AntJanusa garden of notes · since 2012

Pattern library · the seed catalogue

UI Patterns

A UI pattern library built for coding agents. 40 patterns, each shipping a copy-paste prompt that rebuilds it inside your own codebase — plus a live preview and the source behind it.

A blueprint drawing of interface parts: dialled gauges, dimensioned panels, and a grid of repeated tiles
fig. specimens

Every pattern, three ways

Preview

The pattern running live in an isolated frame, in whichever theme you are reading in.

Source

Its markup, styles and behaviour, plus a single runnable file carrying its own palette.

Prompt

A written spec that rebuilds the pattern from scratch — including why each decision is the way it is. Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor, or any coding agent.

The prompts are the point. Each one is written to survive being handed to an agent with no other context: it names the surfaces the pattern belongs on, spells out the constraint that makes it work, and calls out the failure it exists to prevent. Nothing here is a dependency you install.

Family

No. 01
Data display

Windowed schedule grid

Rows of resources against a fixed time window, where each block is sized by its overlap with the window rather than by its own duration.

  • schedule
  • timeline
  • grid
Planted Aug 11, 2026
No. 02
Data display

Benchmark progress bar

Places a raw figure on a scale of external benchmarks instead of printing it plain.

  • progress
  • benchmarks
  • css-only
Planted Aug 11, 2026
No. 03
Data display

Cross-highlight matrix

A two-axis lookup table with both headers sticky, hover lighting the full row and column at once, and a durable click-to-pin selection for touch.

  • table
  • matrix
  • sticky
Planted Aug 11, 2026
No. 04
Data display

Left-truncating paths

Shortens a long path by dropping whole segments from the left, because the tail is what tells two paths apart.

  • truncation
  • paths
  • text-overflow
Planted Aug 11, 2026
No. 05
Data displayUpdated

Shape-mark sequence

A sequence compressed into a row of small marks whose shape carries the state.

  • stepper
  • sparkline
  • series
Tended Aug 21, 2026
No. 06
Data display

Linked month bars

A month-by-month volume timeline built from plain divs where every aggregate row links to the filtered view that produced it.

  • timeline
  • drill-down
  • css-only
Planted Aug 21, 2026
No. 07
Data display

Glass vial meter

A vertical potion-vial meter whose liquid fills a wide bulb first and then rises into a narrow neck — all CSS, no images.

  • meter
  • skeuomorphic
  • css-only
Planted Aug 21, 2026
No. 08
Data display

Partitioned stage bar

Progress for work with several possible endings, drawn as a census rather than a fraction.

  • progress
  • stacked-bar
  • batch
Planted Sep 12, 2026
No. 09
Data display

Term-by-term derivation

A computed figure shown with the audit trail behind it — the number is the product and the derivation is the receipt.

  • explainability
  • calculator
  • disclosure
Planted Sep 12, 2026
No. 10
Data displayUpdated

Plan preview tree

A dry run shown as a before-and-after tree with counts now, after, and the difference.

  • dry-run
  • diff
  • tree
Tended Sep 12, 2026
No. 11
Data display

Uniform slot shell

One card shell many independent sources render through, where the shell does the capping.

  • dashboard
  • widgets
  • cards
Planted Sep 12, 2026
No. 12
LayoutUpdated

Object-shaped cards

Where a record stands for a physical thing, the card is drawn as that thing — nine variations in pure gradients.

  • cards
  • css-only
  • gradients
Tended Aug 11, 2026
No. 13
Layout

Adaptive tile mosaic

A container with no artwork draws one from up to four member tiles, grid tracks following tile count.

  • css-grid
  • css-only
  • no-assets
Planted Aug 11, 2026
No. 14
LayoutUpdated

Ground-scrimmed artwork

Text printed over unreviewed artwork, scrimmed to an alpha that can be written down rather than guessed.

  • layout
  • css-only
  • gradients
Tended Aug 11, 2026
No. 15
LayoutUpdated

Hairline stat strip

Stat tiles joined by hairlines that are grid gap, not borders.

  • stats
  • css-grid
  • css-only
Tended Aug 21, 2026
No. 16
Layout

Annotated transcript

Conversation bubbles with a speaker-colored spine and a fixed metadata gutter.

  • conversation
  • gutter
  • status-roles
Planted Aug 21, 2026
No. 17
Layout

Cork notice board

Pinned paper notes on a cork board where every texture is layered CSS gradients.

  • skeuomorphic
  • gradients
  • no-assets
Planted Aug 21, 2026
No. 18
LayoutUpdated

Hotspot marker layer

Markers at percentage coordinates over a fixed-aspect picture, turning into a list when too narrow.

  • hotspots
  • pointer-events
  • aspect-ratio
Tended Sep 12, 2026
No. 19
Layout

Line-art empty states

Inline drawings for empty surfaces stroked in the inherited text colour.

  • empty-state
  • svg
  • currentcolor
Planted Sep 12, 2026
No. 20
Layout

Column-flow wall

Cards flowing down columns instead of across rows, with the reading-order cost stated plainly.

  • masonry
  • columns
  • break-inside
Planted Sep 12, 2026
No. 21
Interaction

Scroll edge shadows

An inset shadow shown only on the edge that has more content behind it.

  • scrolling
  • affordance
  • lists
Planted Aug 11, 2026
No. 22
Interaction

Frozen-batch deck

A one-card-at-a-time review queue whose batch is snapshotted at mount.

  • queue
  • review-flow
  • animation
Planted Aug 11, 2026
No. 23
InteractionUpdated

Controls beside the anchor

Per-card controls over a fully-linked card without nesting interactive elements in the anchor.

  • cards
  • accessibility
  • keyboard
Tended Aug 11, 2026
No. 24
InteractionUpdated

Pluggable canvas visualizer

One canvas, a registry of draw modes, each mode owning its entire frame.

  • canvas
  • visualization
  • registry
Tended Aug 11, 2026
No. 25
InteractionUpdated

Roving-grid board

A dense grid of state cells that is one tab stop with arrow-key navigation.

  • keyboard
  • roving-tabindex
  • accessibility
Tended Aug 21, 2026
No. 26
Interaction

Section rail

Sticky vertical rail on wide screens, wrapping tab row on narrow ones, from the same markup.

  • navigation
  • toc
  • responsive
Planted Aug 21, 2026
No. 27
Interaction

Ledge-press buttons

Buttons on a solid ledge shadow that travel down onto it when pressed.

  • buttons
  • skeuomorphic
  • press
Planted Aug 21, 2026
No. 28
InteractionUpdated

Guarded control

A blocked control stays focusable, carries the reason as text, and refuses in its handler.

  • aria-disabled
  • disabled
  • preconditions
Tended Sep 12, 2026
No. 29
InteractionUpdated

Polled job card

One card for every state a background job passes through.

  • progress
  • polling
  • background-job
Tended Sep 12, 2026
No. 30
Interaction

Entry-transform motion

FLIP-style motion between two rendered states when the old DOM is already gone.

  • animation
  • transitions
  • reflow
Planted Sep 12, 2026
No. 31
InteractionUpdated

Slot-first picker

Assignment that starts at the destination slot, then narrows the catalogue.

  • assignment
  • picker
  • aria-pressed
Tended Sep 12, 2026
No. 32
Forms

Undo toast

A destructive action with no confirm dialog, held behind a toast and committed when it expires.

  • undo
  • toast
  • destructive
Planted Aug 28, 2026
No. 33
FormsNew

Blast-radius confirm

A confirm dialog that names everything a delete cascades and blocks dismissal while it runs.

  • confirm-dialog
  • destructive
  • cascade
Planted Sep 28, 2026
No. 34
FormsUpdated

Batch action bar

A bar that exists only while something is selected, states the count in words, caps at five actions.

  • selection
  • bulk-actions
  • toolbar
Tended Aug 28, 2026
No. 35
Forms

Filtered to zero

The three empty states a list actually has, written as three different screens.

  • empty-state
  • filter
  • search
Planted Sep 12, 2026
No. 36
Forms

Parsed query chips

A search box that echoes back how it read the text as removable chips.

  • search
  • query-syntax
  • chips
Planted Sep 12, 2026
No. 37
Forms

Compound-value picker

One grouped select whose value carries both the kind and the id.

  • select
  • optgroup
  • polymorphic
Planted Sep 12, 2026
No. 38
ColorUpdated

Ground-referenced color

Colors solved against the page's own ground token so they invert correctly between themes.

  • color
  • contrast
  • color-mix
Tended Aug 11, 2026
No. 39
ColorUpdated

Single-property color variants

One custom property carries the hue; border, fill, spine and dot derive from it.

  • color
  • color-mix
  • custom-properties
Tended Aug 21, 2026
No. 40
ColorUpdated

Controls on an unknown fill

Opaque controls, a gradient-darkened fill, and a two-tone focus ring on a surface whose colour arrives from outside.

  • contrast
  • brand-color
  • focus-ring
Tended Sep 12, 2026