Post on 27-Jan-2015
description
transcript
DISPLACING WORST PRACTICES(and making better CSS for all)
Pam Selle@pamasaur
thewebivore.com
STORYTIME
No.
Yes.
THE PLAN
•What are the ‘worst practices’?
• Identifying
• Solving
• Practices for prevention
IDENTIFYING WORST PRACTICES
REDUNDANCY
• Symptom: Declaring styles that are inherent, styles that negate other ones in the chain.
• Solution: Take your freebies and remove things that don’t matter.
div { display: block; }.my-class { display: block; float: left; }img { display: inline-block; }span { display: inline; }.nav { position: absolute; float: left; }
REDUNDANCY
Prescription:
Mozilla Developer Network
REPETITION AND DISORGANIZATION
• Symptom: See many of the same declarations over and over.
• Symptom: See styles being overridden in web inspector.
• Symptom: Having to reset styles because of previous declarations.
REPETITION AND DISORGANIZATION
.blue-title { color: blue; font-size: 16px; font-family: Arial }.blue-content { color: blue; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial }
.blue-title, .blue-content {color: blue; font-family: Arial; }.blue-title { font-size: 16px; }.blue-content { font-size: 14px; }
%blue-thing {color: blue; font-family: Arial; }.blue-title { @extend %blue-thing; font-size: 16px; }.blue-content { @extend %blue-thing; font-size: 14px; }
h2 { border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 10px 0; float: left;}h2.other-title { border-bottom:none; padding:0 0 5px; float:none;}
.secondary-title { border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 10px 0; float: left;}.other-title { padding:0 0 5px;}
REPETITION AND DISORGANIZATION
Prescription:
Refactoring, with a side of architecture.
DETOUR INTO PREPROCESSORS
• Favorite benefits of preprocessors:
• Partials (architecture)
• Extendables (in Sass 3.2) %
• Sprite benefits (Compass)
OVERSPECIFICITY
•Wasting your time and the browser’s time
.header .logo .title.name { }#nav ul li a { }.content a.title { }
.logo > .title { }
.nav li > a { }
.content .title { }
OVERSPECIFICITY
Prescription:
Understanding how browsers interpret CSS.
HOW BROWSERS EVALUATE CSS
Resources:https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/best-practices/renderinghttps://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/Writing_Efficient_CSS
The engine evaluates each rule from right to left, starting from the rightmost selector (called the "key") and moving through each selector until it finds a match or discards the rule. (The "selector" is the document element to which the rule should apply.)
HOW BROWSERS EVALUATE CSS
Specificity:
1. Ids
2. Classes
3. Tags
4. UniversalsFrom SpeciFISHity by Weyl
INVALID DECLARATIONS• Symptom: Crossed out in web inspector, because it’s wrong,
not overridden.
• Symptom: A style is written, but not rendering. (because it’s wrong)
• Solution: ⌫. And read the MDN.
.classy { background-position: inital initial; font: Arial; font: 14px/16px Arial sans-serif; padding: -10px;}
NO FALLBACKS• Know what you support, and debug before you see it in the
browser.
•Most common with colors, so add a simple color (background-, border-) declaration fallback.
• Includes setting position properly -- a common problem in some browsers
NO FALLBACKS
Common Suspects:rgba()linear-gradientradial-gradientbox-shadowposition: absolute (forgetting a vertical or horizontal position)
INLINE STYLES
The purpose of styles is to to separate structure from presentation.
Oh, and it will also give you specificity problems.
DISPLACING WORST PRACTICES
TRAIN EARLY AND OFTEN
TRAIN EARLY
• “Bootcamp”
• Presentations on full stack/tools
• Identify available resources
•Documentation, videos, useful tutorials
•Mentoring
ONBOARDING
•Documentation, Documentation, Documentation
•Onboarding session
•Make past presentations available
KEEP IT UP
• Lightning talks
• Hack Days
• See “Zombies in My Workplace” for more ideas
• http://www.slideshare.net/sbastn/zombies-in-my-workplace
STYLEGUIDES
TEXTUAL STYLEGUIDES
•Document!
• Style
• Idioms
• Structure
TEXTUAL STYLEGUIDES
• Public Styleguides
• Google: http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/htmlcssguide.xml
• GitHub: https://github.com/styleguide/css
• ThinkUp: https://github.com/ginatrapani/ThinkUp/wiki/Code-Style-Guide:-CSS
• Manifestos
• Idiomatic CSS: https://github.com/necolas/idiomatic-css
• SMACSS: http://smacss.com/
VISUAL STYLEGUIDES
• Visual Dictionary
• Explain visuals and usage
• Interface with visual designers
KSS
•Generated CSS documentationhttp://warpspire.com/kss/
•Learn to generate your own styleguide:http://warpspire.com/kss/styleguides/
INTERACTIVE STYLEGUIDES
• Put your elements in full context
•Maintain a site-wide brand
• Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle
CODE REVIEW
INTRODUCING CODE REVIEW
• Use your styleguide/documentation as guideline
• Continues mentoring process
• Saves QA time by reviewing before staging
MODULAR ORGANIZATION
INTRODUCING ARCHITECTURE
• Consider pre-processors
• Consider your build process
• Consider adopting a methodology (OOCSS, etc.)
•Measure everything
• Interface with visual design strategy
FINAL INVENTORY
•Identify and repair misguided styles
•Tools to improve and embark on the joyous path of maintainability
Thanks.
Pam Sellethewebivore.com
@pamasaur