Format · 50 posts

Asides

Firefox 138 introduces the long-awaited profile manager

Firefox logo. Silhouette of a red panda wrapped in a blue circle.

Firefox 138, released this Tuesday (29th), introduces the long-awaited profile manager. The official documentation explains that “creating multiple profiles allows you to keep separate browsing data, themes or settings for different purposes, such as work and personal use.”

There are also new contrast options focused on accessibility, and in Windows 11, context menus now have that translucent (“acrylic”) look that is standard in the OS. Release notes and download.

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Beautifying the text on the web with modern CSS

Another chapter in the series “fascinated by the details of CSS,” this time featuring the attribute text-wrap: pretty and how browsers handle line breaks, “typographic river” (a concept I wasn’t familiar with), and the length of the final line.

Safari is the second-to-last major browser to implement text-wrap: pretty, a feature announced in a super detailed post, which is quite interesting. “Pretty” in English means “beautiful”; I find it lovely that the CSS specification delegates the decisions for presenting beautified text to each browser.

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CSS Naked Day

This Wednesday (the 9th) we’re celebrating CSS Naked Day. You see, CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, which is basically the “clothes” of a website — a super simple yet powerful language for styling web pages. Take a look at ours.

I thought I’d jump in on the fun! Just for today. Tomorrow (the 10th) the site will be back to normal.

WordPress is switching from three major releases a year to just one

WordPress is switching from three major releases a year to just one. This new cadence kicks in for 2025 — with WordPress 6.8, scheduled for next Tuesday (April 15th), set to be the only release for the year.

The change was announced during an online meeting with core contributors on March 27th, as reported by The Repository. Some of the contributors who attended the meeting shared their frustration, feeling that Matt Mullenweg, the project’s lead, had already made up his mind to slow the release cadence ahead of the discussion.

Earlier this month, Automattic let go of 16% of its workforce — about 280 folks spread across 90 countries.

It’s worth noting that the cascade of bad news for WordPress seems to have started when Matt impulsively got himself and Automattic tangled in a legal battle with WP Engine over… well, who knows what exactly.

Read.cv and Posts sold to Perplexity; will be closed soon

This Friday (17th), the Read.cv platform announced that it was acquired by Perplexity, an AI startup, and it will cease operations.

Read.cv had a social network focused on design called Posts. In June 2024, I wrote about it. I called it “the last good vibes social media.” By that logic, “good vibes social media” has come to an end.

Coincidence or bad omen, the announcement coincided with my opinion that the only way to shield a social platform (any venture, in reality) from eccentric billionaires and mega-corporations is to make its sale impossible.

In this context, Mastodon and other applications based on the ActivityPub protocol are the only viable solution we have today.