In a recent tutorial, we covered a method to convert WordPress child pages into navigation tabs. Today, we’ll move a step further and learn how to navigate between these pages with the next and previous links.

Before starting, I recommend you go through the previous tutorial first and then come back here, as this tutorial is its continuation.

As usual with my WordPress tutorials, here’s an introductory video that showcases the expected behavior:

Just a quick reminder from the previous tutorial:

• On our backend, there’s this structure:

• All child pages share the same custom page template. Of course, in your case, each page can have a different template.

Tοday’s goal is to facilitate the navigation to sibling child pages through the next and previous links. In my case, all pages contain some dummy content that even fits inside a laptop screen, so extra navigation seems unnecessary. However, in a real scenario, pages can be too lengthy, so users have to scroll up to the tabs to navigate to the other pages—something certainly not user-friendly.

We’ll provide two navigation variations:

• First, with the standard Next and Previous link titles.

• The second (default) variation will replace the hardcoded link titles with the titles of the appropriate sibling pages if they exist.

Implementation

For the implementation part, as usual, I’ll work with my custom Playground theme and use, as a starting point, the files from the previous tutorial. 

Here’s the updated theme structure—I’ll describe all the code additions:

For your convenience, all the theme files of this exercise will be available in the child-pages-navigation branch of this GitHub repo. The main branch will include the files of the previous tutorial!

A few notes:

• We’ll add the logic for the navigation part inside the tabs-navigation.php partial file.
• We’ll include this file inside the tabs.php page template and pass to it as an argument, the array that stores all the child pages like this:

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<?php

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/* Template Name: Tabs Page */

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get_header();

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$parent_id    = wp_get_post_parent_id();

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$parent_title = get_the_title( $parent_id );

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$child_pages  = get_pages(

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    array(

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        'parent' => $parent_id,

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    )

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);

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?>

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<main class="site-main">

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    <?php

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    if ( have_posts() ) :

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        while ( have_posts() ) :

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            the_post();

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            ?>

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            <article id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class(); ?>>

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                ...

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                <?php

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                /*NAVIGATION*/

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                get_template_part( 'partials/tabs-navigation', null, array( 'child_pages' => $child_pages ) );

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                ?>

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            </article>

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            <?php

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        endwhile;

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    endif;

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    ?>

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</main>

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<?php

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get_footer();

Let’s breakdown the logic for the navigation:

• The $child_pages array will store four objects. Each object will represent a child page.

• We’ll use the PHP array functions array_search() and array_column() to find the key that represents the current child page inside the $child_pages array. So, for example, if we’re on the History page, this will be 0, on the Partners will be 1, and so on. Again, as a kind reminder, you can customize the pages’ order using the sort_column key inside the arguments array of the get_pages() function.
• With this information in mind, we’ll be able to find the next and previous page objects by decreasing and increasing by one the target key respectively.  
• Next, we’ll build the markup for the navigation by checking each time if the next and previous pages exist. So, for example, the History page will only have a next page, and its previous page will be null. Optionally, we’ll add a navigation title that will appear only on the screen readers thanks to the screen-reader-text CSS class. From here, you can make things more accessible by attaching the aria-label attribute to the links.
• As mentioned in the beginning, there will be two navigation variations. By default, the dynamic sibling titles will appear, but you can opt for the hardcoded Next and Previous titles (commented at the moment).
• As the theme has a setup for SVG Sprites, we’ll add the icons using this technique. The two chevron icons will come from the Font Awesome library and live inside the sprites.php partial file like this:

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<symbol id="circle-chevron-left" xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 512 512">

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    <path d="M512 256A256 256 0 1 0 0 256a256 256 0 1 0 512 0zM271 135c9.4-9.4 24.6-9.4 33.9 0s9.4 24.6 0 33.9l-87 87 87 87c9.4 9.4 9.4 24.6 0 33.9s-24.6 9.4-33.9 0L167 273c-9.4-9.4-9.4-24.6 0-33.9L271 135z"/>

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</symbol>

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<symbol id="circle-chevron-right" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 512 512">

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    <path d="M0 256a256 256 0 1 0 512 0A256 256 0 1 0 0 256zM241 377c-9.4 9.4-24.6 9.4-33.9 0s-9.4-24.6 0-33.9l87-87-87-87c-9.4-9.4-9.4-24.6 0-33.9s24.6-9.4 33.9 0L345 239c9.4 9.4 9.4 24.6 0 33.9L241 377z"/>

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</symbol>

Here’s the PHP code added in the tabs-navigation.php file: 

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<?php

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$child_pages      = $args['child_pages'];

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$current_page_key = array_search( get_the_ID(), array_column( $child_pages, 'ID' ) );

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$prev_page        = $child_pages[ $current_page_key - 1 ];

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$next_page        = $child_pages[ $current_page_key + 1 ];

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?>

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<section class="section-tabs-navigation">

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    <div class="container container-sm">

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        <div class="navigation">

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            <h2 class="screen-reader-text">

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                <?php esc_html_e( 'Navigation between the company pages', 'playground' ); ?>

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            </h2>

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            <?php if ( $prev_page ) : ?>

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                <a class="previous" href="<?php echo esc_url( get_permalink( $prev_page ) ); ?>">

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                    <svg width="24" height="24" aria-hidden="true">

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                        <use xlink:href="#circle-chevron-left"></use>

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                    </svg>

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                    <?php

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                    esc_html_e( 'Previous', 'playground' );

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                    //echo esc_html( get_the_title( $prev_page ) );

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                    ?>

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                </a>

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                <?php

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            endif;

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            if ( $next_page ) :

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                ?>

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                <a class="next" href="<?php echo esc_url( get_permalink( $next_page ) ); ?>">

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                    <?php

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                    esc_html_e( 'Next', 'playground' );

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                    //echo esc_html( get_the_title( $next_page ) );

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                    ?>

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                    <svg width="24" height="24" aria-hidden="true">

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                        <use xlink:href="#circle-chevron-right"></use>

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                    </svg>

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                </a>

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            <?php endif; ?>

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        </div>

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    </div>

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</section>

And the associated styles—notice the margin-left: auto style that we add to the next page link to ensure that will always sit in the right corner:

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/*CUSTOM VARIABLES HERE*/

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.screen-reader-text {

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    border: 0;

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    clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);

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    clip-path: inset(50%);

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    height: 1px;

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    margin: -1px;

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    overflow: hidden;

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    padding: 0;

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    position: absolute;

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    width: 1px;

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    word-wrap: normal !important;

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}

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.section-tabs-navigation .navigation {

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    position: relative;

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    display: flex;

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    padding-top: 40px;

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    margin-top: 40px;

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}

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.section-tabs-navigation .navigation::before {

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    content: "";

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    position: absolute;

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    top: 0;

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    left: 50%;

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    transform: translateX(-50%);

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    width: 25%;

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    border-top: 1px solid var(--lightgray);

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}

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.section-tabs-navigation a {

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    display: flex;

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    align-items: center;

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    gap: 10px;

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    text-decoration: none;

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}

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.section-tabs-navigation .next {

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    margin-left: auto;

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}

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.section-tabs-navigation svg {

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    fill: var(--darkpink);

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}

Conclusion

During this tutorial, we learned a technique that facilitates the WordPress child page navigation through the next and previous links. Hopefully, you found some value in it and plan to use it shortly!

As always, thanks for reading!

The Pomodoro technique is a widely used tool for increasing productivity. It does this by breaking work intervals into 25 minutes of focused work followed by short breaks. In this tutorial, we will create a Pomodoro tool that allows users to set a work interval timer. After the work session, a user can choose a 5 or 10 minute break.

Getting Started

Let’s start by creating the HTML structure for the Pomodoro timer. The timer will feature three buttons, namely:

• Pomodoro timer button
• Short break button
• Long break button

We will also have a display for each timer duration and control buttons for starting and stopping the timer. 

HTML and CSS

The structure and styling of the timer are relatively straight-forward; suitable colors and layout, container elements with classes and IDs for targeting them properly. I’ll explain what they all are when we dive into the JavaScript, because that’s where the real learning happens in this tutorial!

JavaScript Functionality

As I mentioned, the most important aspect of this timer is the JavaScript functionality. Start by getting the IDs of all the timer button elements and assigning them to variables. 

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let pomodoro = document.getElementById("pomodoro-timer");

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let short = document.getElementById("short-timer");

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let long = document.getElementById("long-timer");

By default, when a user opens the Pomodoro timer application, we want to show them the 25 minute timer display; so let’s create a function called showDefaultTimer() that will only show the Pomodoro timer display and hide the other displays.

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function showDefaultTimer() {

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    pomodoro.style.display = "block";

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    short.style.display = "none";

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    long.style.display = "none";

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   }

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7

 showDefaultTimer()

Here, we are using the CSS display property to change the visibility of the timer displays. The short and long display elements will be hidden, while the Pomodoro display will be visible. Finally, we call the showDefaultTimer() function to ensure that the functionality is applied to the elements when the HTML loads. 

Event Listeners

Next, well create event listeners for listening to click events in each timer button. Begin by declaring a variable currentTimer and set its value to null. The currentTimer will designate the currently running timer. 

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 let currentTimer =null;

Next, create event listeners that will be triggered when a user clicks on the buttons. 

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document.getElementById("pomodoro-session").addEventListener("click", function(){

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    hideAll();

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    pomodoro.style.display = "block"

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    currentTimer = pomodoro   

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});

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document.getElementById("short-break").addEventListener("click", function(){

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    hideAll();

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    short.style.display = "block"

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    currentTimer =short

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});

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document.getElementById("long-break").addEventListener("click", function(){

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    hideAll();

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    long.style.display = "block"

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    currentTimer =long

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});

The event listeners will be fired when a user clicks the button timers. For example, when a user clicks the short break button, the user will see the 5:00 displayed, and the rest of the displays will be hidden. It will also set the value of currentTimer to the short break timer. 

Hide the Timers

The hideAll() function will hide all the timers. Since all the timers are represented by the same class name, “timer-display,” we use document.querySelectorAll(".timer-display") to select and iterate through each element and set the style.property to none, making the elements invisible. 

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function hideAll(){

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    let timers = document.querySelectorAll(".timer-display");

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    timers.forEach(timer=> timer.style.display ="none")  

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};

Start Timer Functionality

JavaScript provides the setInterval() function that allows us to call a function after a specified time. The setInterval() function repeats a function after a given period. The syntax looks like this:

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setInterval(code, delay)

For example, in our case, we want to decrement a timer by 1 second. Let’s create a startTimer() function that will take the duration of the currentTimer(), start a countdown, and update the display with the remaining time.

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let myInterval = null;

2

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function startTimer(timerdisplay){

4

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    timerDuration = timerdisplay.getAttribute("data-duration").split(":")[0]

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    let durationinMiliseconds = timerDuration*60*1000;

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    let endTimestamp = Date.now() + durationinMiliseconds;

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}

Let’s break down what is happening here:

• let myInterval = null; declares a variable and initializes it to a null value.
• Inside the startTimer() ,function:timerDuration = timerdisplay.getAttribute("data-duration").split(":")[0];–  retrieves the duration of the currentTimer; for example, if the element’s duration is 25:00, the value extracted will be 25,
• let durationinMiliseconds = timerDuration*60*1000; – converts the timer duration to milliseconds
• let endTimestamp = Date.now() + durationinMiliseconds; – declares a variable endTimestamp, which is equal to the timestamp when the timer will end.

Create the Timer

Next, we will create our timer using the setInterval() method. Our setInterval() method will contain a function that will use the time remaining and run every 1 second (1000 milliseconds) until the remaining time runs out. We will also update our display with the remaining time each second. When the timer reaches 0, we will display 00:00 and play an alarm sound.

Update the startTimer () function like this:

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function startTimer(timerdisplay) {

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    if (myInterval) {

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        clearInterval(myInterval);

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    }

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    timerDuration = timerdisplay.getAttribute("data-duration").split(":")[0];

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    console.log(timerDuration);

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    let durationinmiliseconds = timerDuration * 60 * 1000;

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    let endTimestamp = Date.now() + durationinmiliseconds;

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    myInterval = setInterval(function() {

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        const timeRemaining = new Date(endTimestamp - Date.now());

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        if (timeRemaining <= 0) {

19

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            clearInterval(myInterval);

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            timerdisplay.textContent = "00:00";

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            const alarm = new Audio("https://www.freespecialeffects.co.uk/soundfx/scifi/electronic.wav");

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            alarm.play();

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        } else {

25

            const minutes = Math.floor(timeRemaining / 60000);

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            const seconds = ((timeRemaining % 60000) / 1000).toFixed(0);

27

            const formattedTime = `${minutes}:${seconds.toString().padStart(2, '0')}`;

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            console.log(formattedTime);

29

            timerdisplay.textContent = formattedTime;

30

        }

31

    }, 1000);

32

}

Inside the myInterval() function, we declare a variable timeRemaining that is equal to the time remaining after the timer starts. Then, we check if the timeRemaining is less than or equal to 0. If valid, we clear the timer with the clearInterval() function, which takes the interval id as an argument and clears the running timer. We also update the displayed time to 00:00 and play an audio alarm to inform the user that the timer has reached 0.

If the timeRemaining is greater than 0, we do the following.

• const minutes = Math.floor(timeRemaining / 60000);: converts the remaining time to minutes
• const minutes = ((timeRemaining%60000) /1000).toFixed(0);:  converts the timeRemaining to  seconds  
• const formattedTime = `${minutes}:${seconds.toString().padStart(2, '0')}`;: formats the remaining time in the format “MM: SS”
• timerdisplay.textContent=formattedTime;: updates the text content of the timer display with the formatted time.

When the startTimer() is called, it updates the displayed time every second to create our timer countdown.

Start Button

For the timer to display a countdown , it needs to be executed inside the start click event listener. Add a click listener to the start button and execute the startTimer() function. 

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document.getElementById("start").addEventListener("click", function () {

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    if(currentTimer){

3

        startTimer(currentTimer);

4

    }

5

});

1

function startTimer(timerdisplay){

2

  if (myInterval) {

3

         clearInterval(myInterval); 

4

        }

5

         // the rest of the code here

6

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    }

1

document.getElementById("pause").addEventListener("click", function () {

2

    if(currentTimer){

3

        clearInterval(myInterval); 

4

        }

5

});

There are times when mistakes happen, and useful and important files are deleted by error or lost from your file system irrevocably (or seemingly, at least). Version control systems make it difficult to permanently lose files, provided they have been either added to staging or committed to a remote repository, because Git allows you to undo or revert changes and access previous versions of the saved files.

It is also possible to erroneously erase files from both the working directory and the Git repository. I’ve certainly done that! I imagine you have, too, if you’re reading this, and if that’s the case, then you will need a way to recover those files.

I have a few methods and strategies you can use to recover your deleted files. Some are more obvious than others, and some are designed for very specific situations. And while it is indeed possible to irrevocably lose a file, even then, you may have a path to at least recover a copy of it with third-party software if it comes to that.

How Git Works With Files

Before we dive into all of that, let’s explore how your files journey from your local computer to your remote repository.

Your files are initially only located on your computer’s storage, known as your working tree or working directory, and Git has no idea they exist yet. At this point, they are at their most vulnerable state since they are untracked.

Adding files to the staging area — also known as the index — so that Git is aware of them is what the git add <filename> (or git add -A for all files) is for. What actually happens under the hood when pushing files to staging is that Git hashes the content and creates a blob for each file based on the file’s content and proceeds to store them in the /objects subdirectory located at .git/objects. Run git status to confirm that the files you want to commit have been added to your staging area.

Once the files are staged, Git is at least aware of them, and we can include them in commits. When including a file in a commit, Git creates a new tree object to represent the state of the repository at the time the commit happens. The tree object contains the following information:

• SHA-1 hash of the tree object that represents the state of the repository;
• SHA-1 hash of the commit’s parent commit object if it has a parent;
• Author and committer information;
• Commit message.

It’s at this point that the files are git push-ed to the remote repo, wherever you happen to be hosting it, whether it’s GitHub, Beanstalk, Bitbucket, or whatever.

How Files Can Get Deleted From A Working Tree

So, the key pieces we’re talking about are your project’s working tree, staging area and commit. It is possible for files to be deleted at any one of these points, but it’s the working tree where it is most irreversible, or at least tough, to restore a lost file.

There are some very specific Git commands or actions that tend to be the biggest culprits when a file is deleted from the working tree.

git rm

I’m sure you have seen this one before. It’s a command for removing (rm) files from the working tree. It might be the most commonly used command for deleting files.

git reset

Anytime a reset happens, it’s very possible to lose any files you’ve been working on. But there are two types of Git resets that make this possible:

1. git reset --hard
   This command is sort of a nuclear path for resetting a working tree and the staging area. If you’ve made any changes to tracked files, those will be lost. That goes for commits, too, which are discarded altogether. In fact, any files or directories that are not in the HEAD commit are removed from the working tree.
2. git reset <filename>
   This is a lot less damaging than a hard reset, but it does indeed remove the specified file from the working tree. But it’s worth mentioning that the file is not pulled out from the staging area. So there’s a path back, which we’ll get to.

git clean

This removes untracked files from the working tree. Untracked files are not in the Git staging area and are not really part of the repository. They’re typically temporary files or files that have not yet been added to the repository.

One key distinction with a clean command is that it will not remove files that are included in a project’s .gitignore file, nor will it remove files that have been added to the staging area, nor ones that have already been committed. This can be useful for cleaning up your working tree after you have finished working on a project and you want to remove all of the temporary files that you created.

Like git reset, there are different variations of git clean that remove files in different ways:

• git clean <filename>
  Used to remove specific files from the working tree.
• git clean -d
  Removes untracked files from a specific directory.
• git clean -i
  This one interactively removes files from the working tree. And by that, I mean you will be prompted to confirm removal before it happens, which is a nice safeguard against accidents.
• git clean -n
  This is a dry run option and will show you the files that would be removed if you were to run the original git clean command. In other words, it doesn’t actually remove anything but lets you know what would be removed if you were to run an actual clean.
• git clean -f
  This one forces the git clean command to remove all untracked files from the working tree, even if they are ignored by the .gitignore file. It’s pretty heavy-handed.
• git clean -f -d
  Running this command is a lot like git clean --f but wipes out directories as well.
• git clean -x
  This removes all untracked files, including build products. It is best used when you want to wipe your working tree clean and test a fresh build.
• git clean -X
  This only removes files ignored by git.

Of course, I’m merely summarizing what you can already find in Git’s documentation. That’s where you can get the best information about the specific details and nuances of git clean and its variants.

Manually Removing Files

Yes, it’s possible! You can manually delete the files and directories from your working tree using your computer’s file manager. The good news, however, is that this will not remove the files from the staging area. Also, it’s quite possible you can undo that action with a simple CMD + Z/CTRL + Z if no other action has happened.

It is important to note that manually removing files from the working tree is a destructive operation. Once you have removed a file from the working tree that has not been added to a commit, it is almost impossible to undo the operation completely from a Git perspective. As a result, it is crucial to make sure that you really want to remove a file before you go this route.

But mistakes happen! So, let’s look at a variety of commands, strategies, and — if needed — apps that could reasonably recover deleted files from a working directory.

How Files Can Be Recovered After Being Deleted

Git commands like git checkout, git reset, git restore, and git reflog can be helpful for restoring files that you have either previously added to the staging area or committed to your repository.

git checkout

If you have not committed the changes that deleted the files and directories, then you can use the git checkout command to checkout a previous commit, branch, or tag. This will overwrite the working tree with the contents of the specific commit, branch, or tag, and any deleted files and directories will be restored.

git checkout HEAD~ <filename>

That will take things back to the last commit that was made. But let’s say you’ve made several commits since the file was deleted. If that’s the case, try checking out a specific commit by providing that commit’s hash:

git checkout <commit-hash> <filename>

Oh, you’re not sure which file it is, or there are more files than you want to type out? You can check out the entire working tree by committing the filename:

git checkout <commit-hash>

git reset

If you have committed the changes that deleted the files and directories, then you can use the git reset command to reset the HEAD pointer to a previous commit. This will also overwrite the working tree with the contents of the specific commit, and any deleted files and directories will be restored in the process.

git reset <commit-hash>

git restore

If you want to restore deleted files and directories without overwriting the working tree, then you can use the git restore command. This command restores files and directories deleted from the staging area or the working tree. Note that it only works for tracked files, meaning that any files that weren’t git add-ed to the working tree are excluded.

git restore --staged <filename>

To jump back one commit, you could go back to the --worktree instead of the staging area:

git restore --worktree <filename>

And, of course, leave out the filename if you want to restore all files in the working tree from the previous commit:

git restore --worktree

Another option is to restore all of the files in the current directory:

git restore .

git reflog

There’s also the git reflog command, which shows a history of all recent HEAD movements. I like this as a way to identify the commit that you want to checkout or reset to.

git reflog

Last Resorts

When files that are neither present in the staging area nor committed are deleted from the working tree, it is commonly accepted that those files are gone forever — or oti lor as we say in Yoruba — without any hope of recovery. So, if for any reason or by error, you delete important files from your project’s working tree without ensuring that they are either in the staging area or have been previously committed, then you may be thinking all hope of getting them back is lost.

But I can assure you, based on my experiences in this situation, that it is usually possible to recover all or most of a project’s lost files. There are two approaches I normally take.

File Recovery Apps

File recovery tools can recover lost or deleted data from your storage devices. They work by running a deep scan of your device in an attempt to find every file and folder that has ever existed on your storage device, including deleted and lost files and folders. Once the files have all been found, you can then use the data recovery tool to restore/recover the files of your choice to a new location.

Note: Some of the deleted and lost files found may be corrupted and damaged or not found at all, but I am certain from my experience using them that the majority will be found without any corruption or damage.

There are a variety of file recovery tools available, and the “right” one is largely a subjective matter. I could spend an entire post exclusively on the various options, but I’ve selected a few that I have used and feel comfortable at least suggesting as options to look into.

Wondershare Recoverit is capable of recovering more than 1,000 file formats. Its free tier option allows you to run a scan to find files on your computer’s storage, but to actually recover the files, you will have to do a paid upgrade to one of its paid plans starting at a $69.99 annual subscription or a one-time $119.99 license. There’s a premium plan for more enhanced recovery methods for things like videos and files, as well as fixing corrupted files that go well beyond the basic need of recovering a single lost file.

• Pros: High success rate, free tech support, allows partition recovery.
• Cons: Free tier is extremely limited.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is perhaps one of the most popular tools out of what’s available. Its free tier option is quite robust, running a deep scan and recovering up to 2GB of data. The difference between that and its paid subscription (starting at $119.95 per year, $169.95 lifetime) is that the paid tier recovers an unlimited amount of data.

• Pros: Fast deep scans, file preview before recovery, easy to use, generous free tier.
• Cons: Paid plans are significantly more expensive than other tools, Windows and macOS versions are vastly different, and the macOS software is even more expensive.

DM Disk Editor (DMDE) makes use of a special algorithm that reconstructs directory structures and recovers files by their file signature when recovering solely by the file system proves impossible. DMDE also offers a free tier option, but it is quite limited as you can only recover files from the directory you have selected, and it only recovers up to 4,000 files at a time. Compare that to its paid versions that allow unlimited and unrestricted data recovery. Paid plans start at $20 per year but scale up to $133 per year for more advanced needs that are likely beyond the scope of what you need.

• Pros: High recovery success rate, generous free tier, reasonable paid tiers if needed.
• Cons: I personally find the UI to be more difficult to navigate than other apps.

As I said, there are many, many more options out there. If you’re reading this and have a favorite app that you use to recover lost files, then please share it in the comments. The more, the merrier!

Last Resort: git fsck

First off, the git fsck command can be dangerous if used incorrectly. It is essential to make sure that you understand how to use the command before using it to recover files from the working tree. If you are unsure how to proceed after reading this section, then it is a good idea to consult the Git documentation for additional details on how it is used and when it is best to use it.

That said, git fsck can indeed recover files lost from the working tree in Git and maybe your absolute last resort. It works by scanning the Git repository for “dangling” objects, which are objects that are not referenced by any commit. The Git docs define it like this:

dangling object:

“An unreachable object that is not reachable even from other unreachable objects; a dangling object has no references to it from any reference or object in the repository.”

This can happen if a file is deleted from the working tree but not committed or if a branch is deleted, but the files on the branch are not deleted.

To recover files lost from the working tree using the git fsck command, follow these steps:

• Run git fsck –lost-found, which is a special mode of the git fsck command.
  It creates a directory called .git/lost-found and moves all of the lost objects to that directory. The lost objects are organized into two subdirectories: commits and objects. The /commits subdirectory contains lost commits, and the /objects subdirectory contains lost blobs, trees, and tags. This command prints the dangling objects (blobs, commits, trees, and tags) if they exist.

• Run the git show <dangling_object_hash> command for each dangling object that is printed.
  This will print the content of the object and enable you to see the original content of the hashed object so you can identify the dangling objects in the case of files dangling blobs that correspond to the files that you want to recover.
• To recover a dangling object, you can manually copy the content of the printed in the console when you run the git show <dangling_object_hash> command or run git show <dangling_object_hash> > <filename> command to save the content of the hashed object to the file you specified in the command. You can also use the git checkout <dangling_object_hash> command to restore the file to the working tree.

Once you have recovered the files that you want to recover, you can commit the changes to the Git repository as if nothing ever happened. Phew! But again, I only advise this approach if you’ve tried everything else and are absolutely at your last resort.

Conclusion

Now that you know how to recover files lost from your working tree, your mind should be relatively at ease whenever or if ever you find yourself in this unfortunate situation. Remember, there’s a good chance to recover a file that may have been accidentally deleted from a project.

That said, a better plan is to prevent being in this situation in the first place. Here are some tips that will help you prevent ending up almost irrevocably losing files from your working tree:

• Commit your files to your Git repository and remote servers as quickly and as often as you create or make changes to them.
  There is no such thing as a “too small” commit.
• Routinely create backups of your project files.
  This will help you recover your files if you accidentally delete them or your computer crashes.

Further Reading On SmashingMag

(gg, yk)

As the year is coming to a close, many of us feel rushed, meeting deadlines, finishing off projects, or preparing for the upcoming holiday season. So how about some beautiful, wintery desktop wallpapers to cater for some fresh inspiration and get you in the mood for December (and the holidays, if you’re celebrating)?

As every month since more than twelve years already, artists and designers from across the globe once again got their ideas bubbling and created wallpaper designs to sweeten up your December. They come in versions with and without a calendar and can be downloaded for free. As a little bonus goodie, we also added a selection of December favorites from our wallpapers archives to the collection that are just waiting to be rediscovered, so maybe you’ll spot one of your almost-forgotten favorites in here, too.

A huge thank you to everyone who took on the challenge and shared their designs with us — this post wouldn’t exist without you! Happy December!

• You can click on every image to see a larger preview,
• We respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artist’s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience through their works. This is also why the themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves.
• Submit a wallpaper!
  Did you know that you could get featured in our next wallpapers post, too? We are always looking for creative talent.

Sweet Ride Into The Holidays

“December is here, and that means it’s time to celebrate National Cookie Day and embrace the festive spirit with our snowboarding cookie man! This delightful illustration captures the essence of the holidays — a time for indulging in our favorite treats, spreading joy, and creating unforgettable memories with loved ones. So, grab your favorite cookie, put on your coziest pajamas, and let the holiday cheer commence!” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Spread The Soul Of Christmas

Designed by Bhabna Basak from India.

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• without calendar: 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Views Of The Alhambra

“This last month of the year, we wanted to put the focus on one of the most visited buildings in the world whose beauty is unmatched: the Alhambra in Granada. Together, from the Albaicín we will see this beauty and tour its gardens and rooms. We wish you a very merry Christmas and all the best for the coming year!” — Designed by Veronica Valenzuela Jimenez from Spain.

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• with calendar: 640×480, 800×480, 1024×768, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 640×480, 800×480, 1024×768, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Energy Drink

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

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• without calendar: 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440, 3840×2160

Go Green

“We’d love to invite you to our free Smashing Meets Goes Green on Thursday, December 7, to explore how we as designers and developers can make our world just a bit greener.” — Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

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• with calendar: 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440, 3840×2160
• without calendar: 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440, 3840×2160

Dear Moon, Merry Christmas

Designed by Vlad Gerasimov from Georgia.

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• without calendar: 800×480, 800×600, 1024×600, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1440×960, 1600×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440, 2560×1600, 2880×1800, 3072×1920, 3840×2160, 5120×2880

The House On The River Drina

“Since we often yearn for a peaceful and quiet place to work, we have found inspiration in the famous house on the River Drina in Bajina Bašta, Serbia. Wouldn’t it be great being in nature, away from the civilization, swaying in the wind and listening to the waves of the river smashing your house, having no neighbors to bother you? Not sure about the Internet, though…” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

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Cardinals In Snowfall

“During Christmas season, in the cold, colorless days of winter, Cardinal birds are seen as symbols of faith and warmth. In the part of America I live in, there is snowfall every December. While the snow is falling, I can see gorgeous Cardinals flying in and out of my patio. The intriguing color palette of the bright red of the Cardinals, the white of the flurries and the brown/black of dry twigs and fallen leaves on the snow-laden ground fascinates me a lot, and inspired me to create this quaint and sweet, hand-illustrated surface pattern design as I wait for the snowfall in my town!” — Designed by Gyaneshwari Dave from the United States.

Winter Coziness At Home

“Winter coziness that we all feel when we come home after spending some time outside or when we come to our parental home to celebrate Christmas inspired our designers. Home is the place where we can feel safe and sound, so we couldn’t help ourselves but create this calendar.” — Designed by MasterBundles from Ukraine.

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Bat Christmas

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

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Enchanted Blizzard

“A seemingly forgotten world under the shade of winter glaze hides a moment where architecture meets fashion and change encounters steadiness.” — Designed by Ana Masnikosa from Belgrade, Serbia.

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• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

King Of Pop

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

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Winter Garphee

“Garphee’s flufiness glowing in the snow.” Designed by Razvan Garofeanu from Romania.

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• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Joy To The World

“Joy to the world, all the boys and girls now, joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me.” — Designed by Morgan Newnham from Boulder, Colorado.

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Ninja Santa

Designed by Elise Vanoorbeek from Belgium.

Hot Hot Hot!

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

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Christmas Cookies

“Christmas is coming and a great way to share our love is by baking cookies.” — Designed by Maria Keller from Mexico.

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• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 640×1136, 750×1334, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1242×2208, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440, 2880×1800

Sweet Snowy Tenderness

“You know that warm feeling when you get to spend cold winter days in a snug, homey, relaxed atmosphere? Oh, yes, we love it, too! It is the sentiment we set our hearts on for the holiday season, and this sweet snowy tenderness is for all of us who adore watching the snowfall from our windows. Isn’t it romantic?” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

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• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

All That Belongs To The Past

“Sometimes new beginnings make us revisit our favorite places or people from the past. We don’t visit them often because they remind us of the past but enjoy the brief reunion. Cheers to new beginnings in the new year!” Designed by Dorvan Davoudi from Canada.

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Trailer Santa

“A mid-century modern Christmas scene outside the norm of snowflakes and winter landscapes.” Designed by Houndstooth from the United States.

Getting Hygge

“There’s no more special time for a fire than in the winter. Cozy blankets, warm beverages, and good company can make all the difference when the sun goes down. We’re all looking forward to generating some hygge this winter, so snuggle up and make some memories.” — Designed by The Hannon Group from Washington D.C.

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• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×960, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

December Through Different Eyes

“As a Belgian, December reminds me of snow, cosiness, winter, lights, and so on. However, in the Southern Hemisphere, it is summer at this time. With my illustration I wanted to show the different perspectives on December. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!” — Designed by Jo Smets from Belgium.

Ice Flowers

“I took some photos during a very frosty and cold week before Christmas.” Designed by Anca Varsandan from Romania.

Bathtub Party Day

“December 5th is also known as Bathtub Party Day, which is why I wanted to visualize what celebrating this day could look like.” — Designed by Jonas Vanhamme from Belgium.

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Silver Winter

Designed by Violeta Dabija from Moldova.

Christmas Fail

Designed by Elise Vanoorbeek from Belgium.

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Catch Your Perfect Snowflake

“This time of year, people tend to dream big and expect miracles. Let your dreams come true!” Designed by Igor Izhik from Canada.

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Dream What You Want To Do

“The year will end, hope the last month, you can do what you want to do, seize the time, cherish yourself, expect next year we will be better!” — Designed by Hong Zi-Qing from Taiwan.

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• without calendar: 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×960, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1530×900, 1600×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Time For Reindeer, Snowflakes And Jingle Bells

“Christmas is a time you get homesick, even when you’re home! Christmas reminds me of Harry Potter and his holidays when he would be longing to visit the Weasleys and have a Christmas feast with them at their table! The snowflakes, the Christmas tree, bundles of presents, and the lip smacking feast all gives you a reason to celebrate and stay happy amidst all odds! Life is all about celebration! Christmas is a reason to share the joy of happiness, peace and love with all, your near and dear ones.” — Designed by Acodez IT Solutions from India.

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• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Winter Wonderland

“‘Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.’ (Edith Sitwell) — Designed by Dipanjan Karmakar from India.

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• without calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Cold Outside

“In December it is cold outside, so cute giraffe with scarf.” — Designed by Kim Lemin from Belgium.

Christmas Lights Under The Sea

“Jellyfish always reminded me of Christmas because of the shiny magic they create. Lights of hope in the deep blue sea.” — Designed by Marko Stupić from Zagreb, Croatia.

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Christmas Time

Designed by Sofie Keirsmaekers from Belgium.

Happy Holidays

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

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You’ve probably seen this supercool demo by Max @Aximoris created with a new Spline feature:

There is a nice video tutorial by Max on how to do that with Spline. But being a developer myself I would like to have more control over the scene, so I decided to replicate it using React Three Fiber (R3F) and Three.js.

Let’s dive into this effect right away!

Basic scene

Thanks to the amazing R3F community there is a MeshTransmissionMaterial in the Drei repository now. I also took a model to put behind that glass object. Keep in mind that for glass and such materials it is super important to add environment lighting (usually that’s a .hdr or .exr file), so that we’ll be able to see all those nice reflections.

View the live demo/code.

Now, there is our first issue with this. We shouldn’t be seeing the object behind the glass. Only through the glass. The way this material works, it renders the sculpture twice: first as a texture for the glass, and a second time as an actual object.

Luckily, there is an easy way to fix this, just by hiding the object for the final render.

useFrame((state) => {
        sculpture.current.visible = true;
        glass.current.visible = false;
        // this buffer will be used by MeshTransmissionMaterial
        state.gl.setRenderTarget(buffer);
        state.gl.render(state.scene, state.camera);
        // we need this to switch rendering back to "on screen"
        state.gl.setRenderTarget(null);
        sculpture.current.visible = false; // hiding sculpture
        glass.current.visible = true;
  });

And now using the Transmission material props we can set the “behind-the-glass scene” for it manually, like this:

<MeshTransmissionMaterial
      buffer={buffer.texture}
  >

Not only do we achieve the portal effect now, we also optimize the whole scene rendering significantly! That’s because we only render the object once.

This is what we have now:

View the live demo/code.

Splats

3D portal is interesting, but let’s go further and use Gaussian Splatting!

If you haven’t heard about Gaussian Splatting before, I really recommend watching this video, explaining it in detail. TLDW: It’s a new awesome way to render 3D scenes.

In our case it actually opens up a whole real world to be integrated into our 3D scenes. In Max’s original Spline scene, a human scan was used. I saw this as a great opportunity to feature one of the symbols of my beloved Kyiv—the Ukraine Motherland Monument.

The problem is, the sculpture is over 100 meters tall. And you can’t fly civil drones in Ukraine, we have regular air attacks in here, even this very moment I’m writing these words.

So, I went to YouTube and found 4 year old footage of the monument. I uploaded the video directly to the Luma app (but you could also use Polycam). And here is the result:

Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be that good! It amazes me that some old video can be used to recreate objects pretty accurately. But our quest is not finished here. There is lots of unneeded city landscape in the scan, too. And if we download this “splat” file, it is 260MB! Not very usable in a web environment.

Editing the scene

That’s where the editor from Playcanvas developers comes to the rescue. You can just remove the splats you don’t need.

So after cleaning it up the splat file is only 800kb, which is pretty normal for such a 3D model.

Now we can finally export this as .splat format, which can then be used with Three.js!

Back to R3F

Recently, there has been significant work in adapting this rendering technique for use in Three.js. Excitingly, just last week, Paul Henschel successfully ported it to React Three Fiber! If you’re not familiar with Paul, I highly recommend following him to stay at the forefront of the latest developments in 3D web technology!

So, I got a chance and used his recent example to easily add my edited .splat file to my scene. Coding it couldn’t be simpler:

  <Splat
        scale={2}
        rotation={[0, 0, 0]}
        position={[0, 0, 0]}
        src="my.splat"
  />

Remember, this code is an early version, so there might be changes in the future. It’s likely to become a part of the fantastic Drei collection as a module.

Here’s what it looks like:

Check out the code and live demo in this CodeSandbox.

And we are done! I also added an additional box with stripes, to add some depth. It has side="backside" enabled, so we only see the insides of it, that adds to the illusion.

Here’s another object, a sculpture by Oleksii Zolotariov. I snapped a couple of photos at an exhibition and effortlessly incorporated it into my scene:

View the live demo/code.

I’d love to see what you come up with and how you expand on these demos. Feel free to let me know on Twitter!

In closing, it’s truly fascinating to see the involvement of so many amazing individuals in the rapid spread of this new technology. While I can’t mention everyone, I encourage you to continue supporting all the contributors and open source in general, as it’s the driving force behind these advancements. I also encourage you to sponsor amazing authors of Drei and React Three Fiber.

It’s also mind-blowing that I can record a random video on my phone and have those real-life objects in my Three.js scene within an hour, looking fantastic! Isn’t that incredible?

In business, “silo” indicates isolation and limited communication, not merely safe storage. Organizational silos often hamper information flow, making it challenging for external departments and stakeholders to access crucial data.

However, silos aren’t permanent. By identifying the root causes and implementing effective strategies to overcome them, you can dismantle silos and foster a more collaborative, cohesive environment across the organization.

What are organizational silos?

Organizational silos, often called the silo mentality or functional silos, represent barriers that segregate departments, teams, and individual employees. Such divisions create isolated pockets of information and expertise and prevent cooperation and collaboration across different sections of the same organization.

Silos in business can emerge intentionally or unintentionally. When entrenched in siloed environments, departments often depend on their distinct workflows and resources to accomplish tasks, which can lead to inconsistent outcomes across teams. For example, the output of a siloed design team might not align seamlessly with the objectives of the marketing team, causing friction. Over time, these isolated teams can grow further apart, reducing communication and efficiency and hindering organizational growth.

What is a silo mentality?

A silo mentality emerges when departments or teams, whether due to organizational structures or intentional choices, avoid collaboration and knowledge sharing. This hinders an organization’s efficiency and growth. As teams expand, the most senior members typically become the group’s main point of contact — or information silo — especially if streamlined communication processes aren’t in place.

Here’s how silos typically manifest:

• Departmental silos. Teams with distinct functions and responsibilities can unintentionally isolate themselves from others. For example, a marketing team might not regularly interact or share insights with the product development team, leading to potential misalignments in strategies or objectives.
• Position-based silos. Differences in experience or expertise can cause divisions among staff. Senior employees with years of company knowledge might inadvertently distance themselves from newer colleagues, leading to gaps in knowledge transfer.
• Location-driven silos. Physical barriers or geographical distances can foster silos. Remote workers or teams in different offices, especially in different time zones, might find it challenging to communicate and collaborate as effectively as those seated together.

What causes organizational silos?

Whether individual or at the team level, silo mentality stems from several major causes, including:

1. Poor communication channels

Limiting communication to specific channels and individuals means information remains in closed circles, leading to a lack of transparency and accountability. When communication breaks down, it becomes challenging for teams to share ideas and work productively. This results in misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and frustration among employees. Symptoms of these communication barriers include unanswered emails, a lack of interdepartmental meetings, and unclear reporting lines.

2. Lack of alignment among leadership

When executives and leaders choose different paths or have misaligned goals, it inadvertently forms team silos. This shifts departments’ focus toward fulfilling their immediate leadership’s goals while overlooking how these endeavors fit into the broader corporate strategy, leading to fragmentation and reduced synergy. Signs of this misalignment include conflicting departmental goals, lack of a shared vision, and opposing interests among departments.

For example, if your sales department prioritizes short-term revenue boosts while your product team focuses on long-term product innovation, the team’s focus diverges, creating silos.

3. Inadequate technology

Outdated or substandard technology limits communication and collaboration. These scenarios compel teams to develop their own internal workflows and communication methods. While these independent systems may work within a department, they often clash with the protocols and processes of other teams, resulting in data discrepancies, incompatible systems, and misinterpreted shared information — leading to operational silos.

To avoid these pitfalls, look for signs of obsolete software and hardware, duplicate information, miscommunication, data errors, and wasted resources. Recognizing these signs lets you address technological shortfalls to ensure your organization has the tools to work cohesively and efficiently.

4. Insufficient training

A lack of training and educational workshops keeps employees in closed circles with reduced exposure to diverse skill sets and perspectives. This restriction can inadvertently foster a siloed perspective.

Remedy this by embracing cross-training and skill-sharing initiatives. These programs empower employees to explore roles beyond their responsibilities, offering a firsthand experience of how their colleagues perform and contribute to the company. These initiatives enhance individual skill sets and forge better interdepartmental understanding, allowing them to understand their role in the organization’s broader vision.

5. Competition for resources

When departments compete for the same limited resources — whether it’s budget, staff, or technology — it fosters a protective and survival-of-the-fittest mindset. This forces teams to prioritize their needs above the company’s objectives, forming silos. Instead of a collaborative environment, departments protect what they consider “theirs” and become unwilling to share.

For example, imagine two departments with overlapping technology needs, but there’s only enough budget to address one. Instead of working together to find a mutually beneficial solution, they might each advocate solely for their needs, pushing the other to the sideline. This competitive mindset can spiral into teams hoarding resources or becoming hyperfocused on their immediate objectives at the expense of broader company goals.

6. Hierarchy and company structure

When decision-making and information flow concentrate at higher levels, it creates barriers between managerial tiers. Employees lower in the hierarchy may feel disconnected and undervalued, leading to decreased teamwork and conflicting agendas.

Imagine an employee not having a voice or access to essential information because of their position. This might cause them to retreat to their immediate team or department for support. Over time, this can lead to groups functioning more as isolated units than parts of a cohesive whole. Decisions consistently bottlenecking at the top or visible tension between management levels are early indicators of silos forming from poor organizational structuring.

7. Mergers and acquisitions

Mergers and takeovers integrate two different organizational cultures, hierarchies, and workflows, and these clashing elements can form silos within the new combined organization. Employees from each original business might lean strongly toward their familiar workflows and be reluctant to adapt to new procedures or leadership. This leads to a lack of integration, with different sections operating independently.

If your employees resist change, have low morale, and aren’t aligned with broader company goals, they might gravitate toward their original team for clarity and support. Consequently, departments might evolve more as separate entities than components of a unified organization.

Are there pros to organizational silos in business?

While organizational silos often carry a negative connotation, they offer advantages in specific contexts. Here are a few:

• Stronger relationships. In siloed environments, especially within smaller companies, employees often interact with the same group of people. This frequency promotes a close-knit team dynamic in which members become attuned to their strengths, preferences, and work styles, enhancing collaboration and boosting productivity.
• Enhanced specialization. Silos encourage specialization within departments. When a team or department focuses on a particular area without external distractions, they become experts in their domain, often leading to innovation and higher-quality outputs.
• Clearer accountability. Due to their reduced size and defined boundaries, assigning tasks and monitoring progress within silos can be seamless. When you separate departments or teams from one another, you outline responsibilities for each more clearly. This drives increased individual accountability because team members are likelier to own their work and its results.

While some organizations may realize these benefits, they’re not universally applicable. You must recognize the contexts where silos offer advantages and strike a balance between leveraging their strengths while minimizing their negative impact to foster a harmonious and productive organizational environment.

How to break down organizational silos: 5 strategies

Breaking down organizational silos promotes teamwork, productivity, and innovation. Here are some actionable strategies for silo management.

1. Nurture a shared vision with common values

Encourage team leaders and their departments to buy into a unified mission that resonates with the company’s foundational values. Ensuring your entire workforce aligns with this unified mission creates a shared purpose and increases collaboration.

Regularly host workshops around your company’s core principles to put this into action. By actively involving employees in these sessions and championing open discussions, you gauge and ensure that individual targets align with the organization’s broader objectives, driving collective momentum toward success.

2. Form cross-functional teams

Establish cross-functional teams and task forces by combining members from different departments. These groups can focus on specific projects tailored to their skills and experience while learning from each other. Adopting this strategy fosters collaboration and ensures departments no longer operate in isolation but thrive on shared knowledge and collective strength.

3. Improve communication channels

Improve interdepartmental collaboration by creating clear and open lines of communication where information flows freely across teams. When employees experience transparent dialogue, they’re less likely to form silos.

Invest in communication tools and software to share information seamlessly across departments and teams. Then, foster a culture of knowledge exchange and mutual understanding by holding regular interdepartmental meetings. This encourages employees to confidently voice their ideas, concerns, and insights, creating an environment that naturally prevents silo formation.

4. Align and support your leaders

When leaders have aligned goals and a synergistic spirit, it resonates throughout the organization.

Hold regular leadership meetings to track progress, synchronize strategies, and establish new goals for short- and long-term success. You can also offer leadership training for collaboration and conflict resolution and encourage higher-ups to participate in cross-functional initiatives and team-building activities. This bridges organizational gaps between executives and sets a visible precedent of unity for the entire organization.

5. Invest in technology

Prioritize and invest in solutions like advanced project management tools, efficient cloud-based systems, and intuitive visual web development platforms. Such tools empower teams to collaborate seamlessly, regardless of their department, location, or role, optimizing productivity and ensuring your organization stays agile.

Promote collaboration with Webflow

By identifying sources of silos and implementing these strategies, you actively work to eliminate silos and promote a cross-functional work culture, and the right tools help amplify this transformation.

Webflow allows in-house departments to create effective online platforms that foster communication and teamwork. Whether you’re an experienced marketer or new to design, you can use our collaborative web development resources to build stunning websites.

With shared workspaces and dedicated roles, our Designer tool encourages collective web design across teams and departments. Plus, you can visit our blog for more inspiration on the best tools and practices to grow your online presence.

Businesses rely on a vast amount of data — like employee records and customer databases — to function effectively. However, sifting through massive, rapidly generated data from diverse sources to extract meaningful insights is challenging.

Abundant information offers advantages but also increases the risk of errors and inconsistencies, leading to misinformed decisions. But with data validation, you sift through, evaluate, and refine data to align it with your organization’s standards, promoting informed decision-making and operational excellence.

What is data validation?

Data validation is the process of reviewing and verifying data for accuracy, consistency, and reliability before using it. Ensuring precision in all data-related activities — from collection to analysis and presentation — is crucial.

For example, if you run an ecommerce website, you can use data validation to check large volumes of data for quality control, like product catalogs and purchase history. For example, if a customer encounters incorrect product details or inconsistent pricing for different variations of the same product, it leads to frustration, lost sales, or damaged trust. By taking proactive steps to minimize these errors, you optimize internal operations and showcase your commitment to reliability and transparency, reinforcing customer trust.

Beyond accuracy, data validation ensures completeness and uniformity. It actively identifies gaps in data, flags any missing or incomplete information, and enforces standardization across the dataset. This lets you lean confidently on your data because you know that it’s vast but also accurate and consistent.

Why it’s important to validate data

Using inaccurate and invalid data can have far-reaching consequences on your business. Here are a few reasons why you should validate data.

Avoid costly errors

Inaccurate or incomplete data can skew business decisions, cause operational inefficiencies, and lead to financial losses. Consider a retail store: If it operates with outdated or wrong pricing information, it risks underpricing products, leading to lost revenue. Alternatively, overpricing might drive customers away and push them toward competitors. Such mistakes can have irreparable effects on a company’s bottom line.

Ensure consistency during migration and integration

Data frequently moves and merges between departments and sources. For example, your marketing team might pass large design assets to the web development team for website creation and campaign development. Without data validation, the migration and integration of data risks turning chaotic and vulnerable to errors — inconsistent input formats, missing data, and duplicate entries can all jeopardize the final output.

By employing data validation, you ensure consistency and completeness and minimize errors and confusion between team members and departments. This is vital when consolidating customer datasets, merging financial records, and updating product catalogs.

Support data-driven decision-making

Data-driven insights are essential for making well-informed decisions. Validating data allows you to extract reliable, actionable insights based on market trends and customer behavior. Not only can you avoid wasting time and poor decision-making, but you can also use this information for strategic planning, marketing campaigns, and product development.

For example, an ecommerce company can study previous data for sales during the holiday season. They can use proven marketing methods and promote relevant products by analyzing information from the past few years.

Establish trust

Stakeholders, whether customers, investors, vendors, executives, or partners, count on organizations to uphold and manage valid data. This commitment to accuracy forms the foundation of a company’s positive reputation and trustworthiness and encourages interested parties to collaborate and potential customers to buy products and services.

Conversely, unchecked data can lead to errors that negatively impact your company’s credibility or brand trust, such as misleading marketing statistics, incorrect financial reports, or inconsistent product details. These inaccuracies can deter potential partners, misinform stakeholders, and disappoint customers. Data validation doesn’t just establish trust — it also maintains it to scale your company.

How businesses use data validation

Whether you run a small business or work for a large enterprise, consider incorporating data validation processes into your day-to-day activities. Here are a few ways existing businesses use data validation:

• Enhance customer experiences. Data validation helps maintain an accurate customer database through updated contact information, buyer preferences, and purchase history. These metrics help with targeted marketing and improved customer relationship management (CRM) practices, like customer support, so you can offer more relevant products and services, which leads to improved customer satisfaction.
• Enable automation. Data validation provides automation systems with consistent and correct data. This helps with validating and streamlining processes such as order processing, payroll, and manual worksheet entry. With automation taking care of repetitive, manual tasks, team members can redirect their focus to higher-value activities, such as strategic planning and innovation.
• Ensure regulatory compliance. Industries worldwide face stringent data accuracy and privacy regulations, like the U.S.’s Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) or Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Data validation ensures businesses comply with these requirements by correctly verifying data and managing sensitive information. Failure to comply can lead to hefty financial penalties and legal repercussions, making it vital for businesses to validate their data and safeguard their reputation.
• Elevate marketing initiatives. Marketing teams use data metrics such as clicks, user behavior, and traffic to identify their target audiences. With validated data, you can personalize your brand’s messaging, measure campaign impact accurately, and use historical data to predict changing trends and preferences. This leads to successful marketing efforts and optimal resource use so you can conserve time and money.
• Streamline inventory management. Inaccurate data can lead to stock shortages or surpluses. Short stock prevents timely reorders, leading to missed sales opportunities and dissatisfied customers who turn to competitors. Conversely, overages tie up capital, increase storage costs, and risk product obsolescence, especially for perishable or trendy items. Both scenarios strain resources and negatively impact customer relations. By validating data, you can monitor product information — like quantities, sizes, and colors — and optimize inventory levels according to demand.

How to validate data in 5 simple steps

Whether you’re working with a small dataset or large volumes of information, it’s essential to authenticate data for completeness and consistency. Here are a few data validation steps to follow.

1. Identify data sources

Start your validation process by identifying where your data comes from. Find the systems or databases where you collect and store data and organize them by category or name for straightforward identification. Mapping out these sources helps you understand the data’s structure, format, and context, allowing for effective handling.

2. Define data validation rules

To maintain data accuracy and reliability, set clear validation guidelines tailored to the nature and purpose of the data. A few standard validation rules include:

• Data type checks. Verify entries match the expected format, like date, address, or email.
• Completeness. Ensure a data string or dataset fills the relevant and mandatory fields.
• Consistency. Maintain uniformity, especially when merging or sourcing data from varied origins.
• Range and boundary. Confirm entries adhere to set limits, such as logical age limits or expected pricing ranges.
• Referential integrity. Safeguard links and relationships between different datasets.

3. Implement automated validation processes

Embracing automation in data validation minimizes human errors from manual entry and optimizes workflows. Here’s how you can achieve this:

4. Manual validation

While automation streamlines data validation, you may occasionally need human intervention for qualitative assessments and context-specific inspections. Here are some tips for manual validation:

• Data sampling. Examine subsets of your data to detect potential inconsistencies or anomalies.
• Data profiling. Use profiling tools like Atlan to structure and sift through data, identifying deviations and outliers.
• Collaborative review. Engage specialists who can meticulously scrutinize and validate data from their field of expertise.

Additionally, tools like Microsoft Excel come equipped with data validation features. With Excel, you can set and enforce specific data criteria and types for each cell, maintaining quality and uniformity across datasets and spreadsheets. Using these tools amplifies the accuracy and reliability of your data so your business decisions are grounded in trustworthy information.

5. Monitor and maintain accuracy

Data validation is a continuous process that requires adjustments and refinements. Changes in sources, rules, and compliance demand timely reviews and updates to ensure long-term data quality and dependability. Consider these steps to maintain data accuracy:

• Audit routinely. Regularly assess and validate your datasets to identify inconsistencies or discrepancies and ensure the information remains up to date and accurate.
• Stay on top of compliance changes. Monitor updates to industry regulations and standards, and adjust validation methods accordingly to maintain compliance.
• Implement feedback mechanisms. Implement channels for team members and users to report data anomalies or potential errors so you can enable swift fixes and improve overall data quality.

Make data-driven decisions with Webflow

The cornerstone of any successful organization is data that works seamlessly with a powerful online platform. Webflow Enterprise allows you to create and manage websites without relying on web developers, giving you complete control over your digital presence.

Webflow’s integrations and automation systems enhance your website’s functionality and generate reports to leverage user data and target the right audiences. Harness the power of Webflow and boost your business-building approach today.

While every website interaction represents user engagement, not all lead to meaningful outcomes. To sift through and extract meaningful insights from these interactions, you need conversion analysis. It’s more than just a metric — it’s a compass that guides your team toward building a website that engages visitors and converts them into devoted customers.

Let’s take a closer look at website conversion analysis to extract actionable insights for design and marketing strategies.

What’s conversion analysis?

Conversion analysis delves into the conversion data of your website or platform and evaluates user interactions and how they translate into desired actions, like purchases or subscriptions. It analyzes the behavior, activities, and reasons behind a customer’s decision, whether abandoning a shopping cart or completing a purchase.

These insights identify customer pain points, areas of improvement, and successful conversion funnels to benchmark your website’s performance. This, in turn, provides data into how your team can refine marketing tactics and web design elements to reduce user friction and improve the user experience (UX), paving the way for more conversions.

Different types of customer conversions include:

• Sales conversion: A visitor browses an ecommerce website and finalizes a purchase
• Sign-up conversion: Users decide to sign up for newsletters, create accounts, or join memberships
• Download conversion: Users download something of value, such as an app, ebook, whitepaper, or other digital resources
• Click-through conversion: Users follow a call-to-action (CTA) button that redirects them to another page or prompts another interaction

3 main benefits of analyzing conversions

Customer conversion data lets you determine where your current strategies and website elements shine and falter so you can create a better site experience for your customers and optimize conversions.

Specific benefits of conversion funnel analysis include:

1. Efficient resource allocation

Even the most well-funded teams have finite resources, like time, personnel, and budget. Conversion reports provide essential data that can help you efficiently allocate those resources and improve your bottom line.

For example, when determining how much time and effort to allocate to various marketing channels — such as social media, search, and email — conversion reports become invaluable. They offer insights into the balance between the cost of acquiring a new customer and the value they bring throughout their lifetime with your business. This lets you assess the cost-effectiveness of gaining many new customers versus nurturing existing relationships. It also guides you in selecting the most efficient channel for customer outreach.

Analyzing this data makes your conversion strategy sharper because you can prioritize cost-effective customer acquisition while maximizing their potential long-term value. For example, conversion analysis reports might reveal that customers earned through social media ads not only cost less to acquire but also tend to make more repeated purchases, in contrast to those reached through email marketing. Use this data to inform your customer success strategy.

2. Optimized customer navigation

Conversion funnel analysis lets you explore customer data to pinpoint areas of friction in the customer journey that cause customers to drop off. If you’ve crafted a captivating ecommerce website but discover customers abandoning their cart before finalizing their purchase, conversion analysis helps you detect the exact stages where customers lose interest and exit your site. In this case, it might reveal that an unintuitive payment process frustrates customers, causing them to leave.

By addressing these identified pain points, such as streamlining the checkout process in this example, you reduce your bounce rate, minimize cart abandonment, and enhance the overall conversion rate. This optimization boosts sales and ensures a smoother user experience, building customer trust and loyalty.

3. Enhanced customer experience

Draw on conversion analysis data to refine your marketing, design, and web strategies and ensure they resonate more effectively with their target audience and achieve set objectives. Offering genuine value for your customers boosts user engagement and reduces customer churn by enhancing user satisfaction.

For example, imagine you have a B2B website specializing in customer relationship management (CRM) software. Through conversion analysis, you discover that many website visitors are interested in integrations with other popular business tools. Acting on this information, you strategically pepper your site with CTAs promoting integration-related resources and webinars. This proactive approach leads to a notable increase in sign-ups for your integration-focused webinars, demonstrating a successful conversion strategy.

How can I analyze conversion rates?

The conversion rate formula plays an integral part in conversion analysis. To determine your conversion rate, use this formula:

Conversion rate =(Number of conversions / Total visitors) x 100

But conversion analysis is much more than calculating conversion rate. Beyond this metric, it also dives deeper into understanding the nuances of customer behavior.

While each situation differs, here’s a brief guide to help you navigate conversion analysis.

1. Define your conversions

Start by defining what constitutes a conversion for your website, whether this means purchases, click-throughs, sign-ups, or downloads. This definition hinges on your business goals. For instance, if you’re running an ecommerce site, you’ll likely define conversions as purchases.

2. Segment your customers

Categorize users based on factors such as demographics, behavior, or geographic location. Then, analyze the conversion data for each segment to understand why specific segments drop off at particular stages of the customer journey or why other groups tend to convert more often. This allows for targeted strategies and lets you address each group’s unique needs, preferences, and behaviors to drive more efficient and effective conversions.

3. Collect data and reports with analytics tools

After defining your conversions, track them. You can do this by setting up your website’s analytics and targeting tools or using powerful, third-party solutions like Google Analytics. These tools monitor specific events like button clicks or form submissions to provide a granular, data-driven understanding of user behavior.

However, raw conversion data alone isn’t actionable. After collecting conversion data, you must transform it into comprehensive reports and visualizations, like conversion heatmaps. These visual aids aggregate and interpret customer data, producing actionable data and enabling more informed decision-making. Fortunately, most analytics tools have built-in reporting functionalities to provide a streamlined and insightful process.

How to use extracted insights from your conversion analysis

The real impact of conversion rate analysis comes from leveraging those insights to fine-tune your overall strategy to increase conversions, a process known as conversion rate optimization (CRO). Here’s how to make the most of your conversion analysis.

1. Identify bottlenecks

Bottlenecks, or roadblocks, are customer journey sections where visitors experience friction and, as a result, drop off. Conversion analysis identifies and lets you rectify these interruptions so you can pave the way for streamlined conversions. For instance, customers might feel overwhelmed by complex webpage design, confusing product descriptions, or poor site performance due to server issues.

Addressing these pain points, like optimizing server response or simplifying site layouts, can significantly improve user satisfaction. This drives successful conversions and cultivates a positive and memorable user experience, encouraging repeat visits and brand loyalty.

2. Refine your conversion strategy

Conversion analysis insights provide a treasure trove of actionable insights. Tap into this data to adjust your online web content and align it with proven conversion drivers. For example, if analysis reveals that users engage more with video content than infographics, consider creating product demonstration or customer testimonial videos. If certain keywords or topics resonate more with your target audience, produce content around those themes to attract and retain visitor interest. By adapting to audience preferences and behaviors, you more effectively captivate and guide them through the conversion funnel.

3. Test and iterate

Successful CRO strategies require ongoing attention and refinement. While conversion analysis provides data to refine your strategy, you’ll still need to continuously test and iterate on your approach to ensure it serves your audience.

For instance, before committing to a new marketing strategy, use A/B testing tools to validate your conversion analysis findings by comparing the performance of your current approach against the proposed changes. This lets you trial different landing page variations, pricing strategies, marketing campaigns, and more. Once you implement your new strategy, conduct another conversion analysis to see if you’re on the right track. This continuous feedback loop informs further strategy and web content tweaks and ensures your tactics evolve with your audience’s preferences.

Start converting now with Webflow

Ready to elevate your website’s performance and turn casual visitors into dedicated customers? We’re here to help.

Webflow’s intuitive design tools, combined with powerful analytics tools, empower you to craft engaging user experiences with captivating layouts and seamless interactions that drive conversions. In fact, you can even hook up your Webflow website to Google Analytics to take advantage of this powerful conversion analysis tool. Build a website with Webflow today.