To align text to the center in CSS, you can use the text-align property and set it to the value center. This will horizontally center-align the text within its containing element.

The calc() function in CSS allows you to perform mathematical operations to calculate values for CSS properties. It's useful for creating responsive layouts and defining dynamic values based on other property values. For example, you can use calc() to set the width of an element as a percentage of the parent container's width minus a fixed value.

Media queries with the orientation feature are used to detect whether the device is in portrait or landscape mode. This is valuable in responsive web design as it allows you to adjust the layout and styling based on the device's orientation, ensuring a better user experience.

To select list items that are the only child within their containing unordered list, you should use the :only-child pseudo-class. This targets elements that are the only child of their parent, ensuring that it's the sole element within the parent container.

When an element's position is set to absolute and no ancestors are positioned (with relative, absolute, or fixed positioning), it is positioned relative to the viewport, which is the browser window. This means it's positioned in relation to the visible area of the web page.

To optimize scroll performance, you can use the will-change property to hint to the browser that an element will change frequently. This allows the browser to prepare for the changes and allocate resources accordingly, improving scrolling performance. While using transform: translate3d(0,0,0); can also trigger hardware acceleration, it may not be as specific or efficient as will-change. z-index and position: fixed; are unrelated to hinting to the browser about frequent changes in an element.

To vertically center an inline or inline-block element relative to its parent, you'd set the "vertical-align" property to middle. This property allows you to control the vertical alignment of inline-level elements within their line boxes.

The "forwards" value for the "animation-fill-mode" property makes the animation continue in its final state after completion. It ensures that the final keyframe of the animation is retained as the end state even after the animation completes.

To create a sidebar that sticks to the top after scrolling past its initial position but stops sticking when it reaches the footer, you should apply the "position: sticky" property. It maintains the element's natural position until a specified scrolling threshold is reached, and then it behaves as if it were fixed.

The value of animation-fill-mode that ensures the animation's styles are applied before the animation begins is backwards. When you set animation-fill-mode to backwards, the element retains the styles of the first keyframe until the animation begins. This can be useful to set initial styles before the animation starts.

To target both an ordered list (ol) and its list items (li) in a single CSS selector, you should use "ol li" without any comma or additional characters. This selector will apply styles to all li elements within an ol element.

The "animation-direction" property in CSS allows you to control the direction of an animation. Setting it to "reverse" will make the animation play in the reverse direction, essentially rewinding the animation.