Skip to content

No.78 · Cards

Meander Timeline

Collapsible event cards strung on a hand-drawn wavy rail, each pinned by a glowing amber node.

The prompt

The design brief behind this component — reuse it to regenerate, remix, or explain it.

Build a vertical timeline of past events as collapsible cards. To the left, draw the rail as a gently meandering SVG line (a single cubic path wobbling left and right, stretched to the list height with preserveAspectRatio="none" and vector-effect: non-scaling-stroke so the 1.5px stroke never distorts). Each card has a 9px amber node sitting on the rail, with a 3px ring in the page colour to "cut" the rail and a soft amber glow. Each row is a full-width button (10px radius, hairline border, near-black surface): a mono date block (day in tabular numerals, month in small uppercase amber), a single-line truncated title, a pill tag, and a chevron. On hover or focus the border turns amber and the surface lifts slightly (200ms). Clicking expands a detail panel with a grid-template-rows 0fr → 1fr transition (350ms, cubic-bezier(0.4,0,0.2,1)), so the height animates without measuring; the chevron rotates 180° in 250ms. Only one card is open at a time. The panel holds a muted description and a small definition list of metadata above a hairline. In narrow containers, hide the year and move the tag into the panel.

Notes

Interaction
Click or Enter/Space toggles a row; opening one closes the others.
Motion
Panel: grid-template-rows 0fr → 1fr in 350ms. Chevron: 180° in 250ms. Row: 200ms border/background.
Accessibility
Rows are <button>s with aria-expanded and aria-controls pointing at a labelled region. Decorative rail, nodes and chevron are aria-hidden.
Responsive
Container queries: under 36rem the year hides and the tag moves into the expanded panel (media-query fallback for older browsers).

Featured

01Glassbreak ButtonA solid plate that fractures from one impact point, cracks racing outward as the shards drift apart.04Liquid GlassA capsule of glass that bends what's behind it, carries a specular highlight around its rim toward your pointer, and squashes like a drop of liquid when pressed.07Phosphor Glass ButtonA liquid-glass pill that senses you coming: its rim light turns to face the cursor and the pill leans in to meet it.08Iris ShutterAn async button with a camera iris for a status light — blades close and turn while it works, then open onto the result.
81Atmosphere CardSmoked-glass link cards: colour pooled in the corners, slow contour currents underneath, a field that leans toward you.93Eclipse Event CardAn editorial event plate with an oversized date and an orbital eclipse bleeding in from the right, alive with slow drift.94Specimen CardAn object mounted under glass: hover lifts the pane with a sweep of reflection and swings out a paper catalogue tag.
95Silk FieldDomain-warped light that pours like liquid silk, with an optional glass lens that refracts the flow under your cursor.106IsobarA living weather map — contour lines traced over a drifting pressure field, with your cursor as a system of its own.
151Prompt ComposerA chat composer where attached files tuck into its top edge like tabs in a folder — they rise from behind it when added and sink back when removed. Send turns into stop while the reply streams.157Aura FieldA writing field where colour only exists while the AI is touching your text: the edge becomes a turning band of light and the words are rewritten in place, one by one, out of a soft blur.
205Halftone CTAA tall CTA banner where slow gold paint drifts beneath a fixed halftone grid, visible only through the dots.
212Nocturne Sign-inA single quiet column on near-black with a breathing seam of frost light behind it — email, password, magic link, nothing more.222Sigil Sign-inA split sign-in whose left half grows a geometric mark from your email — the same address always draws the same sigil.
275Voices CarouselA testimonial exhibition: one large quote at a time on frosted glass, crossfading between voices without ever resizing.
279Feral TitleA brutal condensed wordmark — heartbeat in the dark, letters slam in, a gash tears through and the word bleeds.
301 components