You’ve probably heard all the noise about Web Components and how they’re going to change Web development forever. If you haven’t, you’ve either been living under a rock, are reading this article by accident, or have a full, busy life which doesn’t leave you time to read about unstable and speculative Web technologies. Well, not me.

Web Components are a suite of connected technologies aimed at making elements reusable across the Web. The lion’s share of the conversation has been around Shadow DOM, but probably the most transformative technology of the suite is Custom Elements, a method of defining your own elements, with their own behavior and properties.

That’s quite an ambiguous description, so the point of this article is to explain what Custom Elements are for, why they’re so transformative and how to use them. Please note, first, that I’ll talk about custom elements (common noun) when discussing the concept and Custom Elements (proper name) when discussing the technology, and secondly, that my humor tends to wear very thin very quickly. Let’s push forward.

“What’s The Point Of Custom Elements?”

The basic idea is that if you create an element that always performs the same role and has the same set of properties and functions applied to it, then you should be able to name it after what it does. We have the video element for displaying video, the select element for displaying a select box, the img element for displaying images (and saving us from typing two characters whenever we write it). A lot of elements describe their own function.

But the Web today has to do a lot more work than it did previously, and HTML can’t always keep up with the rate of change. So Custom Elements are about giving us, the developers, flexibility to create elements based on their function and giving us low-level access to define their properties.

If the elements we create become well established, they could become a fully standardized part of a future HTML specification. The things we make could define the future of the things we make.

“But Can’t We Create Custom Elements Right Now In HTML?”

You’re right, notional reader, we can. It’s disgustingly easy. Just open your favorite text editor and make up an element in an HTML document, like so:

    <apes>…</apes>
    

Open it in a browser. It works. You can style it, attach JavaScript events to it. It may not be “valid” (who cares about that these days, right, kids?), but it works. You can do it with any name you like, and it’ll create a new inline element.

Well, yes. Sure. You could certainly do that, and perhaps it would even make your markup a little more understandable to other people — but that’s really the only advantage it brings. Custom Elements are smarter than that, and they bring real, measurable benefits. We’ll get to the benefits of Custom Elements in a moment; first, I want to show how easy it is to make one.

“Are Custom Elements Easy To Create?”

It is, I just told you so in the previous sentence. The first step is to think of a good name. The only rule here is that, to avoid clashing with current or future HTML elements, you must use a hyphen somewhere in the name. For example:

    <great-apes>…</great-apes>
    

When you’ve decided on a name, the next step is to register it in the DOM, which is done by passing the name in as an argument in the JavaScript registerElement() method, like so:

    document.registerElement('great-apes');
    

Now the DOM will recognize your newly registered great-apes element and the real fun can start. By the way, to confuse the terminology even further, an element created like this that’s not defined in the HTML specification is known as a “custom tag,” so don’t be surprised if I use that term.

“I Still Don’t Get What The Big Deal Is”

Bear with me, impatient notional reader. The big difference between puny custom elements and mighty custom tags (I hope you’re not surprised by that term) is the interface that’s exposed to the DOM. Custom elements, unregistered and unrecognized, use the HTMLUnknownElement interface, whereas registered and recognized custom tags use the HTMLElement interface.

What’s the difference? With an HTMLElement, we can add our own methods and properties, creating essentially a per-element API. Wait, I understated how amazing that is: a per-element API!!! Yes, every custom tag can have its own API.

To initiate this, you would first define a new prototype, then attach your properties and methods to it. In this example, I’m creating a method named hoot() that logs a message to the console:

    var apeProto = Object.create(HTMLElement.prototype);
    apeProto.hoot = function() {
    	console.log('Apes are great!');
    }
    

The next step is to register the element, just as before, only this time adding an argument in the options of registerElement() to state that it should use our newly defined prototype:

    document.registerElement('great-apes', {prototype: apeProto});
    

When this is done, you can query your element in the DOM and call the method:

    var apes = document.querySelector('great-apes');
    apes.hoot();
    

Now, this is the simplest example I could possibly think of, but just take a minute to consider how this could be extended further still: adding unique properties, attributes and events to each element; putting markup in your element that renders with content passed in as attribute values; even having elements with no UI at all but that perform functions such as database queries. Honestly, the opportunity here is huge.

As a quick example of just how exceptionally useful Custom Elements can be, see Eduardo Lundgren’s google-maps element, which embeds a Google Map and can have options passed in through attribute values, like this:

    <google-maps latitude="-8.034881" longitude="-34.918377"></google-maps>
    

“Can Existing Elements Be Extended To Use This API?”

Wow, you really ask the most convenient questions. Yes, excitingly, we can make Custom Elements that extend existing elements. Yes, we can create a whole new API for existing HTML elements! I know, this sounds like the ramblings of a madman, right? But it’s true!

As an example, let’s create a table that has our hoot() method attached. To do this, we’d follow all of the steps in the previous section, then make the small addition of a new argument in the options of the registerElement() method, a lá:

    document.registerElement('great-apes', {
    	prototype: apeProto,
    	extends: 'table'
    });
    

The value of the extends argument informs the DOM that the custom element is intended to extend the table element. Now, we have to make the table element inform the DOM that it wants to be extended, using the is attribute:

    <table is="great-apes">…</table>
    

The humble table element may now have its own API. For example, it could query its own data in a standardized interface. A table that has an API to query its own data!!! How can you not be excited by that?

For a real-world example of an extended element, take a look at Eduardo Lundgren’s video-camera, which extends the video element to use live input from getUserMedia():

    <video is="video-camera"></video>
    

“OK, This Is Cool. What Else?”

A set of callback events (with brilliantly prosaic names) are fired throughout the lifecycle of Custom Events: when an element is created (createdCallback), attached to the DOM (attachedCallback) or detached from the DOM (detachedCallback), or when an attribute is changed (attributeChangedCallback). For example, to run an anonymous function each time a new instance of a custom tag is created in a page, you’d use this:

    apeProto.createdCallback = function () {…};
    

“How Do Custom Elements Work With Other Web Components Features?”

Custom Elements have been designed for complete interoperability with the companion features of the Web Components suite (and other generally related features). For example, you could include markup in the template element, which wouldn’t be parsed by the browser until the element is initiated.

    <great-apes>
    	<template>…</template>
    </great-apes>
    

You could ensure that the internal code is encapsulated from the browser and hidden from the end user with Shadow DOM. And sharing your element across multiple files and websites would be simplicity itself using HTML Imports.

If you’re not familiar with any of these other technologies yet, don’t worry: Custom Elements also work perfectly well on their own.

“Can I Use Custom Elements Today?”

Well, no. And yes. These aren’t just some pie-in-the-sky concepts; browser vendors are already working on them: the latest releases of Chrome and Opera have implemented the registerElement() method, and it also recently landed in Firefox Nightly. But, raw Custom Elements aren’t really ready for use in production just yet.

Gorillas are great apes… Look, it was either this or a screenshot of even more JavaScript code. (Image credits: Marieke IJsendoorn-Kuijpers)

However, there is a way around this, and that’s to use Polymer. In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s an open community project set up to make future Web technologies usable today, and that includes Web Components and, through them, Custom Elements. Polymer is both a development library, which uses native implementations where available and polyfills where not, and a UI library, with common elements and patterns built using its own technology.

If you’re at all interested in Custom Elements — and, as you’ve read almost to the end of this article, I’d suggest you probably are — then Polymer is your best option for learning and making.

“What About Accessibility?”

Ah, notional reader, here you have me. Using Custom Elements comes with one big caveat: JavaScript is required. Without it, your brand new element simply won’t work and will fall back to being a plain old HTMLUnknownElement. Unless your element gets adopted natively by browsers, there’s simply no way around this. Just plan for a graceful fallback, as you should be doing with JavaScript anyway.

As for further accessibility, it’s really down to you. I strongly suggest adding ARIA roles and attributes to your custom elements, just as browser default UI elements have today, to ensure that everyone gets a first-class experience of them.

“Where Do I Go Next?”

Home, to have a good lay down. Or, if you prefer to carry on reading about Custom Elements, try some of these links:

• Polymer
  This the project that I talked about three paragraphs ago. Do you really need me to explain it again?
• Custom Elements
  This is a community-owned gallery of Web Components.
• “Custom Elements: Defining New Elements in HTML,” Eric Bidelman, HTML5 Rocks
  Bidelman’s article was invaluable to me in writing this piece.
• “Custom Elements,” W3C
  The specification is fairly impenetrable, but maybe you’ll get more out of it than I did.

(Huge thanks to Addy Osmani and Bruce Lawson for their feedback during the writing of this article.)

(al, il)

Front page image credits: Dmitry Baranovskiy.

© Peter Gasston for Smashing Magazine, 2014.

This guest post by Madison Miller was originally posted on the Women’s Center at UMBC blog. 

In addition to working at the Women’s Center as a student staff member, I also serve as a Resident Assistant in a first-year residential hall on campus. Recently, my paraprofessional staff and I have been exploring the topic of privilege by participating in meaningful discussions about the different forms that it can take on in our society. These conversations and shared experiences of my fellow staff members have encouraged me to dive into a deeper, more personal investigation of privilege and how it relates to my identity and my unique life experiences.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the concept of privilege, a dictionary definition classifies it as a unique benefit or immunity available only to a particular community or group of people. Yet what the dictionary definition fails to mention is that privilege is neither earned nor deserved by any specific group that reaps its benefits. In reality, privilege is innate; it is a birthright that is automatically given to those who hold membership in a certain group or community. Privilege takes on several forms in society relating to identities such as gender, ability, class, race, and sexuality. It should be mentioned that one may simultaneously experience a certain level of privilege in one area of their identity while also experiencing a lack of privilege in another area. Privilege, or the lack thereof, isn’t also always necessarily visible to the eye of a passerby. Yet these privileges are often at the root of social inequalities that exist in our society today They may also cloud and bias our viewpoints of who don’t share the same privileges as ourselves, causing us to make unwarranted assumptions and conclusions about others. Therefore, it is important that we have conversations with each other in order to better recognize and effectively deal with our own unique privileges. In my experience, it seems that when a privilege is pointed out to it’s owner, that person often has a tendency to become defensive about the fact that they are not responsible for their privilege. While there is some truth to be found in this statement, I believe that privilege is not necessarily something of which to be ashamed, but something of which we should be aware. In order to remedy the social inequalities caused by our privileges, we must first understand how these privileges negatively affect and immobilize others. Perhaps our privileges aren’t necessarily the problem: maybe it’s us. After all, we do not choose our privileges, but we do choose how we live with them.  

What are my privileges? One of the privileges that I am most connected to is my educational privilege. Although I take out student loans and receive aid from my university, I have access to higher education and I am a college student (at an honors university, nonetheless) that is financially able to support myself through my undergraduate education. Because my reality is not possible for everyone, I consider myself to be truly fortunate in this situation. But in my eyes, simply being grateful is not enough. I want to use my privileges to help better others. As a psychology and elementary education double major, I have recently been thinking a lot about working in a high needs school after my graduation from UMBC. I am a strong believer in the idea that everyone, regardless of geographic location, socioeconomic status, disability, or race, is deserving of a quality education that enables success and potential. Although I am aware that this will be a great challenge, I am hopeful for the changes I wish to make in the world, even if only in the life of one child.

One of my favorite sayings comes from the movie Spiderman and it says, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” It is no secret that our privileges put us in a place of power. What may not be so obvious, however, is that this power should call upon us to think critically about ourselves and our ability to support and help advance those who experience a lack of privilege. It isn’t an easy task by any means, but it is a necessary challenge that we must undertake should we ever hope to remedy the social inequalities that paralyze so many members of our society.

Think about it: What privileges do you have? How are you “owning” them for the better?

To learn more about privilege, check out these helpful resources:

Pedagogy of Privilege Ted Talk A helpful TED Talk that discusses how to begin conversations with others about privilege.

Privilege Walk Activity An activity that highlights examples of various privileges.

A Comic on White Privilege A Buzzfeed comic that explains what it means to have white privilege.

The Reproduction of Privilege An NY Times Article that discusses the privileges associated with post-secondary education.

For more on power and privilege, be sure to check out the upcoming CSJ event Critical White Male Allies: C’Mon In! The Water’s Fine! on Wednesday from 5-6pm in Commons 318. Jeff Cullen, Director of Student Judicial Programs, will lead an interactive workshop on critical allyship. With a frank discussion of some of the ways he has made mistakes and learned from them as a white male ally, he will create a space for participants to have an honest dialogue about the challenges and strategies to effective and self-reflexive allyship.

This guest post by Madison Miller was originally posted on the Women’s Center at UMBC blog. 

In addition to working at the Women’s Center as a student staff member, I also serve as a Resident Assistant in a first-year residential hall on campus. Recently, my paraprofessional staff and I have been exploring the topic of privilege by participating in meaningful discussions about the different forms that it can take on in our society. These conversations and shared experiences of my fellow staff members have encouraged me to dive into a deeper, more personal investigation of privilege and how it relates to my identity and my unique life experiences.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the concept of privilege, a dictionary definition classifies it as a unique benefit or immunity available only to a particular community or group of people. Yet what the dictionary definition fails to mention is that privilege is neither earned nor deserved by any specific group that reaps its benefits. In reality, privilege is innate; it is a birthright that is automatically given to those who hold membership in a certain group or community. Privilege takes on several forms in society relating to identities such as gender, ability, class, race, and sexuality. It should be mentioned that one may simultaneously experience a certain level of privilege in one area of their identity while also experiencing a lack of privilege in another area. Privilege, or the lack thereof, isn’t also always necessarily visible to the eye of a passerby. Yet these privileges are often at the root of social inequalities that exist in our society today They may also cloud and bias our viewpoints of who don’t share the same privileges as ourselves, causing us to make unwarranted assumptions and conclusions about others. Therefore, it is important that we have conversations with each other in order to better recognize and effectively deal with our own unique privileges. In my experience, it seems that when a privilege is pointed out to it’s owner, that person often has a tendency to become defensive about the fact that they are not responsible for their privilege. While there is some truth to be found in this statement, I believe that privilege is not necessarily something of which to be ashamed, but something of which we should be aware. In order to remedy the social inequalities caused by our privileges, we must first understand how these privileges negatively affect and immobilize others. Perhaps our privileges aren’t necessarily the problem: maybe it’s us. After all, we do not choose our privileges, but we do choose how we live with them.  

What are my privileges? One of the privileges that I am most connected to is my educational privilege. Although I take out student loans and receive aid from my university, I have access to higher education and I am a college student (at an honors university, nonetheless) that is financially able to support myself through my undergraduate education. Because my reality is not possible for everyone, I consider myself to be truly fortunate in this situation. But in my eyes, simply being grateful is not enough. I want to use my privileges to help better others. As a psychology and elementary education double major, I have recently been thinking a lot about working in a high needs school after my graduation from UMBC. I am a strong believer in the idea that everyone, regardless of geographic location, socioeconomic status, disability, or race, is deserving of a quality education that enables success and potential. Although I am aware that this will be a great challenge, I am hopeful for the changes I wish to make in the world, even if only in the life of one child.

One of my favorite sayings comes from the movie Spiderman and it says, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” It is no secret that our privileges put us in a place of power. What may not be so obvious, however, is that this power should call upon us to think critically about ourselves and our ability to support and help advance those who experience a lack of privilege. It isn’t an easy task by any means, but it is a necessary challenge that we must undertake should we ever hope to remedy the social inequalities that paralyze so many members of our society.

Think about it: What privileges do you have? How are you “owning” them for the better?

To learn more about privilege, check out these helpful resources:

Pedagogy of Privilege Ted Talk A helpful TED Talk that discusses how to begin conversations with others about privilege.

Privilege Walk Activity An activity that highlights examples of various privileges.

A Comic on White Privilege A Buzzfeed comic that explains what it means to have white privilege.

The Reproduction of Privilege An NY Times Article that discusses the privileges associated with post-secondary education.

For more on power and privilege, be sure to check out the upcoming CSJ event Critical White Male Allies: C’Mon In! The Water’s Fine! on Wednesday from 5-6pm in Commons 318. Jeff Cullen, Director of Student Judicial Programs, will lead an interactive workshop on critical allyship. With a frank discussion of some of the ways he has made mistakes and learned from them as a white male ally, he will create a space for participants to have an honest dialogue about the challenges and strategies to effective and self-reflexive allyship.

Search for “woman” on virtually any stock photo site and you’ll get plenty of options.

Women in skimpy dresses. Women in bikinis. Half-naked women. Fully naked women posed so that it’s not technically pornography. Women working out in what basically amounts to underwear. Women in wedding dresses. Women indulging themselves in a massage, or chocolate-covered strawberries, or at the salon. You might even come across an image of a princess or two.

Sure, you might find an image of a woman working. But she undoubtedly looks stressed out, at her wits end, and ready to call it quits. To find a stock photo of a woman who actually looks in control at work is equivalent to finding a unicorn in the wild.

Stressed woman image via Shutterstock.

Take a look at stock themes pretty much anywhere online—even a lot designed by women—and you’ll find examples of these kinds of stock photos, if a woman even appears in the photos at all. Of course, there are exceptions, but they’re few and far between when you look at the overall numbers.

Why is this the norm?

Of course, part of the explanation for this may have to do with the abysmal numbers of women in the technology industries. While it’s hard to find concrete numbers, what is available is pretty disheartening.

Pinterest engineer Tracy Chou has created a public Google spreadsheet that details how many female engineers are employed by some leading tech companies. Out of companies with more than 10 employees, only 9 out of the 86 companies listed have more than 25% female engineers. That’s barely over 10%, and barely higher than the number who have no female engineers. Not a single one of those companies has over 35% female engineers.

The world of design isn’t much better. Instead of roundups of the best female web designers out there, we get roundups like this one that instead tell us who the 20 hottest female designers are. Their head shots are given much more prominence than their work. After all, a talented female designer isn’t nearly as valuable as a hot female designer. And the saddest part? That link is the first one that shows up when you search Google for “female web designers”. (FYI, the second link is also about “hot” female designers, though at least that one leaves out the head shots.)

According to some numbers I’ve seen, the ratio of male to female web designers is somewhere along the lines of 3:1. That’s a big disparity. And no one is quite sure why it exists.

The lack of women in the tech industry is obviously one part of the problem, though it’s just one aspect. What might be even more relevant when it comes to the reasoning behind the prevalence of these stock images is one of the oldest sales rules in the book…

Sex sells

We all know that sex sells. Or at least it’s supposed to. So using sexy, provocative imagery in our designs kind of makes sense.

But at the same time, you’re potentially alienating a lot of people. There are a ton of women out there who don’t like to see images that objectify them (no surprise there). There are a growing number of men who are also sick of being bombarded with these images. And honestly, a stock photo of a woman in a bikini should not be necessary when you’re trying to sell a website theme.

I don’t know about you, but all the offices I’ve ever worked in, I’ve never seen any of my colleagues dressed like this:

Business woman image via Shutterstock.

The same goes for these images of women who look entirely stressed out by technology and work life. There are plenty of women out there, myself included, who work with tech on a daily basis, without getting any more stressed out than our male colleagues. So why do we feel the need to show women as unable to cope with these daily demands?

Finally, an alternative

While it’s all well and good to complain about the portrayal of women in stock photography, there wasn’t much we could do about it. We were stuck with what was available. Not many projects have the kind of budget necessary for a photoshoot to get images that better represent women. It’s just not feasible.

Thankfully, there are people and organizations in the industry who recognize this. Getty Images is one such company. They’ve partnered with Lean In to create a collection of more than 2500 powerful images showing women, girls and the people who support them.

These images are fantastic. There are women from all walks of life, from all sorts of professions, doing all sorts of things. But the key here is that all of these women appear perfectly capable. They are not buckling under pressure; they are living their lives and doing their things, and are confident in that position.

Plenty of the images in this collection also include men, in the roles of partner, colleague, father, and more. It is by no means an anti-male collection, and in no way does it show women in a positive light at the expense of men.

There is a huge amount of diversity in the images, with women from around the world featured. There are women of all ages, too. It’s a really wonderful cross-section of what it means to be a woman, and gives designers and others using stock photos a wealth of options. It’s a welcome change to the industry, and hopefully other companies will follow suit.

Create Special Effects Like a Pro with Photo Effect Studio – only $14!

In this article we're going to look at the Generate theme, powered by the Genesis Framework. This theme was chosen because it offers a great deal of flexibility, not only for creating a blog, but for building landing pages and squeeze pages.

From Terabyte-Sized Stem Cell Images to Knowledge

Peter Bajcsy, PhD
Information technology Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology

10:00am Monday, 10 March 2014, ITE 346, UMBC

This talk will present the computational challenges and approaches to knowledge discovery from terabyte-sized images. The motivation comes from experimental systems for imaging and analyzing human pluripotent stem cell cultures at the spatial and temporal coverage of colonies that lead to terabyte-sized image data. The objective of such an unprecedented cell study is to characterize pluripotency of stem cell colonies over time at high statistical significance in order to understand the stem cell culture quality parameters and guide a repeatable growth of high quality stem cell colonies. The terabyte- sized images represented a stem cell line that was engineered to produce green fluorescent protein (GFP) under the influence of Oct4 promoter and then imaged in a mosaic of contiguous frames covering approximately 180 square millimeters, over five days under both phase contrast and GFP channels.

We overview multiple computer and computational science problems related to correcting (flat-field, dark current and background), stitching, segmenting, tracking, re-projecting and then representing large images for interactive visualization and sampling in a web browser. We researched extensions to Amdahl’s law for Map-Reduce computations, established benchmarks for image processing on a Hadoop platform, and introduced cluster node utilization coefficients for modeling memory demanding computations running on a computer cluster/cloud. The theoretical aspects of algorithmic complexity and cluster utilization at terabyte scale are extended to the experimental aspects of efficient image representation and client-server workload distribution in the context of visualization interactivity and image sampling. We report such experimental results for the NIST extensions to the Deep Zoom paradigm. The presentation will conclude with illustrations of enabled stem cell discoveries and collaboration opportunities to create a reference resource not only for cell biologists but also for computer scientists focusing on terabyte scale image analyses.

Peter Bajcsy received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1997 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1994 from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for machine vision, government contracting, and research and educational institutions before joining the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2011. At NIST, he has been leading a project focusing on the application of computational science in biological metrology, and specifically stem cell characterization at very large scales. Peter’s area of research is large-scale image-based analyses and syntheses using mathematical, statistical and computational models while leveraging computer science fields such as image processing, machine learning, computer vision, and pattern recognition. He has co-authored more than more than 24 journal papers and eight books or book chapters, and close to 100 conference papers.

Host: Yelena Yesha (Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. )