---
title: "This Week's HTML5 and Browser Technology News (Issue 182)"
publication: "Frontend Focus"
issue: 182
published_at: "2015-04-01"
canonical_url: "https://frontendfoc.us/issues/182"
---
This Week's HTML5 and Browser Technology News (Issue 182)
No April Fools. A look at Spartan. Background positioning in CSS. W3C's new HTML5 course. — [Read this e-mail on the Web](http://frontendfoc.us/issues/182)
Frontend FocusIssue 182 — April 1, 2015
Don't fear - we're aiming to be an April Fool's free zone. Let's hope no-one tricked us! ;-)[A Closer Look At Project Spartan, Microsoft's IE Killer](http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/31/8319169/project-spartan-new-browser-microsoft-hands-on?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) The Verge takes a high level look at Microsoft’s new browser-in-progress. It looks promising but there’s a long way to go. The Verge
[A Primer To Background Positioning In CSS](http://blogs.adobe.com/dreamweaver/2015/03/a-primer-to-background-positioning-in-css.html?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) Many CSS properties exist that allow us to control different aspects of an element’s background and its positioning. Sara Soueidan
[HTML-GL: Get As Many FPS As You Need by Rendering HTML/CSS in WebGL](https://github.com/PixelsCommander/HTML-GL?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) Aims to solve the ‘slow DOM problem’ by rendering normal page elements to WebGL instead. An interesting idea but not something I’d put into production yet. Denis Radin
[](http://demos.componentone.com/wijmo/5/Angular/HistoryOfFlexGrid/HistoryOfFlexGrid/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email)[Explore the 20 Year History of a DataGrid](http://demos.componentone.com/wijmo/5/Angular/HistoryOfFlexGrid/HistoryOfFlexGrid/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) Tour the history of this trusted DataGrid control. [See how this grid evolved](http://demos.componentone.com/wijmo/5/Angular/HistoryOfFlexGrid/HistoryOfFlexGrid/?utm_source=HTML5%20Weekly&utm_medium=Apr.1%20History%20of%20FlexGrid%20primary&utm_campaign=Wijmo%205) from Windows 95 to HTML5 and what it looked like along the way. FlexGrid is now part of Wijmo 5, a new generation of JavaScript controls. WijmoSponsor
[W3C Launches HTML5 Course in Partnership with edX](http://www.w3.org/blog/news/archives/4536?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) The [first W3Cx course](https://www.edx.org/course/learn-html5-w3c-w3cx-html5-1x) will focus on Web design fundamentals at an intermediate level and start on June 1. W3C News
[Firefox 37 Released: Media Source Extensions, display:contents, Improved Security](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/37.0/releasenotes/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) Firefox 37 hit the release channel yesterday and has a range of minor improvements. It now opportunistically encrypts HTTP traffic on certain HTTP/2 connections, IndexedDB is now available from worker threads, and it supports enough of MSE to use YouTube’s native HTML5 player. Mozilla
[browser.html: An Experimental Browser Built in HTML](https://github.com/mozilla/browser.html?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) browser.html is a platform research project (yes, it’s solely a prototype/work in progress, not a product) closely related to Mozilla’s Servo project. Mozilla
[An Introduction to the CSS will-change Property](http://www.sitepoint.com/introduction-css-will-change-property/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) A property that lets you inform the browser of what kinds of changes are likely to occur on an element so it can optimize for them ahead of time. SitePoint
Jobs [](https://hired.com/join/?utm_source=petercooperpress&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_campaign=%28b2c%29%28l-all%29%28r-swe%29%28q2-17-frontend-focus%29&utm_content=newsletter)
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- [Freelance with Companies like Airbnb, IDEO JPMorgan](http://www.toptal.com/developers?utm_source=html5_weekly&utm_medium=cpm-newsletter&utm_campaign=html5_weekly_job)Work on special projects with great companies through Toptal. Set your weekly/hourly rate, and work from anywhere in the world as an elite HTML5 developer. See if you have what it takes. TopTal
Can't find the right job? Want companies to apply to _you?_ [Try Hired.com.](https://hired.com/?utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=petercooperpress&utm_term=cat-tech-frontend&utm_campaign=q2-17-frontend)
In Brief
[Announcing Forward 3 Speakers: Doug Crockford, Steve Souders, Christian Heilmann, Sarah Mei many more](http://forwardjs.com/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) news
Forward Web Technology SummitSponsor
[What Do You Want From Your (Firefox) DevTools?](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/03/what-do-you-want-from-your-devtools/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) news
Mozilla Hacks
[What Do You Mean by "Shaders"? How to Create Them with HTML5 and WebGL](http://www.sitepoint.com/mean-shaders-create-html5-webgl/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) html5
A rather extensive tutorial.
SitePoint
[Setting A Custom Ghost Image When using HTML5 Drag and Drop](http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/custom-drag-image.html?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) tutorial
Stuart Langridge
[Blocking HTML Links with Pure CSS](http://www.juusohaavisto.com/post/blocking-html-links-with-pure-css?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) tutorial
An interesting trick seeking a ‘why’.
Juuso Haavisto
[The SVG Canvas, Coordinate System, And Viewport](http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/svg-viewport/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) tutorial
Steven Bradley
[The State of HTML Content Rasterization with JavaScript](http://pixelscommander.com/en/javascript/state-of-html-content-rasterization-draw-html-to-canvas-image/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) opinion
Pixels Commander
[The Origin of The 'blink' Tag](http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email)
Louis J. Montulli II
[HTML Entities for Special Symbols](http://www.sabinanore.com/design/html-special-symbols/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email)
Sabina Nore
[Modern Tooling (for W3C Standards)](http://w3c.github.io/modern-tooling/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email)
Capturing the state of the discussion about modernizing the tooling that supports the making of W3C standards.
W3C
[WebRTC in Firefox 38: Multistream and Renegotiation](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/03/webrtc-in-firefox-38-multistream-and-renegotiation/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email)
Mozilla Hacks
[Fast HTML5 Charts That Work Everywhere](http://www.zingchart.com/tour/html5-charts/?utm_source=cooperPress&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=html5-weekly-secondary-04-01-2015) tools
Charts break when data gets big? Compatibility issues? Time to try ZingChart! See it in action.
ZingChartSponsor
[Pixel Perfect 2: Extension for Firefox Developer Tools](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/03/pixel-perfect-2-extension-for-firefox-developer-tools/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) tools
Enables web designers to overlay a web page with layers of semi-transparent images so they can tweak the page’s content until it matches.
Mozilla Hacks
[TANX: Online Multiplayer Tank Battle using WebGL and Node.js](http://playcanv.as/p/aP0oxhUr?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) demo
PlayCanvas
[Space.js: HTML-Driven Narrative 3D-scrolling](http://www.slashie.org/space.js/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) code
There’s [an article](http://www.slashie.org/articles/space.js/) with some background.
Patrik Göthe
[gulp-check-unused-css: Check Your HTML Templates for Unused CSS Classes](https://github.com/zalando/gulp-check-unused-css?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) code
Zalando SE
[noVNC: VNC Client using HTML5 Tech with Encryption (wss://) Support.](https://github.com/kanaka/noVNC?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) code
Joel Martin
[RWDGrid: Responsive Grid System for your Next Project](http://rwdgrid.com/?utm_source=frontendfocus&utm_medium=email) code
A small (2KB) mobile-first grid system based around HTML5 Boilerplate.
RWDGrid
Curated by [Peter Cooper](http://twitter.com/peterc) and [Chris Brandrick](http://twitter.com/chrisbrandrick) and published by [Cooperpress](https://cooperpress.com/).
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