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The CSS Layout Masterclass

Rachel Andrew
Your instructor
Rachel Andrew
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Workshop includes:

  • Snacks and drinks
  • Tea and Coffee
  • Lunch
  • Paper and pen/pencil

Full-day workshop • Monday, November 9th
We’ve been learning CSS and CSS for Layout in the same way since we broke free of table-based layouts in 2001, however CSS has grown-up and over the last few years a proper and consistent system for layout has emerged.

In this all-new workshop Rachel Andrew will take you through this new system for layout, giving you the ability to properly understand and use CSS Layout with real understanding of why things behave as they do.

We can understand CSS layout as a system, and rather than poke around using trial and error to do layout, learn the rules that control this system saving a lot of time and enabling more elegant and performant layouts.

This understanding will make choices such as “should I use grid or flexbox” or, “what do I do about old browsers” much easier, in fact sometimes the answer will be so obvious, you’ll not need to ask those questions!

Who Is This For?

This workshop is for front-end and full stack developers. If you love CSS already, you will enjoy gaining a deeper understanding of the language. If writing CSS is not your favourite thing, then you’ll come away with a better understanding of how things work, and the ability to treat CSS in the same way you treat other languages. Even if you don’t leave loving CSS, you will leave being able to do the parts of your job that involve CSS in a faster and better way.

This workshop is also structured to make it as easy as possible for you to share what you have learned with your team. If part of your job is to help other team members with their CSS, you’ll find you have better ways to explain things to them.

We Will Cover

  • The basic design principals behind CSS
  • What is the display property really, and how has it changed?
  • Formatting contexts
  • Multi-column Layout
  • Fragmentation
  • Grid Layout - including subgrid
  • Flexbox
  • Sizing, alignment and writing modes
  • Developing robust fallbacks for browsers without support
  • Feature Queries
  • Media Queries - including the new features in Media Queries level 4 such as pointer detection, and prefers color scheme
  • The contain property - using CSS to improve performance
  • Using DevTools to understand and debug layouts Rachel will also be happy to answer specific questions you might have along the way.

What Do You Need To Bring?

A laptop, with an up to date copy of Chrome and Firefox. That’s it!

About Rachel Andrew

Rachel Andrew is a front and back-end web developer, author and speaker. Author or co-author of 22 books including The New CSS Layout and a regular contributor to a number of publications both on and offline.

Rachel is co-founder of the CMS Perch and Notist, Editor in Chief of Smashing Magazine, a Google Developer Expert and an Invited Expert to the CSS Working Group. She writes about business and technology on her own site at rachelandrew.co.uk.

Time & Location

This full-day workshop will be hosted at Fort Mason and will take place the day before SmashingConf. The workshop will be running from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM on Monday, November 9th.

Schedule for Monday, November 9th

9:00 AM – Doors open, Registration
9:30 AM – Introduction & Kick-off
11:00 AM – Coffee Break
1:00 PM – Lunch
2:00 PM – Afternoon Session
3:30 PM – Coffee Break
5:30 PM – The End

Save 100 USD when signing up for the conference and a workshop!