CSS you can get excited about in 2015

The article reviews several newer CSS modules and features that were gaining browser support in 2015. It says many of them were not ready for production everywhere yet, but they were useful for prototyping and for learning what CSS would soon make possible.

Reading notes

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• CSS keeps evolving, and the article focuses on features that designers could start experimenting with as browser support improved.
• Selectors Level 4 adds a more flexible :not() syntax, the relational :has() pseudo-class, and :matches() for grouping selectors.
• Blend modes let CSS combine backgrounds, images, and text effects in the browser, with support varying across modern browsers and fallback quality mattering.
• calc() makes it possible to do math in CSS, including positioning background images by subtracting pixels from percentages.
• CSS Variables bring reusable values for colors and fonts into CSS itself, but the article says browser support was still limited.
• CSS Exclusions let text wrap around positioned rectangular objects, using wrap-flow and requiring limited support, especially in Internet Explorer.
• CSS Shapes go beyond rectangles and allow text to wrap around non-rectangular forms, using shape-outside on floated elements.
• CSS Grid Layout is presented as the author’s favorite emerging feature because it lets layouts be defined in CSS, adapted with media queries, and layered on a grid.