Unstyling an existing site - css

I am learning CSS and want to customize an pre-existing out-of-box cookie cutter CSS style web site provided by my vendor.
Is there a way I can remove an css file which was linked in the head tag so I can strip-out/unstyle the entire page easily?
I was reading posts regarding reset.css, Normalize.css & CSS refactoring tool, not sure if they are the right tools. Any suggestions are highly appreciated.

I suggest installing Firebug if you use Firefox so you can easily see the different stylesheets and what purpose they serve. From there just remove the <link rel="stylesheet" href="filename.css"> element that has the styles your trying to strip and start over. Create your own file and re-insert it into the <head> of said site.
By your question this is all I can imagine you want to accomplish -- forgive me if I misinterpreted you ..
Here is the link to download firebug: https://getfirebug.com/downloads

Just remove the tag in the section, and the CSS should no longer be there, providing that all of the CSS was in fact in the CSS files and not inline.

Related

What have I missed in jekyll and github pages to make syntax highlighting work?

Disclaimer: This is my first ever website project, in order to learn about html, css etc. I probably need a 'for idiots' guide'
I have a jekyll/github pages site here. I have read the jekyll documentation here, which suggests all you need to do is stick the liquid tag in. Which I have, for example here.
Further research has pointed out I need to set up my config file, like this which I have here. I also have a .css I copied from a site called sciviews which is here and I've made a link into the .css to call it here.
However, my page still displays in black on white in code blocks. What have I missed?
EDIT: I believe I've made another error, the source of my syntac .css was (i think) here. Is .scss maybe not compatible with this process as I've implemented it?
In your html ( inside the head tag ), you are referencing an incorrect path to "syntax.css"
Change:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/syntax.css" type="text/css">
To:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/Pokemon_FieldStudies/css/syntax.css" type="text/css">
Edit
Following your edit, it seems the code inside syntax.css is a raw scss file. Such files need to be processed before they could be served to the client.
I suggest you read about SCSS and how to compile it ( A simple google search will yield more than enough tutorials ).
In case you're interested in a shortcut, you can use an online compiler such as http://www.sassmeister.com/ but that will require you to define a value for some of the missing variables defined in the scss file.

bootstrap.min.css is overriding my custom css file

I know my question is similar to: Bootstrap popup does not appear when include bootstrap.min.css
However it was not resolved and I am practically having the same issue (minus the JS).
I am currently designing my Bootstrap website using Pinegrow, everything looks fine in the software however I realized when I actually preview or upload the code to a browser parts of the website is being overridden, I just found out it's because of the bootstrap.min.css file.
The strange thing is my 'home', 'about me' pages are fine, however when it gets to 'skills', 'portfolio' etc pages the css from my custom file is overridden.
For example:
This is what my software shows
Preview from Pinegrow
And this is what happens when it is in a browser:
Preview from Browser
Things I have done
Some people suggested just deleting the .min file, however doing that mucks up the website.
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/bootstrap.min.css" type="text/css">
<!-- Custom CSS -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/creative.css" type="text/css"> The custom css file is placed at the bottom in the html (someone said it provides priority to the custom file)
Using the !important rule doesn't work and I don't think it's the right to use it
I am using ID selections in CSS
Is the only solution to go into the .min file and edit the code from there? Is there a way to get my custom CSS code to override the .min instead? Would it help if i posted some of my code? Many thanks for your time.
I would have done so:
If a few page works, my opinion, problem in markup. If you don't use one header section for all pages, try to copy content from skills to about, then I would check the wrapper, and deeper structure first. Do you see any strange rules in development tools on skills page? (I'm learning, and I can only give you simple tips.)

Selective CSS rules

I am working on service which allows third parties to upload HTML snippets. In some of these snippets there may be links to CSS files or inline CSS. The service has it's own CSS files.
Is there any way, besides iFrames, which would allow me to indicate that specific CSS files are only to be applied to the specific HTML elements and not the whole page?
I guess you could download the CSS-files, prepend some #unique-container-identifier to all rules within it and just embed the markup into your page, inside a container with the ID previously assigned.
That'll leave you with a problem of your own, "real rules", ruining things inside those boxes though...
Unfortunately no solution I've found on the interwebs seems to work for me, so I just had to scrap the idea of using scoped CSS.

How to get Minified File location from w3 Total Cache

As I'm sure many of you know, Google PageSpeed Insights will sometimes complain about what it calls "render blocking css" when you test your sites.
Their suggestion is to render only "necessary" CSS inline in the HEAD. If you have CSS in an external file (as most everyone does), the recommendation is to load this after the page loads. This seems pretty extreme, but that's the recommendation. It appears to be a big blocker to improving one's Mobile PageSpeed scores as well...
You can use the PageSpeed Module for Apache or nginx to help you identify which CSS is actually "necessary". Again, one can argue about the relative value of doing this, but it is Google's current recommendation.
I had a notion to use javascript to "Lazy Load" the CSS file by having a small script fire in the footer of my theme, injecting the CSS into the head. You can see an example of this technique here: https://bensmann.no - This is NOT my site. I'm basically looking to replicate or copy what he's done with his minified CSS - Load it into the HEAD after the page has loaded via Javascript contained at the bottom of the page
I would then put <!-- W3TC-include-css -->
inside a <noscript> tag, thereby suppressing the placement of the minified CSS, as well as ensuring it appears for non JS browsers.
So, the issue is I need to get the location of the minified CSS file somehow, as well as the hash used to name the file (for an ID for the element). Anyone know how one can access the location of minified CSS file with PHP in the footer?
While this post does not give you the solution, it might bring you closer to moving the css where you want it:
http://freetheweb.tumblr.com/post/12482217372/w3-total-cache-better-css-js-placement
You'll have to learn about Critical Path CSS, which is a slippery slope, and truly, nobody really knows for sure which CSS is critical or not.
In the interim (or as a permanent solution), installing a plugin like Autoptimize and playing around with it will greatly improve your Page Speed Insights scores.
Remember to tick Show Advanced Options when going to the settings. I'd personally suggest to just inline all CSS and use that option, but that's just me.
If any plugins are broken after implementing this, just untick the Optimize CSS code, find the plugin's CSS file, and add that to the exception list.

How to exclude a specific CSS file from an ASP.NET Theme?

I'm making a website that will have to render correctly on FF/IE6/IE7/Opera/Safari. IE6 came as a late requirement (when I had done all the other browsers) and it just has to be useable, not necessarily the same as on the other browsers. Now I'm tweaking it so that it's useable on IE6 as well.
To this end I've created another stylesheet in my theme called IE6_override.css. As you might have guessed, I want it to be applied only when the browser is IE6. Conditional comments would perfect for this.
The only problem is - ASP.NET renders a <link> tag for every CSS file that is in the theme's folder, thus including this file unconditionally on all browsers.
I would like to stick to themes because it's completely feasible that we might create more skins for our application later (if the customers desire that).
Is there any way how I can make ASP.NET exclude this specific .CSS file from its auto-including?
Added: Thank you for your answers! In the end I found a workaround. Due to some other styling problems I've asked about earlier, I'm forced to have a IE6-workaround Javascript as well. Thus I prefixed all my IE6-specific rules with a .ie6_dummy class selector and then removed it in JS upon page loading. :)
Yes you can... You can just remove the specific page header control in code behind. The css files are added automatically through theming, but u can remove them again after. Like for example u can put in the page load of your master file:
Page.Header.Controls.Remove(YourCssFile);
Or if you wanna have all the css files removed at the same time:
var themePath = string.Format("~/App_Themes/{0}", Page.Theme);
var removeCandidate = Page.Header.Controls.OfType<HtmlLink>().Where(link => link.Href.StartsWith(themePath)).ToList();
removeCandidate.ForEach(Page.Header.Controls.Remove);
I don't think you can. We stopped using the App_Themes folder for exactly that reason. This also saved us having to prefix every css file with a number so they load in the right order.
Indeed it's not possible to exclude a specific CSS file. However, there seem to be several workarounds located here. I'd suggest reading through those and choosing an appropriate solution (if any).
There are a couple of posts out on the web which seem to address your problem - looking for "Conditional comments in asp.net themes" I came across these which look like they may help:
How to take control of style sheets in ASP.NET Themes with the StylePlaceholder and Style control
Conditional stylesheets in Themes
The first one will also address the media issue with theme stylesheets as well.

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