Media Aspect Ratio System
Give every thumbnail, avatar, and hero a shared, reserved shape so nothing jumps.
What it adds
A small set of named aspect ratios applied to every image and video surface, with reserved space, a defined fit, and a defined fallback.
What your agent is told to do
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What your agent is told to do
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Catalogue the media surfaces already in the app — list thumbnails, card covers, avatars, hero banners, video embeds, attachment previews — and reduce them to a handful of named ratios rather than a per-component value.
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Reserve the box before the media loads so the ratio holds space from first paint. Layout that settles after an image arrives moves whatever the user was about to click.
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Set the fit per content type, not per component: faces and product shots crop to fill from a sensible focal point, diagrams and screenshots fit whole with padding, because cropping a diagram loses the content it exists to show.
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Define what a missing, broken, or still-loading image looks like inside the reserved box, and make that fallback occupy the same shape so the layout is identical whether the media arrives or not.
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Do not let a component override the ratio with a one-off value to make a particular image look better. That is how a system of four ratios becomes forty; if a surface genuinely needs a new shape, add it to the named set.
Edge cases it handles
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Edge cases it handles
7- Cropping to fill is right for photography and wrong for a diagram or a screenshot, where the cropped edges carry meaning. Choose by what the image is, not by where it sits.
- Some media must keep its own intrinsic ratio — an uploaded chart, a user's artwork, an embedded video from a provider that dictates its shape. Allow an explicit escape from the fixed ratios rather than distorting the source.
- A broken URL, a deleted file, or a slow network must resolve to a placeholder of the same shape, never to a zero-height gap or a browser's default broken-image icon.
- Captions, overlaid titles, play buttons, and duration badges must be positioned against the reserved box, so they stay aligned when the image is cropped or replaced by a fallback.
- Avatars are a ratio and a mask; a square source in a round frame must crop centrally rather than being squashed to fit.
- Ratios must not change under a density or compact setting — spacing shrinks, shapes do not.
- Column count and gutters between cards are owned by Responsive Card Grid; this system owns only the shape of the media inside them.
Definition of done
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Definition of done
8- Every media surface uses one of a named, documented set of ratios.
- Space is reserved before load and no layout shift occurs when media arrives.
- Fit and crop behaviour is chosen by content type and is consistent across the app.
- Broken, missing, and loading media all occupy the same box as a successful load.
- Overlays, badges, and captions remain aligned across every state.
- Media that must keep its intrinsic ratio does so without distortion.
- The feature matches the existing design system.
- No existing functionality is broken.
Related features
Beautiful Empty States
Beautiful Empty States
Replace blank screens with useful, contextual empty states.
What it does
Every list, table, and dashboard in your app has a "nothing here yet" state. Most
apps ship a blank rectangle — and it is often the very first thing a new user sees.
An empty state should say what belongs here, why it is empty, and what to do next.
How it works
- 1 Inventory the empty cases first. List every collection view in the app and
- 2 Distinguish the three kinds of empty. They are not the same, and must not
- 3 Build one reusable empty-state component from the existing design system,
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/beautiful-empty-states
Opening Hours Display
Opening Hours Display
Say whether you are open right now and when you next open.
What it does
A live open or closed state alongside the weekly hours, with holiday closures folded in.
How it works
- 1 Lead with the current state in plain words and follow it with the next transition: open until a time, or closed until a day and time. The weekly table is supporting detail, not the headline.
- 2 Store hours as intervals against the business's own zone, and keep holiday and one-off closures as overrides that win over the regular week rather than as edits to it.
- 3 Compute the state on the server for the first render so the page does not briefly claim the wrong thing, then let the page update itself as the clock crosses a boundary without a reload.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/opening-hours-display
Expandable Text
Expandable Text
Shorten long text without making the full content hard to reach.
What it does
Long text clamped to a few lines, with an explicit control to show the rest and collapse it again.
How it works
- 1 Clamp by rendered lines, not by character count. Cutting a string at a fixed length breaks words, mangles markup, and truncates differently at every width.
- 2 Only show the expand control when the text is genuinely clipped. A 'Show more' on a two-line paragraph is noise.
- 3 Use a real button with an accessible label naming what expands, and expose the expanded state. An untagged 'more...' is invisible to a screen reader.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/expandable-text
How it works
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1
Copy the link
Grab the Markdown instruction URL for this feature.
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2
Give it to your AI
Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor, v0, Lovable — whatever you build with.
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3
It inspects, then implements
Your agent reads your existing app first, then adds the feature to fit it.
Works with your stack
These instructions are written to adapt. They tell the agent to detect your framework, match your existing design system, and reuse what you already have — rather than assuming a particular stack.
Need it tighter than that? Customize the feature and tell it exactly what you're running.