Hello folks!

Good mix this week. The Tailwind team shipped patches across the board (core, IntelliSense, and the Prettier plugin), Josh Comeau explains how to get spring animations in pure CSS, and Temani Afif dives into the new border-shape property.

Let's dive in 👇

🌟 News

Tailwind CSS v4.3.3

The Tailwind team shipped another patch release, this one focused on bug fixes across the CLI, PostCSS, and Vite plugins. Highlights include a new --watch --poll option for when filesystem events aren't reliable, better CJK font handling on Windows, and a fix that keeps achromatic theme colors from shifting hue in oklch. If you've hit any weird edge cases with watchers or color mixing, this release probably fixes them.

Tailwind CSS IntelliSense v0.16.0

New IntelliSense release, focused on speed. Autocomplete runs faster in large files and utility lookups on v4 projects got quicker too. You also get pixel equivalents when hovering @container values, plus a fix for class hovers inside Vue <script> tags.

Prettier Plugin for Tailwind CSS v0.8.1

Small patch release with two fixes worth knowing about. The plugin no longer strips escape sequences when sorting classes in JS string literals, which could break Vue attribute expressions. Svelte users get class sorting back in markup and dynamic class={...} expressions when running prettier-plugin-svelte v4. If you use either framework, grab the update.

🤩 Windy Picks

This week's Windy Pick: me 🙋🏻‍♀️

I'm looking for a full-time role (also open to projects). I've spent 12 years doing front-end work with full stack chops in Laravel, Vue, and React, and if you're reading this you already know how deep I am in the Tailwind ecosystem: I run this newsletter, a design-to-Tailwind service over at design2tailwind.com, and I've shipped Tailwind projects for clients like Baselair and FLX Websites.

Why me? I'm the person you hand a Figma file to and get back clean, production-ready full-stack code without babysitting. I communicate early, deliver on time, and I've spent years working async with teams across the US and Europe (I'm on AST, so overlap is easy). If your team is heavy on backend or full stack devs and light on front-end expertise, that's exactly the gap I fill. Reach me at vivian@redpixel.io and let's chat.

📚 Learning

Springs and Bounces in Native CSS

Josh Comeau is back with another interactive deep dive, this time on the linear() timing function. If you've ever wanted spring or bounce animations without pulling in a JS library, this is the CSS feature you need. The trick: instead of a Bézier curve, you feed linear() a set of points that trace the motion you want, and tools like Easing Wizard generate those values for you. Josh also covers the gotchas (interrupted transitions feel off, and springs don't love fixed durations) plus a smart CSS variable pattern with @supports fallbacks. A great read if you want your animations to feel more natural!

Dark mode with web standards

Ollie Williams wrote a practical guide on implementing dark mode the standards-friendly way. The setup: respect the OS preference by default with <meta name="color-scheme" content="light dark">, then let users override it per-site by swapping that attribute with JS. Ollie covers what color-scheme actually affects (system colors, scrollbars, light-dark() values) and where it falls short, like the disconnect with the prefers-color-scheme media query. There's also a clever style query hack for changing more than colors between modes.

Get Ready For the Powerful CSS border-shape Property!

Temani Afif is at it again with a deep dive into border-shape, the newest addition to the CSS shapes family. If you've ever tried adding a border to a clipped shape, you know the pain: clip-path cuts off everything, decorations included. border-shape fixes that by shaping the element itself, so borders, shadows, and outlines follow the shape instead of the box. Temani shows off border-only shapes, cutouts, breakout backgrounds, and some wild hover animations.

💅 Showcase

Juicy

Juicy is a native Mac battery app that gives you custom alerts at any percentage you want, not just Apple's 10% and 5% defaults. It also tracks battery health, cycle count, and temperature, shows which apps drain your battery, and lets you cap charging in the 50-80% range to protect lifespan. Built in Swift by an indie dev, uses under 0.1% CPU, and it's a one-time purchase with no subscription. If your MacBook has ever died mid-call, this one's for you.

🎁 Resource

tw-fade

I love finding plugins that solve small UI details you didn't know you needed, and this one is a great example. tw-fade adds scroll-edge fades to any scroll container so content dissolves into the surface behind it, using pure CSS and zero JavaScript. My favorite part: the fades are scroll-aware, so they only show up when content is hidden beyond that edge. You get utilities for direction, band size, travel distance, and clear zones for sticky headers. Built for Tailwind v4 and worth a try if you want to play with scroll-driven animations.

👌 Cool Stuff

⭐ PikaPods – Try any open source app without babysitting a server. PikaPods spins it up in seconds, handles updates and backups, and shares revenue with the original devs. New accounts get $5 in free credit.

Larasend – A self-hosted, open-source email dashboard for AWS SES with a one-line Laravel integration.

Sleeve – A Mac desktop music widget to display/control Apple Music, Spotify, & Doppler, with shareable themes & shortcuts.

shiply.now – Publish any app to a live URL in one call, with backend included (DB, functions, email, custom domain), flat pricing.

Do you want to share something with the Tailwind CSS community?
You can submit a link or message me on Twitter @vivgui.

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