Jake Archibald

Developer of sorts at Firefox, but this is my personal account. No thought goes unpublished. He/him.

GitHub: https://github.com/jakearchibald

Public Key

npub1dpjjsyh6ag5p0anhrpzp8d73var3v5l06t4aktylcgslef40ff2q08e0jl

NIP-05 Address

jaffathecake_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsxsefgztaw52qh7em3s3qnklgkw3ck20ha967m9j0uyg0u56h554qpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds3gq2w5

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1dpjjsyh6ag5p0anhrpzp8d73var3v5l06t4aktylcgslef40ff2q08e0jl

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Last Notes

2026-08-26 14:00:16 UTC

📝 When and how CSS custom properties are calculated might not be what you expect, and it has a big impact on your styles.
Here's how it works: https://jakearchibald.com/2026/css-custom-property-compute-time/

2026-08-21 11:51:14 UTC

Have you ever wanted hovering a tooltip/popover to also trigger a hover effect on the target of the tooltip? Or would that feel buggy?

2026-06-29 14:24:25 UTC

There's an ideal set of sizing constraints for custom <select>, but the CSS is a bit tricky.
Here's how to make it work, and a tour of new CSS features along the way.
https://jakearchibald.com/2026/goldilocks-select-height/

2026-05-28 08:25:53 UTC

https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/651/244/076/449/453/original/a974a39c5788235a.png

2026-05-27 09:38:11 UTC

Watch out! Chrome has a huge bug with <input type="number"> which causes values to change unexpectedly.
It's fixed in Chrome 150, but that won't land until the end of June.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/645/867/330/327/451/original/a33e3944f60ff985.mp4

2026-05-14 06:32:18 UTC

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Yeah! Although… it seems like there's an oklch technique that picks better values https://random-stuff.jakearchibald.com/color-contrast/#2277d3

2026-05-06 09:50:27 UTC

So, Chrome's "web standard" Prompt API:
Mozilla: Opposed
WebKit: Opposed
Microsoft: Several concerns
W3C TAG: Several concerns
Developers: Mostly negative
Chrome: Ships anyway.
A sad time for web standards. But, I guess someone at Google will get promoted, so 'every cloud…'

2026-04-02 09:05:13 UTC

I've been playing around with Chrome's experimental HTML-in-Canvas API (I use it to create my videos), and I wanted to see if I could make text-selection work on a curved surface by moving the underlying element around on pointermove. It works pretty well!
Live demo: https://random-stuff.jakearchibald.com/apps/curved-markup/ (needs Chrome Canary with the canvas-draw-element flag.
Source: https://github.com/jakearchibald/random-stuff/blob/main/apps/curved-markup/src/App/index.tsx#L113
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/334/307/738/916/951/original/4e606d6fe8bba0bf.mp4

2026-03-31 09:37:55 UTC

Folks asked if there was a way to disable Chrome's own 'back' transitions, and I didn't think there was, but… you can use a CloseWatcher to listen for the back gesture (which disables Chrome's transition), and then call history.back().
https://mastodon.social/@firefoxwebdevs/116295985768415581
#note10kq…rq8l

2026-01-07 17:50:35 UTC

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thank you for saying that. It's… been a rough day.

2025-12-20 12:19:04 UTC

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the wonderful @npub1y3j…ymdz

2025-12-20 10:40:28 UTC

It's really sad that Chrome laid off one of the world's best CSS developer-designers, and now they have to fake demos of web features. https://youtu.be/d8J0vs-bEPE?si=l7YPHL8Tws-0iiBL

2025-11-19 00:03:48 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.social/@FirefoxDevTools/115573428208353380
I'm experimenting with this format. Is it… good? Like, should I do more of this kind of thing? Critical feedback welcome!
#note1445…ceck

2025-10-26 21:02:35 UTC

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it's not something I've needed either, but I know the Svelte and Astro folks have been bitten by this bug.

2025-10-26 20:17:55 UTC

JavaScript top-level await is no longer considered 'baseline' due to a pretty big Safari bug https://caniuse.com/mdn-javascript_operators_await_top_level
The module graph fails in cases where two modules import a third at the same time. Demo: https://random-stuff.jakearchibald.com/bug-repros/top-level-await-webkit/?timeout=1000
It's best to avoid the feature for now 😔

2025-10-22 14:50:57 UTC

📝 Importing vs fetching JSON
JSON imports are now supported cross-browser, but when would you use them rather than fetch()?
https://jakearchibald.com/2025/importing-vs-fetching-json/

2025-10-16 10:16:32 UTC

I dug into progressive image rendering and found a bunch of common assumptions aren't quite true.
➡️ JPEG & WebP progressive-renders worse in Safari
➡️ AVIF _does_ support progressive
➡️ But JPEG XL in Safari doesn't
➡️ JPEG XL decodes much slower than AVIF
⬇️ …and more
https://jakearchibald.com/2025/present-and-future-of-progressive-image-rendering/

2025-09-30 10:39:26 UTC

A bunch of Firefox leadership will be doing a Reddit AMA, October 6th, at 10:30 PT. If you have questions you want to ask them directly, pop the date in your calendar https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1ntui9x/upcoming_ama_with_firefox_leadership/

2025-09-29 08:38:08 UTC

SVGOMG has been updated to use SVGO 4! (thanks Adrien Crivelli!)
This is the URL for SVGOMG. Unfortunately someone maintains a fork with ads, so, err, don't use that 😀
https://jakearchibald.github.io/svgomg/

2025-09-03 14:00:32 UTC

Hey folks! Are you interested in fetch upload streams? If so, what do you want to use them for?
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/140/724/120/031/925/original/f4bb572137beda63.png

2025-09-02 17:23:34 UTC

📝 Making XML human-readable without XSLT.
Turns out, JavaScript works pretty well!
https://jakearchibald.com/2025/making-xml-human-readable-without-xslt/

2025-08-22 09:55:37 UTC

Yay! It's the first Firefox release since I've joined the team, so let's take a look at some of the new developer-facing features in Firefox 142… 🧵

2025-08-21 08:17:18 UTC

View Transitions are enabled by default in Firefox Nightly, so they're on their way to stable. Give it a test with your current transitions, and give me a shout if anything doesn't look right.
I'm happy to report the most important transition works perfectly https://simple-vt-demos.jakearchibald.com/batman-transition/

2025-07-31 12:58:46 UTC

Starting my new role on Monday. Could be anywhere.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/947/962/351/080/799/original/21dccc81aedd7c62.jpg

2025-07-01 19:13:51 UTC

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it literally makes my day when people enjoy my bullshit

2025-07-01 18:44:35 UTC

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oh mate it was a long and arduous post, by design. I had more fun writing it than anyone had reading it.

2025-07-01 16:43:00 UTC

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as far as I can tell, the difference between section & aside is the role, which you're overwriting anyway.

2025-07-01 15:23:01 UTC

I hate footnotes, especially on the web, and hopefully by the end of this, you will too.
https://jakearchibald.com/2025/give-footnotes-the-boot/

2025-03-29 10:27:43 UTC

I think Meta's going to win the AI race lads!
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/245/239/571/085/602/original/6dac5372f6ac8feb.png

2024-11-18 13:48:11 UTC

🔊 ICYMI: @npub1228…wtdf talked through Nix in the last OTMT, comparing it to other build systems we'd looked at in previous episodes https://offthemainthread.tech/episode/nix/

2024-11-06 12:57:51 UTC

Wow Google Docs, this is some of the worst copywriting I've seen in a long time.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/436/085/776/251/843/original/0fd59fd18814adb0.png

2024-10-18 11:46:37 UTC

I'm excited that we're finally getting a customisable <select> on the web. However, there's one detail of it I'm really not sure about, and I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Have your say before it's too late 😀
https://jakearchibald.com/2024/how-should-selectedoption-work/

2024-09-18 08:27:22 UTC

`el.className` and `el.htmlFor` have such unusual names because `class` and `for` used to be reserved words in JS. That hasn't been true for property names for 10+ years.
Firefox is experimenting with adding `el.class` and `el.for`, yay!
https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/9379#issuecomment-2357214793

2024-08-05 11:29:11 UTC

📝 I set off to find the best way to make video with transparency work on the web.
Over 10 bug reports later, it turns out it's better to handle the transparency manually with WebGL. Here's how:
https://jakearchibald.com/2024/video-with-transparency/

2024-07-02 14:06:27 UTC

🔊 Are Web Components Worth It?
In the latest OTMT, me and @npub1228…wtdf look at the benefits and tradeoffs of web components, and how things could improve.
⬇️ Listen here ⬇️
https://offthemainthread.tech/episode/are-web-components-worth-it/