TIL: Styling an HTML dialog modal to take the full height of the viewport. I spent some time today trying to figure out how to have a modal <dialog>
element present as a full height side panel that animates in from the side. The full height bit was hard, until Natalie helped me figure out that browsers apply a default max-height: calc(100% - 6px - 2em);
rule which needs to be over-ridden.
Also included: some spelunking through the HTML spec to figure out where that calc()
expression was first introduced. The answer was November 2020.
Recent articles
- Live blog: Claude 4 launch at Code with Claude - 22nd May 2025
- I really don't like ChatGPT's new memory dossier - 21st May 2025
- Building software on top of Large Language Models - 15th May 2025