Zell Liew is a front-end developer, writer, and creator known for deep, practical explorations of CSS, JavaScript, accessibility, and modern web tooling. His work blends thoughtful technical guidance with personal reflections on life, work, and growth, and is frequently featured on CSS-Tricks and Splendid Labz.
291 articles from this blog
Third part of a series on designing a JavaScript course portal, focusing on the Account page for password changes and a Components page for lesson organization.
The author details the design process for a JavaScript course portal, focusing on the content and login pages for better usability.
A step-by-step guide to installing and configuring MongoDB on macOS, including specific instructions for Catalina and newer versions.
The author details the design process for the Learn JavaScript course portal, focusing on typography, layout, and heading structure for optimal learning.
A guide to programmatically finding keyboard-focusable elements for accessible JavaScript widgets, including a reusable function.
A tutorial on creating multi-line gradient text links with CSS, covering browser compatibility and styling underlines.
A tutorial on using Mongoose's Population feature to link MongoDB collections, preventing document size limits by separating blog posts and comments.
A tutorial on using Mongoose subdocuments (embedded documents) in MongoDB, covering schema creation and document manipulation.
A beginner's guide to using Mongoose, a library that simplifies working with MongoDB in Node.js, covering connection and schema creation.
Advice for coding bootcamp students struggling with JavaScript, discussing whether to stay or quit and offering encouragement.
A guide to using Homebrew, the package manager for macOS, covering installation, updating, and managing packages like Node.js.
A guide to handling both synchronous and asynchronous errors in Express.js applications, including custom error handlers.
A guide for aspiring web developers on choosing programming languages, covering essential frontend (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and backend options.
Explains the roles of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in web development using a house analogy to illustrate structure, style, and behavior.
Explains why CSS :hover, :focus, and :active states should be styled differently for better accessibility and user experience.
A tutorial on creating custom CSS focus styles, demonstrating techniques from Smashing Magazine, WTF Forms, and Slack.
Analyzes the pros and cons of browser default focus styles and explores custom design alternatives for better accessibility and branding.
A guide on converting Node.js-style callbacks and non-standard callbacks into Promises using util.promisify and custom promise construction.
Explains three useful Express.js middlewares: Morgan for logging, and custom ones for camelCase conversion and removing empty properties.
Analyzes inconsistent browser behavior when clicking buttons, focusing on focus, tabbing, and keypress handling across Safari and Firefox.
