
Phil Tregoning, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

But they look different. The construction has three linearly moving dots (two green, one black), but our demo has only two (the blue dot and the target element).

Actually the motion path in the demo is a quadratic Bezier curve, we just need to tune the keyframes carefully. I will skip the math and just reveal the magic:

Suppose a quadratic Bezier curve is defined by points p0, p1, and p2. In order to move an element along the curve, we do the following:

/* pseudo-CSS code */
div {
  animation-name: move1, move2;
}

@keyframes move1 {
  from {
    transform: translate3d(p0.x, p0.y, p0.z);
  }
  /* define q1 = (2 * p1 - p2) */
  to {
    transform: translate3d(q1.x, q1.y, q1.z);
  }
}

@keyframes move2 {
  to {
    transform: translate3d(p2.x, p2.y, p2.z);
  }
}
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Similar to the demo of Method 1, you can view or adjust the curve. Additionally, the demo also shows two more pieces of information:

  • The mathematical construction (gray moving parts)
  • The CSS animations (blue parts)

Both can be toggled using the checkboxes.

Cubic Bezier Curves

This method works for cubic Bezier curves as well. If the curve is defined by points p0, p1, p2, and p3. The animations should be defined like this:

/* pseudo-CSS code */
div {
  animation-name: move1, move2, move3;
}

@keyframes move1 {
  from {
    transform: translate3d(p0.x, p0.y, p0.z);
  }
  /* define q1 = (3 * p1 - 3 * p2 + p3) */
  to {
    transform: translate3d(q1.x, q1.y, q1.z);
  }
}

@keyframes move2 {
  /* define q2 = (3 * p2 - 2 * p3) */
  to {
    transform: translate3d(q2.x, q2.y, q2.z);
  }
}

@keyframes move3 {
  to {
    transform: translate3d(p3.x, p3.y, p3.z);
  }
}
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Extensions

What about 3D Bezier Curves? Actually, the truth is, all the previous examples were 3D curves, we just never bothered with the z values.

What about higher-order Bezier curves? I am 90% sure that the method can be naturally extended to higher orders. Please let me know if you have worked out the formula for fourth-order Bezier curves, or even better, a generic formula for Bezier curves of order N.

Method 3: Standard Bezier Curve Construction

The mathematical construction of Bezier Curves already gives us a good hint.

Bézier 3 big
Phil Tregoning, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Step-by-step, we can determine the coordinates of all moving dots. First, we determine the location of the green dot that is moving between p0 and p1:

@keyframes green0 {
  from {
    --green0x: var(--p0x);
    --green0y: var(--p0y);
  }
  to {
    --green0x: var(--p1x);
    --green0y: var(--p1y);
  }
}

Additional green dots can be constructed in a similar way.

Next, we can determine the location of a blue dot like this:

@keyframes blue0 {
  from {
    --blue0x: var(--green0x);
    --blue0y: var(--green0y);
  }
  to {
    --blue0x: var(--green1x);
    --blue0y: var(--green1y);
  }
}

Rinse and repeat, eventually we will get the desired curve.

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Similar to Method 2, with this method we can easily build a 3D Bezier Curve. It is also intuitive to extend the method for higher-order Bezier curves.

The only downside is the usage of @property, which is not supported by all browsers.

Animation Timing

All the examples so far have the “linear” timing, what about easing or other timing functions?

Note: By “linear” we mean the variable t of the curve linearly changes from 0 to 1. In other words, t is the same as animation progress.

animation-timing-function is never used in Method 2 and Method 3. Like other CSS animations, we can use any supported timing function here, but we need to apply the same function for all animations (move1, move2, and move3) at the same time.

Here’s an example of animation-timing-function: cubic-bezier(1, 0.1, 0, 0.9):

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And here’s how it looks like with animation-timing-function: steps(18, end):

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On the other hand, Method 1 is trickier, because it already uses a cubic-bezier(u1, v1, u2, v2) timing function. In the examples above we have u1=1/3 and u2=2/3. In fact we can tweak the timing by changing both parameters. Again, all animations (e.g., move-x and move-y) must have the same values of u1 and u2.

Here’s how it looks like when u1=1 and u2=0:

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With Method 2, we can achieve exactly the same effect by setting animation-timing-function to cubic-bezier(1, 0.333, 0, 0.667):

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In fact, it works in a more general way:

Suppose that we are given a cubic Bezier curve, and we created two animations for the curve with Method 1 and Method 2 respectively. For any valid values of u1 and u2, the following two setups have the same animation timing:

  • Method 1 with animation-timing-function: cubic-bezier(u1, *, u2, *).
  • Method 2 with animation-timing-function: cubic-bezier(u1, 1/3, u2, 2/3).

Now we see why Method 1 is “limited”: with Method 1 we can only cubic-bezier() with two parameters, but with Method 2 and Method 3 we can use any CSS animation-timing-function.

Conclusions

In this article, we discussed 3 different methods of moving elements precisely along a Bezier curve, using only CSS animations.

While all 3 methods are more or less practical, they have their own pros and cons:

  • Method 1 might be more intuitive for those familiar with the timing function hack. But it is less flexible with animation timing.
  • Method 2 has very simple CSS rules. Any CSS timing function can be applied directly. However, it could be hard to remember the formulas.
  • Method 3 make more sense for those familiar with the math construction of Bezier curves. Animation timing is also flexible. On the other hand, not all modern browsers are supported, due the usage of @property.

That’s all! I hope you find this article interesting. Please let me know your thoughts!

Pure CSS Bezier Curve Motion Paths originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

Categories: Designing, Others Tags:

Exciting New Tools for Designers, October 2022

October 17th, 2022 No comments

We write this guide to the best new tools for designers and developers each month. For October, we’ve sought out tools to make you a better website builder, some handy utilities to make you more productive, and a spooky font for the end of the month. Enjoy!

Microsoft Designer

Microsoft Designer is a brand-new app for creating images from text prompts. You can create social media posts, blog images, and any other assets you need with its step-by-step guided process.

Remix

Remix is a full-stack web framework for React that lets you focus on designing your UI. Remix is geared towards web standards and delivers a resilient user experience so you can build better sites.

Ultra

Ultra is a super-fast package manager that uses hardlinks to install packages. It’s up to ten times faster than NPM and Yarn, and the project is open-source.

AskEdith

AskEdith is an AI-powered app that translates English into SQL so you can query your database without writing custom SQL. Just type a description of what you want to know, and the app creates the query for you.

Wide Angle Analytics

Wide Angle Analytics is a GDPR-compliant Google Analytics alternative that puts privacy first. Track actions across multiple sites and discover insights about your site without exposing yourself to privacy violations.

story.to.design

Imagine being able to import a whole webpage straight into Figma. You can, with story.to.design, a fantastic app that imports code into Figma for updating UI elements or speeding up redesigns.

Metlo

Metlo is a testing platform for securing APIs. By running comprehensive tests against your API, you can uncover issues like unidentified endpoints, before they become a security threat.

StockAI

Nothing is more frustrating than searching for the right stock image when one doesn’t exist. StockAI is a day-saver that searches for stock images, and if the sought-after image doesn’t exist, it will generate one for you.

Growthfyi

If ad-blockers are playing havoc with your Google Analytics, check out this script from Growthfyi. It’s an invaluable service that doubles the speed of GA while ensuring ad-blockers don’t catch it.

Sourcery

Sourcery is an excellent tool for developers that continually reviews your code and suggests improvements automatically. Write better code, and catch errors before it goes to review.

Cyber Security Icons

This set of Cyber Security Icons contains 20 illustration-style icons. In addition, there are some great interpretations of complex ideas like retina scans, crypto vaults, and end-to-end encryption.

Blinqo

Blinqo is a handy little Chrome extension for anyone that needs to share their screen. It allows you to blur parts of your screen when sharing or recording, so your private details remain private.

Instaprice

Instaprice is a helpful new service that shows you what other freelancers charge for the job you’re quoting on. Earn the actual market rates and never get caught out undercharging again!

Leta

Leta is a great app that allows you to design your own keyboard layout. You can redesign the key positions for macOS, Linux, or Windows and download them for free.

Blogic

Build blogs powered by the Notion API with Blogic, a no-code blog builder that can create fast, SEO-friendly blogs in under a minute. Custom domains and third-party scripts are supported.

Digital Maker Toolkit

The Digital Maker Toolkit is a collection of resources for anyone releasing digital products. It includes guides on process, a handy step-by-step checklist, a list of further resources, and a guide to the available tools.

Slides

Slides is a static website generator you can use to create beautiful, animated websites in minutes. Select layouts from a collection of templates and publish with clean code that downloads fast.

AXplorer

AXplorer is a privacy-focused browser with a built-in VPN. Created by the Axia blockchain network, it generates free crypto in the form of AXIA coins when using it to browse the web.

Font Engine

Can’t decide on a font for your latest side project? Font Engine is a handy little app that will suggest fonts for you. Just tell it your brand values and hit the ‘Suggest’ button.

Deliciozo

Deliciozo is an excellent display font with irregular strokes and styling, making it feel like a paper cut-out. It’s perfect for magazines, cookbooks, and even logos.

Kayino

If you’re looking for a font to convey the hippy era, look no further than the psychedelic stylings of Kayino, a groovy display font with crazy details.

Noganas

Noganas is a spooktacular font for the upcoming Halloween festivities. Use it to add some gruesome frivolity to your seasonal designs.

Source

The post Exciting New Tools for Designers, October 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

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