Comments on: Thoughts on “10 Principles of the CSS Masters In HTML / CSS”

By: Omar Ramon

Omar Ramon — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:33:21 +0000

Rule #2 FAN! I love to open my stylesheets and understand their rules at one shot. For me it’s very important to visualize the structure of the website:

.container { ... } /* using tabs to align brackets */ .container .interface { ... } .container .interface .header { ... } .container .interface .header .logo { ... } .container .interface .header .title { ... } .container .interface .header .menu { ... }

It’s easy to see how the more global rules affect the following more specialized.

By: Robert Len Stallard

Robert Len Stallard — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:38:38 +0000

I’m a one liner too! My IDE has code folding for CSS, so this helps me reduce scrolling. I also apply “modular” stylesheets with “@import” to help in avoiding these getting too long. Though I have used all declarations on a single line when I’m forced to use internal or embedded stylesheets, but I prefer external stylesheets.

I just discovered your blog and love it! I have a lot of catching up to do on your posts. Thanks for your efforts.

By: facundo

facundo — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:00:30 +0000

Hi,

I tottally agree with you on all your principles but #2.

I think it’s better to do that on an hybrid way: Keeping the vertical way but grouping similar elements, like width and height, padding and margin, background and color, etc.
Using comments to make search faster is nice idea too.

That makes it easier to read and faster to modifie.

Then you can get your CSS through an compressor, so you have an extended and documented version for you to work on, and a compressed version to save size on your website.

Saludos desde Argentina (and sorry about my english… xD)

Facundo

By: Ian

Ian — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:31:03 +0000

I stick to single liners when theres only a few rules for each selector, kinda looks cramped for me when everythings kept on a single line. When theres more than 3 or 4, I use new lines for each comment.

By: david

david — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:54:02 +0000

Wow, 1-liners (pun intended) coming from everywhere! I started as a 1 rule per line guy but stylesheets just took forever to scroll.

By: Phil Thompson

Phil Thompson — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:44:04 +0000

+1 for one rule per line.

It’s so much easier to read, whether you have to horizontally scroll or not, it’s about being able to find the rule quickly and I find it’s much easier to scan read and find something if each rule has its own line.

By: Caligula

Caligula — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:00:28 +0000

Three fans of one-rule-per-line.

Unless your styles are very short they’ll wrap, and that’s way, way harder to read. Grouping related rules on one line, perhaps.

@Braxo: You navigate your source code with a mouse? You must use a fairly primitive editor if it can’t navigate sensibly with keys. Heck, even clicking on the line and hitting the “end” key would be more intuitive than twiddling with the hscroll.

By: Braxo

Braxo — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:48:36 +0000

I think the fans of one rule per line probably don’t have an Apple mouse that allows for horizontal scrolling, so it is not worth it to even try it differently for an extended period of time. I too would find it frustrating to have to move my mouse to the bottom scroll bar then back up to place my cursor.

Of course a bigger monitor could help…

By: david

david — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:36:49 +0000

Wow, two fans of one rule per line. I find it unbearable, but to each his own.

By: Ahmad Alfy

Ahmad Alfy — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:32:52 +0000

Well, I don’t frankly agree with rule number 2!
Even if I had to scroll down, I love to write every rule in a single line.