I have a 24 column page that is based on the 24 column 960 template. I have an element that needs a specific with of 84px.
I tried to write the markup this way:
<div class="container_24 grid_84">
</div>
I tried writting the css this way:
.container_24 .grid_84 {
width:84px !important;
}
It is not setting to 84px it is setting to 960px.
What is the proper of displaying this.
Your CSS has this:
.container_24 .grid_84
That is looking for an element with a class of grid_84 that is a CHILD of container_24.
But you are actually looking for this in your HTML:
.container_24.grid_84
That is an element with both classes, which is what your HTML shows.
Side advice:
Don't mix grid framework syntax with your own. 24 refers to column. Your 84 refers to specific pixels.
I'd suggest using something along the lines of
.override_84px
So it's clearly not part of the grid framework. Future people that have to look at your markup will thank you.
Also, since you are making your element here, why even use the container_24 class in the first place?
Finally, the !important declaration is usually a method of last resort to over-ride some existing CSS you have no control over of. You typcially do not want to be using that attribute with your own CSS as it's usually a sign that things have gotten a bit messy.
.container_24 .grid_84 { width:84px !important; }
syntax is correct but are you sure you are looking at the right cell? I have not exactly understood your question though.
Also consider using an ID for container_24, if there is going to be only one such container in the page. Make sure you are not setting width of a span element, which does not take width unless you change its display property to block
{display:block}
The latter css statement is always used, I know you can set this with the !important tag, however, I am not sure if this only applies to the other statements within the same file. I would suggest using the order:
reset.css
960.css
text.css
style.css
Related
I'm currently optimising a website's code, the programmer who developed it isn't here.
There is a CSS file with around 1000 lines of code, in this file, there are many blocks with no code inside the curly braces.
For example:
.header{
}
Is there a reason to keep these? Or are they completely useless?
.header{
}
.header .menu_div{
background : black;
color:white;
}
<div class="header">
<div class="menu_div">Menu Div</div>
</div>
The person who has written CSS might have given the hierarchy for .header children. He/She might not have given CSS to parent.
If it doesn't reflect in design after removing it then you can remove it.
They serve no function in the final app, since they do not modify the CSS properties of any HTML elements in any way. The original developer probably added them as he/she defined the classes during development, but they were ultimately unused in the CSS. They can be safely deleted. (It's possible that these classes are used for other purposes such as selecting certain elements in JS, but deleting the empty selectors in the style sheet won't affect that.)
commented out or just remove it, otherwise, it will still try to match those rule. (for every single HTML element will go through all CSS rule to match, try and fail.)
You can remove these empty declarations.
Removing the empty selectors will not cause any changes to your design as they do not have any css rules associated with them. So you can safely remove them if they are empty.
I don't want to argue regarding the use of inline styles over external styles however I just want to know your ideas on certain situations wherein inline styling could be used.
For example I have 10 types of tables that have different width but always use the same border color, thickness and padding. What I currently think is I should declare a global CSS class that controls the border and the padding of the table and then use inline styling to specify the width of the table.
E.g
<table class="default" style="width: 320px;">
Is my approach applicable?
yes u can declare a global CSS class and use this in all table. it will work for all table.
I believe its a correct approach in your case. As you are making the correct use of external class "default", by using it in all the tables and specifying the different widths inline with the specific elements.
I think you're misunderstanding something here. If you take this:
<table class = "default" style = "width: 320px;">
Then this does not apply width: 320px; on all tables with class default. It only applies it on this specific element which has the style attribute.
If you're looking to specify such CSS without having to <link> external files, you can embed your CSS within <style> tags:
.default { //or table, or whatever your selector is
width: 320px;
}
If you want to style a particular table with the class default with a different width, give it another class (class = "default width320") and do:
.default.width320 { //selects element with BOTH default and width320 classes
width: 320px;
}
Read more about CSS selectors here, and selector specificity here.
Edit: if you only want to style that particular table, your approach is relatively-fine. But, I suggest using classes and merging your styles in one place (whether it's a .css file or an inline <style> definition) — it's much more maintainable and tidier than scattered style attribute definitions.
Edit 2: it's absolutely correct to use style attributes. It's more of a matter of personal choice. If you're sure that this won't cause maintainability issues ('Hey, why is my table 320 pixels wide? I don't see anything in my CSS file that does that'), then go for it. It's what the style attribute is for.
This is only a problem because, most of the time, if you've done it once then you're going to want to do it again. And now you have two identical style properties. And, well, they should both be red-bordered. Oh, and I need a third one of these tables somewhere. And, wait, they should be a little skinnier...
On the other hand, if you used a one-off class, you can just slap it on the next table. Or you can compare all ten tables and tweak them from one place, etc.
The problem with violating principles is that principles are often hard-earned. :)
I always was told to take out multiple properties in your css that you use more then once, and add them all in one rule. Like below. (please excuse the poor example)
I always seen this:
.button, .list, .items { color: #444; }
With multiple rules, can't that leave a lot of clutter?
Only in css tutorials and examples Ive seen this:
.someColor { color: #444; }
And in the css, just add another class of '.sameColor'. (div class="button someColor")
I've never seen this and feels like it would leave less clutter in your CSS. Would this be okay? Or do you think it could leave with more clutter in your HTML ?
Try to name your classes independently of their visual effect. It is a nature of CSS to play with the design and layout without having to change the HTML. Class names such as .someColor or .left-sidebar are a bad practice. Colors and position can change.
And also apply rules to semantic HTML elements rather than adding classes on all different divs and spans. It should be obvious, although many people get this wrong.
CSS is a limited set of rules and that makes it a perfect creativity stimulator.
It's all based on personal preference. I've tried both methods and prefer the second method you listed, except with more generic class names such as middleParagraph or headerGraphic so it applies to an area rather than a specific color because colors can change.
Good classnames and IDs are the first place you should optimize. THEN move onto multiple class names.
Multiple classnames can help out quite a bit though, consider:
<div class="leftColumn">Left</div>
<div class="rightColumn">Right</div>
<div class="middleColumn hasLeft hasRight">I have padding-left of 210px and padding-right of 210px</div>
<!-- alternatively, you could have -->
<div class="rightColumn">Right</div>
<div class="middleColumn hasRignt">I have padding right of 210px</div>
<!-- or -->
<div class="leftColumn">Left</div>
<div class="middleColumn hasLeft">I have padding left of 210px</div>
<!-- or -->
<div class="middleColumn">I have no padding</div>
and your css
.leftColumn { width:200px; float:left; }
.rightColumn { width:200px; float:right; }
.middleColumn.hasLeft { padding-left:210px; }
.middleColumn.hasRight { padding-right:210px; }
The result is floated right/left columns and the center area compensates for them with padding. This means you can style your middleColumn how you want to (e.g. .middleColumn .otherCoolSelector ).
It's perfectly acceptable to apply multiple classes to HTML elements. The trick is to be judicious; I usually find that when I do this, the additional classes are additions or exceptions to the basic styling being applied. For example, here are some classes I occasionally add to an element that already has a class:
error -- to style the current element if the user entered invalid data
first -- to style the first element in a list or in a table row, e.g. to suppress padding-left
last -- to style the final element in a list or in a table row, e.g. to suppress margin-right
even -- to apply zebra-striping to alternate elements
hidden -- to hide an element if it's not currently relevant
These extra classes are typically generated dynamically with a server-side language like ASP.NET or PHP. They can also be added or removed on the client side with JavaScript, esp. with a library like jQuery. This is especially useful to show or hide elements in response to an event.
There are a lot of good answers here. The trick is finding out which one fits your situation best.
One thing to consider is your markup size. In a high-traffic situation, your markup size is critical to the speed of your page loads...every byte counts. If this is the case for you, then you may want to create more CSS classes and put less in your markup. That way, the client is caching more and your website is serving up less.
What you're suggesting is a bit like an in-line style, e.g. style="color:#444". So if you want to change the color of your element you'd have to make a change to the html, which means you've defined style as part of your content. Which is exactly what css is supposed to avoid.
Imagine if you'd included 'someColor,' multiple times across multiple html files and you decide some of these elements shouldn't have 'someColor,' after all, you've got a lot of files to go through.
I'd probably avoid the list option too, if I'm making a component, say a button, I want to find .mybutton class in my css file and see all the rules for that component, without having to go through all sorts of unhelpful global classes. Also if someone comes along and changes the color in our global class he may break my button, where as if the button controlled it's own styles it can't be broken in this way.
I have a page that looks like: <div id="header">...</div><div id="navigation">...</div> similar for body and footer.
I'd like to use a grid system to style the page, all of which seem to rely on giving the divs mentioned a class based on their presentation. But I don't want to do this (and can't because of the way the markup is generated)
Is there a way to do this, without just putting a class on the divs? I could copy the details of the class desired to a stylesheet mentioning the divs by id, but that feels wrong.
Edit to clarify:
The OP wants to avoid adding class="grid_3" etc. to the HTML, but also doesn't want to add #header { width: 960px; margin: 0px; } (which I think is okay) – Rory Fitzpatrick 3 hours ago
Exactly, I don't want to put presentation information in my HTML, but I hoped I wouldn't have to just take the css classes that make up the grid system apart, and apply the relevant parts (like margin:0px and width:960px), since that is bad from a maintenance and reuse angle.
So, I'll look at an automated system for doing what I need, unless there is an answer to how do you apply a css class to an HTML element, using css, without adding class="blah" to that element? Because that doesn't seem like a crazy thing to want to do to me.
Well if you use blueprint-css as your grid system you can use the compress.rb to assign the rules for given bp framework classes to a specific selector of your choice like #footer or what have you. for example in your project yaml you could have:
semantic_styles: # i dont think this is the right key definition but you get the idea
'#footer,#navigation': ['span-12','clearfix']
'#footer': ['push-1']
# etc...
Then when you call compress.rb on the project file it will roll up the necessary declaration from the array of selectors on the right into the selector on the left producing:
#footer,#navigation{ /* composite delcalrations from .span-12 and .clearfix */}
#footer {/* declarations from .push-1 */}
But all in all this is essential an automation of copying the declarations to a separate file that you say seems "wrong". But i mean other than doing this (automated or manually) i dont see what the possible options could be.
I'm not sure I understand the question. Why don't you want to put styles in a stylesheet and reference them by id?
#header{
position:relative;
...
}
I have the same reservations about grid systems, adding class names just goes against separating markup and style (but is often sacrificed for productivity).
However, I don't see what's wrong with setting the right column widths and margins using your own CSS. You could have a specific site.grid.css file that contains only selectors and widths/margins for the grid. I think this is perfectly okay, it's just a way of using CSS like variables. For instance, all 3-column elements would appear under
/* 3-column elements, width 301px */
#sidebar, #foobar, #content .aside {
width: 301px;
}
Then rather than adding class="grid_3" to your HTML, you just add the selector to the CSS.
You might want to consider using the class names initially, until you're happy with the layout, then convert it into CSS selectors. Whichever works best for your workflow.
If you don't have access to the markup you must either copy the styles, referencing the ids, or maybe you can apply the class to the ids using javascript?
I am finding it useful to define 'marker' css styles such as 'hidden' or 'selected' so I can easily mark something as hidden or selected - especially when using a tag based technology like ASP.NET MVC or PHP.
.hidden
{
display:none;
}
.newsItemList li.selected
{
background-color: yellow;
}
I don't especially feel like reinventing the wheel here and wanted to know what other things like this are useful or common - or if there are any pitfalls to watch out for.
Should I look at any specific css frameworks for other things like this? Plus is there a name for this type of css class that I can search by.
I agree with the other posters who say only to define what you need, rather than bloating your code with a bunch of unnecessary classes.
That being said, I find myself using the following on a constant basis:
.accessibility - visually hide elements, but keep them intact for screenreaders and print stylesheets
.clear - tied to Easy Clearing
.first-child and .last-child - easily assign styles to the first/last item in a container. This has been a lifesaver many times, and I prefer it over the poorly-supported :pseudo selectors
.replace - tied to Phark IR for transparent image replacement
Finally, I dynamically assign .js to the <html> element with
<script type="text/javascript">if(h=document.documentElement)h.className+=" js"</script>
This will allow me to define .js (rest of selector) styles to target only browsers with JavaScript enabled.
Let me give you an answer from a very novice web developer who has recently considered using CSS classes as "markers". Please don't take this as a definitive answer, as I may be completely wrong, but look at it as another point of view.
I was going to use some marker classes, too. I created one called .center to center the elements in a DIV tag. However, I was struck with the idea that I'm looking at CSS all wrong. I reasoned that CSS is supposed to define how an element is to be displayed without having to change the HTML page. By using marker classes, like .center for example, I would have to change BOTH the CSS and HTML if I wanted that DIV tag to be right-justified next month. So instead, I created a .latestHeader class (the DIV is to hold the "latest information" such as a news item), and in that class I set the text to align center. Now, when I want to change the justification of the text, I simply change the CSS for that DIV and I don't have to touch the HTML.
In regards to your question about CSS frameworks...
Personally I've always found the W3C has the most complex but also most accurate answer to any CSS question.
After many years of programming and playing around with CSS/HTML/PHP I agree with the above comment.
There is no harm in defining a marker for something to be centered or right-aligned using something along the lines of a '.center' or '.righths', but keep in mind as above that if you want to change a whole slab of text your work will be increased because you have to edit both CSS and HTML.
Defining the format for a whole section will mostly likely work out more logical, because if you want to change the section months down the trail, you just have to edit the format of one CSS declaration as opposed to editing each individual article.
CSS was however designed as the ultimate styling language which could allow an administrator to make a website look exactly what they want it to. Keep in mind though that excess CSS will increase the load on a server, will increase the time before your client sees your page and in line with the 'feng shui of web design' it is possible to go overboard with too much styling.
You should really grow this list on a need basis instead of soliciting a list of generic classes across the board--you'll only end up with bloat. If you want to avoid reinventing the wheel the look into some CSS frameworks (blueprint or 960). In some respect, generic classes like .center { text-align:center } do have some level of redundancy but often times they're needed. For example the following pattern which is all too common but should be avoided:
element.onclick(function(e){ this.style.backgroundColor = 'yellow' }
That's bad because you really ought to be using:
element.onclick(function(e){ this.className = 'highlight' }
The latter allows you to modify your styles by only touching the CSS files. But if a CSS class name has only one style element then you should probably avoid it because it doesn't make any sense to have it (.hidden in your example) and call it directly instead:
element.onclick(function(e){ this.display = 'hidden}
I often find myself keeping two classes in all of my stylesheets: "center" (which simply applies text-align: center;, and a float-clearing class that applies clear:both;.
I've considered adding a "reset" statement to all my styles, but haven't had a need for it yet. The reset statement would be something similar to this:
*
{
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
I reuse these often enough to include them in just about everything. They're small enough so I don't feel they bloat the code at all.