CSS

Reference

Basic structure

<!DOCTYPE html>
html
  head
  body
    header
      nav
    section
     article
    aside
    footer

html

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="assets/css/my.css">
<link href="mysite-mobile.css" rel="stylesheet" media="screen and (max-device-width: 480px)">

//- nav
<nav>
  <ul>
    <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
  </ul>
</nav>

css

// usually split in this way: layout.css color.css typography.css
// use one parent css to include them:
    @import url(layout.css);
    @import url(color.css);
    @import url(typography.css);

@media print {
        body {
            /* css text */
        }
    }

viewport <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width">

Selector

Prefer class over id: id is only faster when id is the key selector, it's slower when #home a, because browser read from right to left so #home a is read as finding all a then pick #home.

css selector specificity

  • div p win p

  • same style, last one win

  • you give every ID selector (“#whatever”) a value of 100, every class selector (“.whatever”) a value of 10 and every HTML selector (“whatever”) a value of 1. Then you add them all up and hey presto, you have the specificity value

descendant selector

  • #id-name h2 { } /* it means select h2 under the id 'id-name' */

  • by default, it selects all nested chilren no matter how deep they are.

  • to select the direct child: #id-name > h2

select sibling using '+'

h1+p{} // select all p comes after h1

the pattern of the selector: context + element + pseudo-class/elements

div#greentea > blockquote p:first-line // p is the element.

pseudo-class :hover

  • Style for specific state: a:link { color: green; }, :hover, :visited

  • Style for specific position: p:nth-child(2n) { color: green; }

pseudo-elements ::before

  • Style for certain parts of a element. It's applied to content.

  • Input elements have no content, that's why ::before is not applied.

Good to know

  • strong vs em vs b

    • em emphasis

    • strong added importance

    • b (style only)

  • dl dd

  • List: the only element we can place as a direct child of the <ul> and <ol> elements is the <li> element

  • audio

    <audio controls>
    <source src="jazz.ogg" type="audio/ogg">
    <source src="jazz.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
    <source src="jazz.wav" type="audio/wav">
    Please <a href="jazz.mp3" download>download</a> the audio file.
</audio>

  • figure+figcaption

  • mark for highlight

  • <progress value="70" max="100">70 %</progress>

  • <ruby> and <rt> for 中文注音： http://codepen.io/hamxiaoz/pen/Nbjjjm

  • CSS counter

  • You can live editing CSS by using <style contenteditable>: https://codepen.io/GiorgioMalvone/pen/vHCds

Font

font-family: Verdana, Arial, "Courier New", sans-serif;

// how to use web font (web open font format 'WOFF')?
@font-face { font-family: "name"; src: url("font.woff"), url("font.ttf"); }

font-size

  • px (old IE doesn't support it!)

  • % (relative to the parent element)

  • em (scaling to the parent element) or keywords (small/medium etc.)

  • rem (scaling relative to the root elment 'html')

to use it properly: (so it can be really easy to adjust whole font by just changing the base font)

  • choose a keyword for body to define the whole page size as a basement.

  • use em or %

  • use rem

line-height: it can use number only to specify the size to its own size.

#gift { line-height: 1em; } // all elements inside gift is the same size of the element of gift, h1 size will be the same as h2! (which inherits from body)
#gift { line-height: 1; } // all elements inside gift is the same size as their own size. So h1 will be h1's size and h2 will be h2's size.

text-decoration: no need to use , for multiple value: text-decoration: underline line-through;

Background

  • DO NOT USE Background shortcut: background-color, background-image, background-position and background-repeat as you might override

    div {
background: #b2b2b2 url("alert.png") 20px 10px no-repeat;
}

  • Linear gradient is background-image

    • MDN

    • degrees!

      div {
background: linear-gradient( 45deg, blue, red ); 
}

  • {background-size: cover/curtain/etc}

    background-image: url(https://example.com);
  background-size: cover;

Image

  • By default it's inline element

Display

  • display: none: means the browser will render the page as the element doesn't exist.

  • visibility: hidden: means it renders as it's there but not visible, like invisibe cloak.

  • opacity:0: Similar to visibility: hidden but when focus on it, iOS will show keyboard. The other two won't.

display:block will stretch the element to left/right as far as possible.

width: browser will create scrollbar if viewport is smaller, in this case, use max-width instead of width.

Box

Margin / Padding

Read: https://blog.coding.net/blog/css-margin

Order matters! The last one takes precedence, overriding anyone specified before:

margin: 30px;
margin-left: 50px; // margin left will be 50px instead of 30px

// or
margin-left: 50px; 
margin: 30px; // margin left will be 30px

Shortcuts:

margin: 30px 20px 30px 20px; // top right bottom left (think as a clockwise direction: from 12 to 11)
margin: 30px 20px; // top/bottom right/left 
margin: 30px // means all sides have the same padding of 30px

When to use margin vs padding?

  • Use margin to separate the block from things outside it.

  • Use padding to move the contents away from the edges of the block.

  • Margin collapse on vertical: http://codepen.io/hamxiaoz/pen/mRyeXp

    • When styling typography and arbitrary sequences of paragraphs, headings and lists it's almost always better to space the elements with margins because of the adjacent margin collapsing behaviour.

Other shortcuts for border and background:

border: solid #009302 thin; // ... and border-width
background: white url(images/gift.gif) repeat-x; // color image repeat

Width

By default, Box model is box-sizing: content-box, means the width specifies the the content only, not including padding and border.

So if you have width: 100% and padding, the item will display out of the container.

If you want the width to be the real width of the box, use box-sizing: border-box;

div {
  border: 6px solid #949599;
  height: 100px;
  margin: 20px;
  padding: 20px;
  width: 400px;
}

By default, it's

Alignment

  • vertical-align CSS property specifies the vertical alignment of an inline or table-cell box.

  • text-align: it will align all inline content inside a block element.

Coding Standard

  • Google HTML/CSS Style Guide

  • Github

  • try to avoid id in css

  • remove units for 0

  • When using vendor prefixes we need to make sure to place an unprefixed version of our property and value last, after any prefixed versions. 

    div {
  background: -webkit-linear-gradient(#a1d3b0, #f6f1d3);
  background:    -moz-linear-gradient(#a1d3b0, #f6f1d3);
  background:         linear-gradient(#a1d3b0, #f6f1d3);
  -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
     -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
          box-sizing: border-box;
}

Repaint/Reflow

To check:

因此，我们在写动画的时候因该规避这些属性：width, height, margin, padding, border, display, top, right, bottom ,left, position, float, overflow等。 不会出发重新布局的属性有：transform(其中的translate, rotate, scale), color, background等。 所以，我们平时在写css动画时，应该优先使用不触发重新布局的属性，这样可以使我们所展示动画效果的更加流畅。

Misc

semantic css creates more problem (redundancy) than it solves.

  • what's semantic css: code what you mean, think about the structure. if it's important, put it as H1.

  • read last comment from: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3653540

  • use less can solve the problem.

  • other css framework: blueprint, 960.

Why element.style.left doesn't work?

You need to set it to the object in Javascript or using inline style element.style is just a conversion of the element's style attribute into a scriptable object. If you haven't set any inline style on the element, you won't get anything back. document.getElementById("convert").style.display = "block" or <a style="display: block;"></a>

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