Using JavaScript Modules

A few weeks ago I spent some time breaking apart Sass files into smaller segments for a project at work, trying to go for a more modular approach for the CSS. Doing this in Sass is pretty simple. Pull out a section of styles into a new “partials” file, named something like _module.scss. Then in the main Sass file, import the module with @import "module";.

For quite a while I’ve wanted to be able to take a similar approach with JavaScript, breaking the main file into modules and using Sass-like imports to pull them all together. I knew this was supposed to be possible with ES6 modules, but every time I started doing the research, I was overwhelmed by new JavaScript techniques and tools (Babel? Webpack? Browserify? Rollup? RequireJS?). After my most recent attempt to find and understand a solution, I finally came up with something that works and I’m fairly happy with.

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Connect Navigation

My team recently finished an overhaul of the navigation on our primary product, K-State Connect. Connect serves as a dashboard for Kansas State University, displaying various university services within “widgets”. The main goal of the navigation re-design was to add links directly to each of the widgets within the dashboard. The navigation was also in need of a better small screen experience.

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An Event Apart Orlando 2016

Photo source: Zeffrey Zeldman
Photo source: Zeffrey Zeldman

I was fortunate enough to attend An Event Apart in Orlando this month. I’ve posted my complete notes separately, but below you will find some of the key themes from the conference as well as an overview of each talk. You can also take a look at Articles, Links, and Tools From An Event Apart Orlando 2016 for more information and resources.

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