In an mvc 3 razor project I have a helper which creates a component. I can use this helper to create as many components as I need in the same page.
I have different folders containing css files and their images.
Can I specify the css style of each component from the helper?
i.e #html.MyComponent(100, 200, "pink") will uses the style.css in pink folder.
Ps: I am not using html5 neither css3
If you would use classes instead of files it would be much easier. I would just use different styles for themes. You should look at this question: ASP.NET MVC 3, how to do themes right
ASP.NET MVC 3 Razor: Include JavaScript file in the head tag
I think the same thing can be applied but I don't know if you can do it from a helper.
If you are set on doing it this way - then
You need to select the css file at the top for pink
You need to include all style sheets in loading.
You need to dynamically include style sheets when requested by MyComponent. This is tough as you may end up double including them. You can accomplish this via an ActionFilter to write out the css tags at the end, but this is a hack and I wouldn't recommend it.
Stick with convention and your styles should be requested at the top, so you need to know which styles you are using on the page. Your components shouldn't care about loading a style sheet, it should already be loaded which means you have to make this decision at the top of your page. Since you should already 'know' the names at this point (pink, etc) you can easily write the code at the top to request these files via a simply
<LINK href="#string.Format("/{0}/style.css",YourStyleSheetnameIePinkInThisExample)" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
Related
I'm a web developer, not an CSS expert. We recently started using Angular and I'm wondering what is the best practice applying styles in Angular templates.
Discussion we have at work is whether to use external CSS files or internal style tags. We do not have too many templates and each template mostly has its own unique styles. We are debating between external CSS files and/or internal styles.
Couls someone provide an expert opinion on this subject.
Internal styles are only applicable to the page that includes them. As such, if you want to update common styling (such as a menu) on multiple pages, you'll need to update each page individually.
Considering you'll almost definitely have certain styles apply to elements on more common to more than than one page, you'll definitely want to opt for external stylesheets. This allows pages A and B to both inherit styles from a single style.css or similar file.
This way, you can load all the relevant styles with a single line of code in the <head> of each page:
<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet">
And you only have to update style.css when you want to update multiple page's styling.
Angular brings scoped CSS from v1.5 up (when components were introduced - I believe). It's a good concept but, in small to medium apps, the difference is hardly noticeable. You should only consider using scoped CSS in conjunction with a tool that knows how to make the best of it (i.e. Webpack).
If you're not using Webpack, just stick to the classic model: one big style-sheet.
Note that technically, regardless of stack, if you want to provide the best possible experience (fastest loading times without FOUC) you want to put all the above-the-fold and general layout-ing styles inline, preferably in a head <style> tag and everything else inside a stylesheet loaded asynchronously.
Read this article about loading CSS async.
What is the convention when it comes to AngularJS directives and styling them?
Do I style via JS or stylesheet? How do I keep things self-contained and modular?
It depends heavily on the framework you use. In many MVC frameworks, you can write your own view helpers which automatically append a JS-file and CSS-file belonging to the same directive. Otherwise, you can use directive templates or Shadow DOM.
There is no convention as this is an issue with other libraries like extjs. However, in extjs, each component has a config to put styles in much like inline styles.
My approach is to include a separate css with the directive as it nicely separates the styling. And since angular directives allow separate template, your html is nicely separated from the javascript as well.
I am getting ready to code a bunch of ASP.NET MVC User Controls. All those controls are UI and require CSS. What are the best practices for that? Should I have one gigantic CSS file with the code of all controls?
Ideally, I would like each control to have their own CSS file. Is it possible to do that?
Thanks!
I personally would create a "controls.css" or something similar and put all the css associated with your controls in there. When you're ready to deploy, compress and minify all your css into 1 file. I've been playing around with SquishIt lately and really enjoy it.
If you're dead set on keeping the css files separate for each control I would add an extra ContentPlaceHolder to the <head> of your Master Page, right before the closing </head> and call it something like "ExtraScriptsAndCss." That way if your view uses a certain control you can inject the appropriate css or javascript into the head tag.
"User Controls" in MVC are actually "Html Helpers." They're just HTML, so you're free to deploy/distribute them in whatever way makes sense to you. You can put the styles in a single stylesheet, or split them up. As long as the <link rel> tags bring them into the page to which they are added, it will work fine.
I would recommend you add a parameter to your helpers that allows a user to override the default CSS path and filename, in case they want to use their own.
From a pragmatic point of view, I would go for one gigantic css file. It can be minified and cached by the client. This will save you mocking around with trying to put the right CSS into the head of the document.
i want to create some css styles for my Django templates. Each view will have a css associated, but there will be zones that are not associated to any views in my template.
How can i load the css files? is there enough having them declared in the Media of my view, and loading them in the header of the html?
Also, is it a correct approach to have styles associated to the divs that are not associated to a certain view?
Thanks!
If you use a word view for a typical django view (a method) it is not good idea to create separate css file for each view (unless you have very specific application).
In general you need to create you css files in such way that:
general styles that can be applied in many templates are not repeated in multiple css files
it is easy for you to manage styles in couple of css files
There is no strict guideline to create css file per view or css file per template in Django as far as I know.
Basically pointing to some css file in head, which contains styles appropriate to a template is enough here. Of course you need to make sure that you provide correct path to this file.
You can make one general css with styles that are used by most of your templates and a series of specific css files that are valid only in some specialized templates.
I also advice to take a look at django-compress if you want to go with your site to broader audience - this app makes your static files (like css) smaller and also it helps to concatenate group of css and js files. This has some positive impact on performance without decreasing readability of your code.
I'd been reading up on themes in my ASP.NET book and thought that it could be a very handy solution, then I met some problems.
The theme picks up every single CSS file in the folder
If you want to use reset styles (where ordering is important) the order of imported stylesheets is not guaranteed
Your master page would not explicitly indicate what style is being used, only the rendered page can tell you that unless you dig into your web.config
Styling web controls using the theme file is... well... stupid? You can simply do this in your stylesheet. Granular control should be at the HTML level, should it not?
How do you specify print stylesheets without having all styles in a single stylesheet?
I'm wondering as to whether they're actually worth using at all. Is there any benefit? Are there any major sites using them?
EDIT
Just to clarify slolife's last point. If I had two stylesheets, one called print.css and one called main.css and I used ASP.NET themes, how would it know that print.css was a print stylesheet? In regular HTML you use the media type in the tag itself (i.e. <link rel= ...>) but the themes wouldn't know this, so it would just get included as a regular stylesheet.
I like using themes, but as Raj pointed out in his answer, URL rewriting can cause problems. My search for some solutions to that is what led me to your question. But I'll add my opinions in anyway.
I'll address some of your bullets from above as to why I think themes are good:
- The theme picks up every single CSS file in the folder
I guess you are looking to apply only certain stylesheet files to certain pages. Yes, themes takes the shotgun approach here, so that's a problem. But you don't have to put all stylesheets in the the theme folder. Put your specialized ones outside of it and they won't be included automatically. But I think it is nice feature to have the common/site wide ones included automagically.
- If you want to use reset styles (where ordering is important) the order of imported stylesheets is not guaranteed
I think you can guarantee the order by the way you name the files, so they are numerically and alphabetically ordered. Maybe not an elegant solution, but not horrible.
Personally, I have a build step that combines and compresses all of the *.css files in my theme folder into one single style.css file, and since I control that build step and the order that the files are combined, that doesn't affect me.
- Your master page would not explicitly indicate what style is being used, only the rendered page can tell you that unless you dig into your web.config
You can change the theme via code and in the <%#Page directive
- Styling web controls using the theme file is... well... stupid? You can simply do this in your stylesheet. Granular control should be at the HTML level, should it not?
I agree that applying style attributes to controls via the theme doesn't seem to be a best practice. But I love the fact that I can define image skins in the theme's skin files and don't have to cut and paste Width,Height,AlternativeText,Align attributes for common images that I use lots of places throughout the site. And if I ever change one of those images, I can fix the attributes in one place, rather than all over. I also can created skinned controls with a certain list of css classes applied, which seems handy to me.
- How do you specify print stylesheets without having all styles in a single stylesheet?
I have a Print.css file that starts with #media print and that defines print styles for my site. Why do you need to put them in one stylesheet?
IMHO, asp.net themes are absolutely USELESS
try implementing url rewriting with an app which uses themes and see them break straight away
basically, you can achieve the same thing writing few lines of code in asp.net and multiple css folders. i am yet to come across any developer / company who has been using themes
when asp.net 2.0 was launched, there was a big hype around themes but my personal opinion is its simply not worth it :-)
Use themes to change control attributes ONLY.
They were bad designed for working with css.