ShowReco
ShowReco is a movie and show recommendation app that learns your taste from how you rate things and builds you a watch queue around what makes you different from the crowd
shipped Aug 8, 2026
Holos
Holos is an interpretive framework for explaining how the universe described by physics becomes the universe we experience
ongoing
D20 Adventures
D20 Adventures is an online platform for playing narrative-based RPG's with an AI GameMaster
shipped Jun 1, 2025
In Progress
Holos Game
Online multiplayer browser game, no install or account required
Legacy Projects
Vibecode Party Starter
The full stack Next.js starter project for vibe coding
< Animate In />
React component for animating elements in with Tailwind
Bucket CMS
Portable drop-in AI-enabled headless CMS for Next.js
Not Yet News
Speculative satire from the future, AI generated each day
Date Range Picker for shadcn
Date range picker component for shadcn
Botlywood
AI Hollywood movie generator experiment
Bot Luck
Fun themed recipe generator using Open AI
Hot Sauce
Starter stack combining Remix, Tailwind UI, Firebase and Stripe
Route Chat
Travel app that tells you about local history as you go
TweenPages
Build complex animated page transitions with Greensock and Next.js
Animated Gradient Background Generator
Tool for generating CSS animated gradient backgrounds
Next.js Web Scraper Playground
Build and test web scraper APIs with Next.js and cheerio
Color to Color
Pick colors, find clothes that match
Design System Playground
Play with typography and colors to generate a design system theme
Hello Next App
Web app starter with serverless backend, auth and Stripe
Next.js MDX Blog Starter
Starter for building blogs with Next.js, MDX and Theme UI
MDX Deck with Greensock
MDX Deck combined with Greensock animation
Styled System HTML
HTML elements as primitive React components, themed with Styled System
Chicago Tech Events
Gatsby site listing Chicago web, tech and startup events
Styled Starter
Starter kit with React, Next.js, Styled System and Catalog
Expressive CSS
Atomic approach to lightweight, scalable CSS with utility classes
TweenDeck
Next level animation for web presentations
The Case for Atomic CSS
A collection of content on the benefits of Atomic CSS
Serverless CMS
Proof of concept serverless CMS written up on CSS-Tricks
Simple Grid Generator
SASS generator for simple responsive grids
Free Summer
A game made with my son Jack
imagefill.js
The jQuery plugin for making images fill their containers
Open Source For Fame and Fortune
Animated slide deck from my talk at Techweek Chicago
johnpolacek.github.io/open-source-for-fame-and-fortune/Github
Controldeck.js
Runs presentation frameworks like reveal.js and impress.js
Responsivator!
See and share how web pages look at different screen sizes
Extra Strength Responsive Grids
Fluid CSS grid system for responsive design, predates Bootstrap
johnpolacek.github.io/extra-strength-responsive-grids/Github
Stacktable
jQuery plugin for turning wide tables into skinny tall tables
BigVideo.js
jQuery plugin for big background video and images
Superscrollorama
The original jQuery plugin for supercool scroll animation
Scrollorama
First ever plugin for doing scroll animations
What The Heck Is Responsive Web Design?
Intro presentation on responsive web design, built with Scrolldeck.js
Scrolldeck.js
jQuery plugin for making scrolling presentation decks
Responsive Thumbnail Gallery
jQuery plugin for image galleries that scale to fit