246 lines
9.6 KiB
Markdown
246 lines
9.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Let it Snow: Adding a Falling-Snow Effect to Your Eleventy Website"
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description: As you can see, I'm getting my priorities in order. Here's how I added a falling-snow effect to my website.
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date: 2025-11-10
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tags:
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- Site Updates
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- Eleventy
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synopsis: As you can see, I'm getting my priorities in order. Here's how I added a falling-snow effect to my website.
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mastodon_id: "115528575840719665"
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---
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I'm pretty happy with the look and feel of my website but, looking around the indieweb, I see so many creative and fun websites with neat animations and interactive features. Reader, I was jealous; I wanted my website to be more fun. The [flying toasters](/special/flying-toasters) just weren't enough anymore. My first thought was to add a midi-player. I spent a few hours in a hyperfocus-hole digging up all sorts of fun midi tracks, from Kate Bush to Rammstein. I was *excited.* But reality hit me like a truck when I learned that HTML5 dropped support for midi files. This meant that it was either going to be a monumental pain in the arse to implement my midi payer, or I was going to have to rely on some pretty heavy [dependencies](https://github.com/cifkao/html-midi-player?tab=readme-ov-file#installing-from-npm). And look, I know typing `npm install blah` doesn't seem like a big deal to some folk but, where I can, I would really rather avoid summoning from the ether giant directories full of code that I don't understand for my little website. To add to that, provided you don't want your midi files played by some dead-simple synth sound, there's the business of soundfonts: gigabytes of audio samples from mysterious origins which you have to host yourself if you don't want [Google's servers](https://github.com/cifkao/html-midi-player?tab=readme-ov-file#soundfonts) tracking all of your visitors. At least one popular soundfont also seems to be a bit of a mystery; where does SGM Plus come from? No one seems to know. How is it licensed? I sure couldn't find an answer.
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So, yea, I gave up on that idea and decided to implement a falling-snow effect instead. Here's how I did it.
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## Humble beginnings
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I set out to look for an implementation with as little JavaScript as possible. I have nothing against JavaScript, but I figure it's best to try trimming your toenails with clippers before reaching for a chainsaw. The search led me to a codepen with [this HTML and CSS-only solution](https://codepen.io/codeconvey/pen/xRzQay). I tidied up the formatting, stripped out anything unnecessary, and put together my include, `_includes/weather.njk`:
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{% raw %}
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``` html
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<!-- weather -->
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<!-- Based on https://codepen.io/codeconvey/pen/xRzQay -->
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{# This include causes a symbol (text, emoji, et cetera; from metadata.weatherSymbol) to fall from the top of the viewport like snow. #}
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<style>
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.fallingObject {
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color: #fff;
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font-size: 1em;
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font-family: Arial;
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pointer-events: none;
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text-shadow: 0 0 1px #000;
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}
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@keyframes fallingObjects-fall {
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0% {
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top: -10%;
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}
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100% {
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top: 100%;
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}
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}
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@keyframes fallingObjects-shake {
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0% {
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transform: translateX(0px);
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}
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50% {
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transform: translateX(80px);
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}
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100% {
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transform: translateX(0px);
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}
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}
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.fallingObject {
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position: fixed;
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top: -10%;
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z-index: 9999;
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user-select: none;
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cursor: default;
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animation-name: fallingObjects-fall, fallingObjects-shake;
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animation-duration: 10s, 3s;
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animation-timing-function: linear, ease-in-out;
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animation-iteration-count: infinite, infinite;
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animation-play-state: running, running;
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}
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.fallingObject:nth-of-type(0) {
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left: 1%;
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animation-delay: 0s, 0s;
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& > div {
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transform: rotate(45deg);
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}
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}
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.fallingObject:nth-of-type(1) {
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left: 10%;
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animation-delay: 1s, 1s;
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& > div {
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transform: rotate(10deg);
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}
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}
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.fallingObject:nth-of-type(2) {
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left: 20%;
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animation-delay: 6s, 0.5s;
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& > div {
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transform: rotate(60deg);
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}
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}
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.fallingObject:nth-of-type(3) {
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left: 30%;
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animation-delay: 4s, 2s;
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& > div {
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transform: rotate(84deg);
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}
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}
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.fallingObject:nth-of-type(4) {
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left: 40%;
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animation-delay: 2s, 2s;
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& > div {
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transform: rotate(267deg);
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}
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}
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.fallingObject:nth-of-type(5) {
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left: 50%;
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animation-delay: 8s, 3s;
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& > div {
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transform: rotate(200deg);
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}
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}
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.fallingObject:nth-of-type(6) {
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left: 60%;
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animation-delay: 6s, 2s;
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& > div {
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transform: rotate(20deg);
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}
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}
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.fallingObject:nth-of-type(7) {
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left: 70%;
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animation-delay: 2.5s, 1s;
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& > div {
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transform: rotate(78deg);
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}
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}
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.fallingObject:nth-of-type(8) {
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left: 80%;
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animation-delay: 1s, 0s;
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& > div {
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transform: rotate(3120deg);
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}
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}
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.fallingObject:nth-of-type(9) {
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left: 90%;
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animation-delay: 3s, 1.5s;
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& > div {
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transform: rotate(123deg);
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}
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}
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</style>
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<div class="fallingObjects" id="weather" aria-hidden="true">
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<div class="fallingObject">
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<div>{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}</div>
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</div>
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<div class="fallingObject">
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<div>{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}</div>
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</div>
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<div class="fallingObject">
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<div>{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}</div>
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</div>
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<div class="fallingObject">
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<div>{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}</div>
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</div>
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<div class="fallingObject">
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<div>{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}</div>
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</div>
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<div class="fallingObject">
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<div>{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}</div>
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</div>
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<div class="fallingObject">
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<div>{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}</div>
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</div>
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<div class="fallingObject">
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<div>{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}</div>
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</div>
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<div class="fallingObject">
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<div>{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}</div>
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</div>
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<div class="fallingObject">
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<div>{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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<!-- /weather -->
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```
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{% endraw %}
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I added this include in my base layout, after the footer, just before the the closing `</body>` tag. Beyond cleanup, I made the following changes:
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* I replaced the snowflakes in the example with {% raw %}`{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}`{% endraw %} so that I can easily change the symbol that falls (that's right folks, this'll do more than just snowflakes!).
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* I added a random amount of rotation to each object.
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* I changed the class names from anything snowflake related because I'm a pedant.
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Now all we need to do is make sure {% raw %}`{{ metadata.weatherSymbol }}`{% endraw %} exists and we should be cooking with gas. To `_data/metadata.js` I added: `weatherSymbol: "🍁",`; a falling leaf for autumn.
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## Settings
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Now we have our ~~falling-snow~~ falling leaf effect working but, as with anything fun, there are going to be at least a few crabbit souls who are going to hate this. For them, let's implement a toggle. First, the toggle itself, in `_includes/weatherController.njk`:
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``` html
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<form id="weatherController">
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<input type="checkbox" id="weatherToggle" checked />
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<label for="weatherToggle">Show weather?</label>
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</form>
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```
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Second, a settings modal to hold the toggle, in `_includes/siteSettings.njk` (if the feature happens to be turned on at the moment you should be able to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see this in action):
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{% raw %}
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``` html
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<div id="siteSettingsContainer">
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<button onclick="siteSettings.showModal();">Site Settings</button>
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<dialog id="siteSettings">
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<h2>Site Settings</h2>
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{% include "weatherController.njk" %}
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<button id="settingsDone" onclick="siteSettings.close();">Done</button>
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</dialog>
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</div>
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```
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{% endraw %}
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Alright, now we just need to pop our site settings include into the site footer and wire everything up together.
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## Wiring it all up
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Let's first add a quick rule to our CSS:
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``` CSS
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.hidden {
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display: none;
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}
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```
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Then we can work on our script. Let's add it to the bottom of our weather include, `_includes/weather.njk`, as it's positioned right before the closing `</body>` tag.
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First, we'll check local storage to see if the user has set a preference before; if so, we'll add/remove our `.hidden` CSS rule to our weather element and update the weather-controller checkbox accordingly:
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``` javascript
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<script>
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const weather = document.getElementById("weather");
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const weatherToggle = document.getElementById("weatherToggle");
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const weatherPreference = localStorage.getItem("weather");
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// Initial weather preference check on page load
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if (weatherPreference == 0) {
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weather.classList.add("hidden");
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weatherToggle.checked = false;
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} else {
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weather.classList.remove("hidden");
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weatherToggle.checked = true;
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};
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```
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Then, we'll create an event listener on the checkbox, which will add a value into local storage to save our visitor's preference and add/remove that CSS rule whenever a change to the checkbox value is detected:
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``` javascript
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// Handle weather setting toggle
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weatherToggle.addEventListener('change', function() {
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if (this.checked) {
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localStorage.setItem("weather", 1);
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weather.classList.remove("hidden");
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} else {
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localStorage.setItem("weather", 0);
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weather.classList.add("hidden");
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};
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});
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</script>
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```
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## Done!
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With that, we're done! We now have a "falling-snow" effect that can take any emoji (or arbitrary text) set in `_data/metadata.js`, and can be toggled on and off by the visitor whose preference is retained in local storage across sessions.
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