
Access CSS Variables from a Database via db‑connect
In CSS, db‑connect is a misunderstood but immensely useful technique for connecting to databases directly from vanilla CSS in order to access stored properties.
Articles
Front‑end web development is my personal niche, it is the art of creating visual and interactive elements for a website, including layout, design, and interactivity, using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Below you will find a subset of articles from my blog specifically about Front‑End Development. This is an area I have worked with for many years, and it has been a regular subject in my writing. There are four hundred fifteen articles collected together for you below.

db‑connectIn CSS, db‑connect is a misunderstood but immensely useful technique for connecting to databases directly from vanilla CSS in order to access stored properties.

How Incremental Static Regeneration affects CMS publishing freshness, including rebuild timing, stale pages, previews, and editorial expectations.

Compare React functional, class, and pure components, including reusable component design, presentation boundaries, legacy patterns, and when each fits.

What a software engineer does day to day, from understanding requirements and writing code to testing, maintenance, teamwork, and long‑term system improvement.

It is fair to say that the programming and technology job markets are fairly buoyant, and now has never been a better time to make a career change.

Preview Mode in Next.js explained with a headless CMS, draft content workflows, preview cookies, and how editors can see unpublished pages safely.

Website theft is frustrating, but there are practical ways to spot it and respond. This guide covers copied text, copied code, and escalation options.

Sort object keys in JavaScript by extracting entries, ordering keys, rebuilding objects, and understanding when predictable key order is useful clearly.

Plan CMS preview in Gatsby workflows by setting expectations around draft content, preview builds, webhooks, deployment timing, and editor confidence.

Disable Gatsby telemetry cleanly, with context on what anonymous analytics collect, why teams opt out, and how the setting affects local and CI work.

p Tags from Contentful List ItemsOne of the quirks of rendering Rich Text from Contentful is that list items come wrapped in paragraph <p> tags. Fortunately, this is a simple one to resolve.

Render CMS rich text safely in Gatsby and React with node mapping, link handling, embeds, headings, validation, and failure‑safe fallbacks.

Contentful rich text and Gatsby work well together until code snippets enter the picture. This guide shows how to render inline and block code cleanly.

Why Gatsby and Contentful can still work well for static sites, where the pairing becomes strained and when migration pressure is worth reviewing.

An exploration of array‑like objects in JavaScript. Explanations of their unique characteristics and how to navigate them easily in front‑end development.

Replace Gatsby inline styles with an external stylesheet when needed, weighing render speed, caching, CSS Modules, styled‑components, and cleaner output.

Based in Brighton, I offer expert web development services in the South East. With more than 20 years of experience, I deliver tailored, future‑proof solutions.
Although an extremely useful aspect of Gatsby, source maps cause a performance hit as well as leaving your source exposed. Here is how to turn them off!