Debugging tools are better than ever, but some things still remain hidden to the un-observant eye… this small script is a delightful way to hear what webpages are doing behind the scenes.

Accurately named plink-plonk.js by developer Tom Hicks, this small snippet of JavaScript is a clever and simple way to create sounds from the browser whenever the webpage you’re on modifies itself in any way. (For single-page apps, this will be a lot!)

The script is activated by pasting it into your console (not always the best idea, if you can’t understand all the code). Here’s a quick video of it in action:

Beep beep bloop bloop - Listen to your webpage load /w this nifty script by @hicksyfern - https://t.co/2AcR7DTJBr pic.twitter.com/V9DkagWmts

— The Indie Web (@the_indie_web) February 27, 2020

The simplicity of the script, is based in both the power of the Web Audio API and the Mutation Observer API.

So how does this work? Lets break it down!

Last week I completed a small weekend project called Always Judge a Book by its Cover. Rather write about it, I thought it would be fun to go over some of the neater pieces of tech that have gone into it and break them down into small examples.

The first, and perhaps the most obvious, is the goop effect that sits on the header and in between each of the books (alternating from white to a light grey). This is created using JS and a canvas element. (Although CSS Houdini could be a good option in the future.)

You can have a look at the code above… Ultimately, it’s a fairly simple effect that definitely looks a little more complex than its actual code.

The second little flair, which was a fun one to make, is the 3D CSS book.

The book gets its 3D effect from the CSS transform property. I used the transform-style: preserve-3d; property to really give it that semi-realistic feel. The pages are just divs with box shadows and rounded corners. And then to top it all off, an image of the cover is used on the front and back.

The inline padding-top stops the image from jumping as it loads. There are lots of thoughts on how to patch up this annoying part of loading images on the web, but I chose to stick with this old faithful method.