Filling out online forms is often repetitive and time-consuming, especially for busy professionals. Thankfully, various innovative solutions can help automate and streamline this task. Here are six excellent tools that simplify form filling, boosting your productivity and saving valuable time.

1. FillApp — Smart AI Form Filler

FillApp is an intelligent Chrome extension powered by AI, designed to instantly fill out forms without complicated setups.

Highlights:

• Automatic field recognition: No templates needed.
• Easy to use: Simply paste your information as plain text.
• Improves over time: Learns from your inputs, enhancing accuracy and speed.

Ideal for: Quick, hassle-free form filling on web platforms.

Check out FillApp

2. Fill A Form AI — Collaborative Autofill Extension

Fill A Form AI simplifies form filling by integrating seamlessly with data sources like Google Sheets, suitable for teams managing shared data.

Highlights:

• Team-friendly: Shared data libraries for consistent inputs.
• Adaptive learning: Remembers past form inputs.

Ideal for: Professionals needing organized and shared data filling.

Explore Fill A Form AI

3. Magical — Custom Text Expansion

Magical is a powerful text snippet tool designed for efficiency, ideal for professionals repeatedly entering similar information.

Highlights:

• Custom snippets: Create shortcuts for frequently used text.
• Cross-site functionality: Easily move data between different websites.

Ideal for: Customizable, quick data entry without AI automation.

Learn more about Magical

4. Instafill.ai — Advanced PDF Form Filling

Instafill.ai automates PDF and document form completion, ideal for handling complex paperwork quickly.

Highlights:

• AI-driven: Accurately identifies and fills PDF fields.
• Multi-format: Supports PDFs, scanned documents, and images.

Ideal for: Professionals handling significant document-based paperwork.

Try Instafill.ai

5. Axiom.ai — No-Code Browser Automation

Axiom.ai provides flexible, browser-based automation for various online tasks, including complex form filling workflows.

Highlights:

• Visual bot builder: Easily automate multi-step processes.
• Data integration: Connect with external sources like Google Sheets.

Ideal for: Users who need extensive control and custom automation capabilities.

Automate with Axiom.ai

6. UiPath & RPA Solutions — Comprehensive Enterprise Automation

RPA tools like UiPath offer broad automation capabilities, suited for extensive, enterprise-level tasks beyond just form filling.

Highlights:

• End-to-end workflows: Automate entire processes across multiple apps.
• Versatile: Handles web, desktop, and PDF forms seamlessly.

Ideal for: Large organizations with complex automation requirements.

Discover UiPath

Why Choose FillApp?

While each tool offers unique advantages, FillApp stands out due to its simplicity, speed, and zero-setup requirements. Its powerful AI intuitively handles most forms effortlessly, adapting over time to your specific needs without needing technical expertise.

Top Reasons Professionals Prefer FillApp:

• Instant setup: Start filling forms immediately after installing.
• Context-aware: Intelligently recognizes and adapts to form fields.
• Effortless learning: Continuously improves accuracy with usage.

Wrap-Up

In today’s fast-paced work environment, choosing the right form-filling tool can significantly impact your productivity. FillApp combines ease of use, smart AI-driven automation, and zero hassle to deliver exceptional convenience, making it a perfect choice for busy professionals.

Start using FillApp now and turn form filling into a seamless part of your day.

Dark mode has been very popular in recent years as the common operating systems (iOS, Android, macOS, Windows) support dark mode and a lot of people prefer dark mode. Most popular mobile apps also support dark mode so the users who prefer dark mode will feel comfortable.

The Dark mode problem

There are a bunch of websites that actually support dark mode through a toggle button that users can use to switch between dark and light mode. The problem here is that the user has to click that button in order to switch to the dark mode which creates additional work to do for lazy users like me.

There are other types of websites that are completely in dark mode with no option to switch to light mode. This one is perfect for dark mode users but light mode users hate that.

The only solution in this is that the website should detect the system color theme and dynamically switch to the appropriate color theme.

And the good news is there is a CSS media feature for that!

CSS media query to detect if the user prefers dark mode

There is a CSS media query that allows to override or define styles based on the user’s preferred color scheme:

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {

}

You can learn more information about prefers-color-scheme CSS media query here.

In other words, if the website has black text on a white background it can be adjusted for dark preferred systems like this:

body {
  background: FloralWhite;
}

h1 {
  color: #121212;
}

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
  body {
      background: #121212;
  }
  
  h1 {
    color: FloralWhite;
  }
}

In the example, I just swapped the light/dark colors inside the media query.

Check out the complete example in CodePen.

Detect if the user prefers dark mode in Javascript

You can also detect the system color scheme by using javascript:

const prefersDarkScheme = window.matchMedia("(prefers-color-scheme: dark)");

It can be used for example to add a “dark-mode” class to the body tag:

if (prefersDarkScheme.matches) {
  document.body.classList.add("dark-mode");
}

Using CSS variables for dark mode

Another way to control the color scheme in the website is to declare CSS variables and then change the variable colors inside the CSS media query.

In the example I declared CSS variables in the “:root” pseudo-class, so it can be applied globally in the whole HTML document:

:root {
  --main-bg-color: FloralWhite;
  --main-text-color: #121212;
}

Next, let’s use those variables:

body {
  background: var(--main-bg-color);
}

h1 {
  color: var(--main-text-color);
}

And finally, let’s change the values of those variables inside the “prefers-color-scheme” CSS media query:

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
  :root {
    --main-bg-color: #121212;
    --main-text-color: FloralWhite;
  }
}

Check out the complete example in CodePen.

Images in dark mode

Shiny images in dark mode sometimes can look too bright which is not cool in dark mode.

Here is an example:

Mark Otto shared a good example of how image brightness can be reduced in dark mode:

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
 img {
    opacity: .75;
    transition: opacity .5s ease-in-out;
  }
  img:hover {
    opacity: 1;
  }
}

And the result looks pretty good to me:

Unfortunately, it’s not enough for every case, and sometimes we need to completely change the image source according to the system’s preferred color theme. For example, you may change some icons or the logo on the website for dark mode.

And the good news is there is an easy way to achieve that by just using HTML:

<picture>
  <source srcset="light-image.png" media="(prefers-color-scheme: light) or (prefers-color-scheme: no-preference)">
  <source srcset="dark-image.png" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)">
</picture>

In the example above there is two “<source>” tags inside the “<picture>” tag. It should show the image from the first source if the user prefers the light mode or does not have any preferences at all. And the second source will be used for the users who prefer the dark mode.

Browser support

The “prefers-color-scheme” media query is supported by major browsers including Chrome 76+, Firefox 67+, Safari 12.5+ (13+ on iOS).
It does not support Internet Explorer.

Can I Use estimates over 89% coverage of internet users.

Conclusion

A lot of major websites already support dark mode including Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. It’s not only trendy but it also enhances accessibility by supporting users who are sensitive to eye strain in bright mode. It also makes the website consistent within the system that the user uses.

If you already have a website I hope this article was helpful to you to make your website support light/dark mode in the right way.

Next time when you start a new web project I don’t know if you can invest that time to make the website support dark mode, but what you can do is using color variables which will make it easy in the future to bring your app to the “dark” web.

Material Design System also supports dark mode which you can check out here.

If you found this article helpful, give me some claps ?.

Dynamic Dark/Light Mode On the Web was originally published in Level Up Coding on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Do you need a truly reusable design system in different UI frameworks?
You are in the right place!

What is the problem?

When we talk about design systems we think about reusable components that can be useful across the company and across the teams.

And the problems appear when:

• your team starts work in a different Javascript framework
• your company buys a product which coded in a different framework
• your team starts developing a cross-platform desktop web application (Electron)
• your team decides to build a simple Progressive Web Application
• your team builds React Native/Ionic mobile app

If you have already met one of the problems or you see it in the future then Web Components are a great solution for you!

What are Web Components?

Here is a short definition from MDN.

Web Components is a suite of different technologies allowing you to create reusable custom elements — with their functionality encapsulated away from the rest of your code — and utilize them in your web apps.

Simply it’s a browser API that allows you to create new custom encapsulated HTML tags that contain their specific logic and styles which work in all modern browsers and can be used in all Javascript frameworks and libraries.
Let’s say everywhere, where HTML works!

And the next question:

What is this? 🤓

Well. Web Components come with four main specifications:

Custom Elements
You can define custom elements with their specific logic that can be used everywhere in the applications.
(e.g. <error-message></error-message>).

Shadow DOM
It allows you to create an encapsulated custom style and markup inside your custom elements. Imagine shadow DOM of your <error-message> custom element contains h3 and p HTML tags and it has its own style. As style is added in Shadow DOM it will never override whole DOM elements styles:

ES Modules
The ES Modules specification defines the inclusion and reuse of JS documents in a standards-based, modular, performant way. You can define ES6 class for your error-message custom element and enjoy its features:

HTML Template
New <template> and <slot> tags.
When you have to reuse the same markup structures repeatedly on a web page, it makes sense to use some kind of a template rather than repeating the same structure over and over again.

Which browsers support Web components?

All modern browsers support Web Components, and you can still use it in IE by loading its polyfill.

How to build a design system using Web Components?

You can develop your company-specific tool or just write your reusable components by using simple vanilla js, and it’s should be a good decision.
But besides it, there is a great CLI tool called Stencil which makes it even easier to build and distribute Design Systems with Web Components.
Stencil does not only make it easy to build Web Components but it also automatically manages polyfills for browsers that need them.
It also produces components that are very small in terms of file size and exceed performance standards for the modern Progressive Web App era.

BTW. There is also Vue’s Web Component and Angular Elements which are also good options to build a Web Components based design system. But keep in mind that both require their own framework bundle to be linked in the applaction.

How does Stencil work?

Here is a basic sample of the Stencil component. It’s very like an angular component and has similar functionality.

Stencil allows you to only include the bundle of your component and use it everywhere where javascript and HTML work without caring about polyfills.

It also supports lifecycle methods, props, state, and the components are rendered using JSX. Which you should be familiar with if you ever used React.js.

If you are interested in a more detailed Stencil introduction I would recommend you to read this article:

An Introduction into Stencil.js

Simply you can use your Stencil components in your React.js, Vue and angular app. Check Stencil’s framework integration tutorial.

Conclusion

Web Components perfectly solve challenges that we already discussed above, but before start making a design system out of them, first, consider whether it is the best option for you at this time. Maybe a well structured React/Vue/angular shared folder is enough for your project.

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Happy coding!

1. A-Frame

A-Frame is aweb framework for building virtual reality experiences
Make WebVR with HTML and Entity-Component Works on Vive, Rift, Daydream, GearVR, desktop.

A-Frame is a web framework for building virtual reality (VR) experiences. A-Frame is based on top of HTML, making it simple to get started. It is also a great advanced tool to build 360 degree photosphere viewers. You can find an example here.

Click here

2. React 360

Using React 360 you can create exciting 360 and VR experiences using React, Deploy your creation across the web to desktop, mobile, and VR devices.

React 360 is a framework for the creation of interactive 360 experiences that run in your web browser. It pairs modern APIs like WebGL and WebVR with the declarative power of React, producing applications that can be consumed through a variety of devices. Leveraging web technologies and the existing React ecosystem, React 360 aims to simplify the construction of cross-platform 360 experiences.

If you have experience in React.js it is going to be fun to work with React 360.

3. Panolens.js

Panolens.js is an event-driven and WebGL based panorama viewer. Lightweight and flexible. It’s built on top of Three.JS.

Panolens.js is a simple tool specifically for creating 360 degree photosphere viewers. It has a lot of examples that can help you to build what you are looking for.

4. 360 Virtual Tour [Paid]

The 360 Virtual Tour is a responsive javascript plugin for displaying 360 degree virtual tours directly in the Browser.

It also has a WordPress plugin to easily integrate with WordPress websites.

5. Google VR View for the Web

Google VR View for the Web is a great choice for developers that want to build browser-based sites or prefer their content to work with Google Cardboard and Daydream headsets. It has SDKs available for mobile app development as well.

You can find more information in the video below.

6. Marzipano

Marzipano is a 360° media viewer for the modern web.

A lightweight and high-performance 360° media viewer. Supports all major desktop browsers and mobile devices. Embraces standard web technologies and provides a powerful Javascript API.

7. Photo Sphere Viewer

Photo Sphere Viewer is pure JS and based on three.js, allowing very good performances on WebGL enabled systems.

Photo Sphere Viewer can display standard equirectangular panoramas and also cubemaps.
It has friendly user interactions for all kinds of devices. You can display texts, images and even dynamic areas directly on your photos. It has Many options, methods and events that allow deep integration in your website/app.

8. Pannellum

Pannellum is a lightweight, free, and open-source panorama viewer for the web. Built using HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and WebGL, it is plug-in free.

Pannellum bundle size is just 21KB. It is an easy tool to create 360 image/video tours, add hotspots, info points and more.

9. Krpano [paid]

Krpano is a small and very flexible high-performance software for showing all kinds of panoramic images on the web.

It can be used for very detailed high-resolution images, interactive virtual tours, custom-designed user-interfaces, and many things more.

The image-generation-algorithms of the krpano tools and the rendering-algorithms of the krpano viewer are trying to present the images in the best possible image-quality, with high details and sharpness.