70 Expert Ideas For Better CSS Coding

Advertisement

CSS isn’t always easy to deal with. Depending on your skills and your experience, CSS coding can sometimes become a nightmare, particularly if you aren’t sure which selectors are actually being applied to document elements. An easy way to minimize the complexity of the code is as useful as not-so-well-known CSS attributes and properties you can use to create a semantically correct markup.

We’ve taken a close look at some of the most useful CSS tricks, tips, ideas, methods, techniques and coding solutions and listed them below. We also included some basic techniques you can probably use in every project you are developing, but which are hard to find once you need them.

And what has come out of it is an overview of over 70 expert CSS ideas which can improve your efficiency of CSS coding. You might be willing to check out the list of references and related articles in the end of this post.

We’d like to express sincere gratitude to all designers who shared their ideas, techniques, methods, knowledge and experience with their readers. Thank you, we, coders, designers, developers, information architects – you name it – really appreciate it.

You might be interested in reading our article 53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without1, which should provide you with a basic toolbox for CSS-based techniques you might use in your next projects.

Update (29/05/2007): Brazilian-Portuguese translation of the article2 is also available. Thanks to Maurício Samy Silva.

1.1. Workflow: Getting Started

  • After you have a design, start with a blank page of content. “Include your headers, your navigation, a sample of the content, and your footer. Then start adding your html markup. Then start adding your CSS. It works out much better.” [CSSing173]
  • Use a master stylesheet. “One of the most common mistakes I see beginners and intermediates fall victim to when it comes to CSS is not removing the default browser styling. This leads to inconsistencies in the appearance of your design across browsers, and ultimately leaves a lot of designers blaming the browser. It is a misplaced blame, of course. Before you do anything else when coding a website, you should reset the styling.” [Master Stylesheet: The Most Useful CSS Technique4], [Ryan Parr]
    master.css
    @import url("reset.css");
    @import url("global.css");
    
    @import url("flash.css");
    @import url("structure.css");
    <style type="text/css" media="Screen">
    /**/@import url("css/master.css");/**/
    </style>
  • Reset your CSS-styles first. “You can often eliminate the need to specify a value for a property by taking advantage of that property’s default value. Some people like doing a Global white space reset5 by zeroing both margin and padding for all elements at the top of their stylesheets. [Roger Johansson6653494530236]
  • Keep a library of helpful CSS classes. Useful for debugging, but should be avoided in the release version (separate markup and presentation). Since you can use multiple class names (i.e. <p class="floatLeft alignLeft width75">...</p>), make use of them debugging your markup. (updated) [Richard K. Miller7]
    CSS:
    .width100 { width: 100%; }
    .width75 { width: 75%; }
    .width50 { width: 50%; }
    .floatLeft { float: left; }
    .floatRight { float: right; }
    .alignLeft { text-align: left; }
    .alignRight { text-align: right; }
  • Eric Meyer’s Global Reset8, Christian Montoya’s initial CSS file9, Mike Rundle’s initial CSS file10, Ping Mag’s initial CSS file11.

1.2. Organize your CSS-code

  • Organize your CSS-styles, using master style sheets. “Organizing your CSS helps with future maintainability of the site. Start with a master style sheet. Within this style sheet import your reset.css, global.css, flash.css (if needed) and structure.css and on occasion a typography style sheet. Here is an example of a “master” style sheet and how it is embedded in the document:”
    h2 { }
    #snapshot_box h2 {
    	padding: 0 0 6px 0;
    	font: bold 14px/14px "Verdana", sans-serif; }
    #main_side h2 {
    	color: #444;
    	font: bold 14px/14px "Verdana", sans-serif; }
    .sidetagselection h2 {
    	color: #fff;
    	font: bold 14px/14px "Verdana", sans-serif; }
  • Organize your CSS-styles, using flags. “Divide your stylesheet into specific sections: i.e. Global Styles – (body, paragraphs, lists, etc), Header, Page Structure, Headings, Text Styles, Navigation, Forms, Comments, Extras. [5 Tips for Organizing Your CSS12]
    /* -----------------------------------*/
    /* ---------->>> GLOBAL <<<-----------*/
    /* -----------------------------------*/
  • Organize your CSS-styles, making a table of contents. At the top of your CSS document, write out a table of contents. For example, you could outline the different areas that your CSS document is styling (header, main, footer etc). Then, use a large, obvious section break to separate the areas. [5 Steps to CSS Heaven892413]
  • Organize your CSS-styles, ordering properties alphabetically. “I don’t know where I got the idea, but I have been alphabetizing my CSS properties for months now, and believe it or not, it makes specific properties much easier to find.” [Christian Montoya3814]
    body {
    	background: #fdfdfd;
    	color: #333;
    	font-size: 1em;
    	line-height: 1.4;
    	margin: 0;
    	padding: 0;
    }
  • Separate code into blocks.. “This might be common sense to some of you but sometimes I look at CSS and it’s not broken down into “sections.” It’s easy to do an it makes working with code weeks, months, or years later much easier. You’ll have an easier time finding classes and elements that you need to change. Examples: /* Structure */, /* Typography */ etc.” [CSS Tips and Tricks15]
  • Hook, line, and sinker. Once you have your CSS and sections in place start considering where your selector “hooks” will live by using structural hooks in your mark up. This is your saving grace for future editing and maintenance of the site. This will also give you strength in your document.” [Ryan Parr]
  • Break your style sheet in separate blocks. “I break down my style sheet into three separate blocks. The first is straight element declarations. Change the body, some links styles, some header styles, reset margins and padding on forms, and so on. […] After element declarations, I have my class declarations; things like classes for an error message or a callout would go here. [..] I start by declaring my main containers and then any styles for elements within those containers are indented. At a quick glance, I can see how my page is broken down and makes it easier to know where to look for things. I’ll also declare containers even if they don’t have any rules.” [Jonathan Snook68341816]

1.3. Workflow: Handling IDs, Classes, Selectors, Properties

  • Keep containers to a minimum. “Save your document from structural bloat. New developers will use many div’s similar to table cells to achieve layout. Take advantage of the many structural elements to achieve layout. Do not add more div’s. Consider all options before adding additional wrappers (div’s) to achieve an effect when using a little nifty CSS can get you that same desired effect.” [Ryan Parr]
  • Keep properties to a minimum. “Work smarter, not harder with CSS. Under this rule, there are a number of subrules: if there isn’t a point to adding a CSS property, don’t add it; if you’re not sure why you’re adding a CSS property, don’t add; and if you feel like you’ve added the same property in lots of places, figure out how to add it in only one place.” [CSSing173]
  • Keep selectors to a minimum. “Avoid unnecessary selectors. Using less selectors will mean less selectors will be needed to override any particular style — that means it’s easier to troubleshoot.” [Jonathan Snook68341816]
  • Keep CSS hacks to a minimum. “Don’t use hacks unless its a known and documented bug. This is an important point as I too often see hacks employed to fix things that aren’t really broken in the first place. If you find that you are looking for a hack to fix a certain issue in your design then first do some research (Google is your friend here) and try to identify the issue you are having problems with. [10 Quick Tips for an easier CSS life19]
  • Use CSS Constants for faster development. “The concept of constants – fixed values that can be used through your code [is useful]. [..] One way to get round the lack of constants in CSS is to create some definitions at the top of your CSS file in comments, to define ‘constants’. A common use for this is to create a ‘color glossary’. This means that you have a quick reference to the colors used in the site to avoid using alternates by mistake and, if you need to change the colors, you have a quick list to go down and do a search and replace.” [Rachel Andrew20]
    # /*
    # Dark grey (text): #333333
    # Dark Blue (headings, links) #000066
    # Mid Blue (header) #333399
    # Light blue (top navigation) #CCCCFF
    # Mid grey: #666666
    # */
  • Use a common naming system. Having a naming system for id’s and classes saves you a lot of time when looking for bugs, or updating your document. Especially in large CSS documents, things can get a big confusing quickly if your names are all different. I recommend using a parent_child pattern. [10 CSS Tips674321]
  • Name your classes and IDs properly, according to their semantics. “We want to avoid names that imply presentational aspects. Otherwise, if we name something right-col, it’s entirely possible that the CSS would change and our “right-col” would end up actually being displayed on the left side of our page. That could lead to some confusion in the future, so it’s best that we avoid these types of presentational naming schemes. [Garrett Dimon22]
  • Group selectors with common CSS declarations. “Group selectors. When several element types, classes, or id:s share some properties, you can group the selectors to avoid specifying the same properties several times. This will save space – potentially lots of it.” [Roger Johansson6653494530236]
  • Isolate single properties that you are likely to reuse a lot. “If you find yourself using a single property a lot, isolate it to save yourself repeating it over and over again and also enabling you to change the display of all parts of the site that use it.” [5 Steps to CSS Heaven892413]
  • Move ids and class naming as far up the document tree as you can. Leverage contextual selectors25 as much as possible. Don’t be afraid to be verbose in your selectors. Longer selectors can make css documents easier to read while also cutting down the chances of developing class- or divitis26. [Chric Casciano764127]
  • Learn to exploit the cascading nature of CSS. “Say you have two similar boxes on your website with only minor differences – you could write out CSS to style each box, or you could write CSS to style both at the same time, then add extra properties below to make one look different.” [5 Steps to CSS heaven28]
  • Use Your Utility Tags: <small>, <em> and <strong>. “Many times you’ll have a section in your design that calls for various typographical weights/looks all on the same line, or very close to each other. drop in random divs and classes because I feel they’re not semantic and defeat the purpose of your nice XHTML everywhere else.” Instead, use semantic tags. [Mike Rundle’s 5 CSS Tips29]

1.4. Workflow: Use shorthand notation

  • Shorten hexadecimal colour notation. “In CSS, when you use hexadecimal colour notation and a colour is made up of three pairs of hexadecimal digits, you can write it in a more efficient way by omitting every second digit: #000 is the same as #000000, #369 is the same as #336699 [Roger Johansson6653494530236]
  • Define pseudo classes for links in the LoVe/HAte-order: Link, Visited, Hover, Active. “To ensure that you see your various link styles, you’re best off putting your styles in the order “link-visited-hover-active”, or “LVHA” for short. If you’re concerned about focus styles, they may go at the end– but wait until you’ve read this explanation before you decide.” [Eric Meyer31]
    a:link { color: blue; }
    a:visited { color: purple; }
    a:hover { color: purple; }
    a:active { color: red; }
  • Define element’s margin, padding or border in TRouBLed-order: Top, Right, Bottom, Left. “When using shorthand to specify an element’s margin, padding or border, do it clockwise from the top: Top, Right, Bottom, Left.” [Roger Johansson4432]
  • You can use shorthand properties33. “Using shorthand for margin, padding and border properties can save a lot of space.
    CSS:
    margin: top right bottom left;
    margin: 1em 0 2em 0.5em;
    (margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: 0.5em;)
    CSS:
    border: width style color;
    border: 1px solid #000;
    CSS:
    background: color image repeat attachment position;
    background: #f00 url(background.gif) no-repeat fixed 0 0;
    CSS:
    font: font-style (italic/normal) font-variant (small-caps) font-weight font-size/line-height font-family;
    font: italic small-caps bold 1em/140% "Lucida Grande",sans-serif;

1.5. Workflow: Setting Up Typography

  • To work with EMs like with pxs, set font-size on the body-tag with 62.5%. Default-value of the font-size is 16px; applying the rule, you’ll get one Em standing for roughly ten pixels (16 x 62.5% = 10). “I tend to put a font-size on the body tag with value: 62.5%. This allows you to use EMs to specify sizes while thinking in PX terms, e.g. 1.3em is approximately 1.3px. ” [Jonathan Snook68341816]
  • Use universal character set for encoding. “[..] The answer is to use a single universal character set that’s able to cover most eventualities. Luckily one exists: UTF-8, which is based on Unicode. Unicode is an industry standard that’s designed to enable text and symbols from all languages to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. UTF- 8 should be included in your web page’s head like this. [20 pro tips77713635]
    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/ html;charset=utf-8" />
  • You can change capitalisation using CSS. If you need something written in capitals, such as a headline, rather than rewriting the copy, let CSS do the donkey work. The following code will transform all text with an h1 attribute into all capitals, regardless of format”. [20 pro tips77713635]
    h1 {
    	text-transform: uppercase;
    }
  • You can display text in small-caps automatically. The font-variant property is used to display text in a small-caps font, which means that all the lower case letters are converted to uppercase letters, but all the letters in the small-caps font have a smaller font-size compared to the rest of the text.
    h1 {
    	font-variant: small-caps;
    }
  • Cover all the bases – define generic font-families. “When we declare a specific font to be used within our design, we are doing so in the hope that the user will have that font installed on their system. If they don’t have the font on their system, then they won’t see it, simple as that. What we need to do is reference fonts that the user will likely have on their machine, such as the ones in the font-family property below. It is important that we finish the list with a generic font type. [Getting into good coding habits37]
    p {
    	font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;
    }
  • Use 1.4em – 1.6em for line-height.line-height:1.4” for readable lines, reasonable line-lengths that avoid lines much longer than 10 words, and colors that provide contrast without being too far apart. For example, pure black on pure white is often too strong for bright CRT displays, so I try to go with an off-white (#fafafa is a good one) and a dark gray (#333333, another good one).” [Christian Montoya3814]
  • Set 100.01% for the html-element. This odd 100.01% value for the font size compensates for several browser bugs. First, setting a default body font size in percent (instead of em) eliminates an IE/Win problem with growing or shrinking fonts out of proportion if they are later set in ems in other elements. Additionally, some versions of Opera will draw a default font-size of 100% too small compared to other browsers. Safari, on the other hand, has a problem with a font-size of 101%. The current “best” suggestion is to use the 100.01% value for this property.” [CSS: Getting into good habits39]

1.6. Workflow: Debugging

  • Add borders to identify containers. “Use plenty of test styles like extra borders or background colors when building your documents or debugging layout issues. div { border:1px red dashed; } works like a charm. There are also bookmarklets that apply borders40 and do other things for you.” You can also use * { border: 1px solid #ff0000; }. [Chric Casciano764127]. Adding a border to specific elements can help identify overlap and extra white space that might not otherwise be obvious. [CSS Crib Sheet6942]
    * { border: 1px solid #f00; }
  • Check for closed elements first when debugging. “If you ever get frustrated because it seemed like you changed one minor thing, only to have your beautiful holy-grail layout break, it might be because of an unclosed element. [10 CSS Tips674321]

2.1. Technical Tips: IDs, Classes

  • 1 ID per page, many classes per page. “Check your IDs: Only one element in a document can have a certain value for the id attribute, while any number of elements can share the same class name. [..] Class and id names can only consist of the characters [A-Za-z0-9] and hyphen (-), and they cannot start with a hyphen or a digit (see CSS2 syntax and basic data types).” [Roger Johansson4432]
  • Element names in selectors are case sensitive. “Remember case sensitivity. When CSS is used with XHTML, element names in selectors are case sensitive. To avoid getting caught by this I recommend always using lowercase for element names in CSS selectors. Values of the class and id attributes are case sensitive in both HTML and XHTML, so avoid mixed case for class and id names.” [Roger Johansson6653494530236]
  • CSS classes and IDs must be valid. “I.e. beginning with a letter46, not a number or an underscore. IDs must be unique. Their names should be generic47, describe functionality rather than appearance.” [CSS Best Practices48]
  • You can assign multiple class names to a given element. “You can assign multiple class names to an element. This allows you to write several rules that define different properties, and only apply them as needed.” [Roger Johansson6653494530236]

2.2. Technical Tips: Use the power of selectors

Roger Johansson has written an extremely useful series of articles about CSS 2.1 Selectors50. These articles are highly recommended to read – some useful aspects can be found in the list below. Note that selectors ‘>’ and ‘+’ aren’t supported in IE6 and earlier versions of Internet Explorer (updated).

  • You can use child selectors. “A child selector targets an immediate child of a certain element. A child selector consists of two or more selectors separated by a greater than sign, “>”. The parent goes to the left of the “>”, and whitespace is allowed around the combinator. This rule will affect all strong elements that are children of a div element. [Roger Johansson5251]
    div > strong { color:#f00; }
  • You can use adjacent sibling selectors. An adjacent sibling selector is made up of two simple selectors separated by a plus sign, “+”. Whitespace is allowed around the adjacent sibling combinator. The selector matches an element which is the next sibling to the first element. The elements must have the same parent and the first element must immediately precede the second element. [Roger Johansson5251]
    p + p { color:#f00; }
  • You can use attribute selectors. Attribute selectors match elements based on the presence or value of attributes. There are four ways for an attribute selector to match:
    [att]
    Matches elements that have an att attribute, regardless of its value.
    [att=val]
    Matches elements that have an att attribute with a value of exactly “val”.
    [att~=val]
    Matches elements whose att attribute value is a space-separated list that contains “val”. In this case “val” cannot contain spaces.
    [att|=val]
    Matches elements whose att attribute value is a hyphen-separated list that begins with “val”. The main use for this is to match language subcodes specified by the lang attribute (xml:lang in XHTML), e.g. “en”, “en-us”, “en-gb”, etc.
  • The selector in the following rule matches all p elements that have a title attribute, regardless of which value it has:
    p[title] { color:#f00; }
  • The selector matches all div elements that have a class attribute with the value error:
    div[class=error] { color:#f00; }
  • Multiple attribute selectors can be used in the same selector. This makes it possible to match against several different attributes for the same element. The following rule would apply to all blockquote elements that have a class attribute whose value is exactly “quote”, and a cite attribute (regardless of its value):
    blockquote[class=quote][cite] { color:#f00; }
  • You should use descendant selectors. “Descendant selectors can help you eliminate many class attributes from your markup and make your CSS selectors much more efficient. ” [Roger Johansson6653494530236]

2.3. Technical Tips: Styling Links

  • Be careful when styling links if you’re using anchors. “If you use a classic anchor in your code (<a name="anchor">) you’ll notice it picks up :hover and :active pseudo-classes. To avoid this, you’ll need to either use id for anchors instead, or style with a slightly more arcane54 syntax: :link:hover, :link:active” [Dave Shea55]
  • Define relationships for links. “The rel attribute is supposed to indicate a semantic link relationship from one resource to another.
    a[rel~="nofollow"]::after {
    	content: "2620";
    	color: #933;
    	font-size: x-small;
    }
    a[rel~="tag"]::after {
    	content: url(http://www.technorati.com/favicon.ico);
    }
  • “These make use of the attribute selector for space separated lists of values. Any a element with a relationship containing those values will be matched. Links with the nofollow relationship will be followed by a dark red skull and crossbones (?) and those with the tag relationship will be followed by the Technocrati icon.” [Handy CSS905756]
  • You can mark external links automatically. Many people make use of the non-standard rel="external" relationship to indicate a link to an external site. However, adding that to each and every link is time consuming and and unnecessary. This style rule will place an north east arrow after any link on your site to an external site. [Handy CSS905756]
    a[href^="http://"]:not([href*="smashingmagazine.com"])::after {
    	content: "2197";
    }
  • You can remove dotted links with outline: none;. To remove dotted links58 use outline: none;:
    a:focus {
    	outline: none;
    }

2.4. Technical Tips: CSS-Techniques

  • You can specify body tag ID. “In most cases placing an ID in the body tag will allow you manipulate CSS presentational items and markup elements by page by page basis. Not only will you be able to organize your sections you will be able to create multiple CSS presentations without changing your markup from template to template or page to page.” [Ryan Parr, Invasion of Body Switchers59]
  • You can create columns with equal heights with CSS. Equal Height Technique60: a method to make all columns appear to be the same height. But without the need for faux column style background images. Faux Columns61: with background images.
  • You can align vertically with CSS. “Say you have a navigation menu item whose height is assigned 2em. Solution: specify the line height to be the same as the height of the box itself in the CSS. In this instance, the box is 2em high, so we would insert line-height: 2em into the CSS rule and the text now floats in the middle of the box!” [Evolt.org62]
  • You can use pseudo-elements and classes to generate content dynamically. Pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements63. Pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements can be used to format elements based on information that is not available in the document tree. For example, there is no element that refers to the first line of a paragraph or the first letter of an element’s text content. You can use :first-child, :hover, :active, :focus, :first-line, :first-letter, :before, :after and more.
  • You can set <hr> to separate posts beautifully. “Restyling the horizontal rule (<hr>) with an image can be a beautiful addition to a web page. [CSS: Best Practices64]
  • You can use the same navigation (X)HTML-code on every page. “Most websites highlight the navigation item of the user’s location in the website. But it can be a pain as you’ll need to tweak the HTML code behind the navigation for each and every page. So can we have the best of both worlds?” [Ten More CSS Tricks you may not know65]
    XHTML:
    <ul>
    <li><a href="#" class="home">Home</a></li>
    <li><a href="#" class="about">About us</a></li>
    
    <li><a href="#" class="contact">Contact us</a></li>
    </ul>
  • Insert an id into the <body> tag. The id should be representative of where users are in the site and should change when users move to a different site section.
    CSS:
    #home .home, #about .about, #contact .contact
    {
    	commands for highlighted navigation go here
    }
  • You can use margin: 0 auto; to horizontally centre the layout. “To horizontally centre an element with CSS, you need to specify the element’s width and horizontal margins.” [Roger Johansson]
    XHTML:
    <div id="wrap">
    <!-- Your layout goes here -->
    </div>
    CSS:
    #wrap {
    width:760px; /* Change this to the width of your layout */
    
    margin:0 auto;
    }
  • You can add CSS-styling to RSS-feeds. “You can do a lot more with an XSL stylesheet (turn links into clickable links, etc), but CSS can make your feed look much less scary for the non-technical crowd. [Pete Freitag]
    <?xml version="1.0" ?>
    <?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="http://you.com/rss.css" ?>
    
    ...
  • You can hide CSS from older browsers. “A common way of hiding CSS files from old browsers is to use the @import trick. [Roger Johansson6653494530236]
    @import "main.css";
  • Always declare margin and padding in block-level elements. [10 CSS Tips674321]
  • Set a width OR margin and padding. “My rule of thumb is, if I set a width, I don’t set margin or padding. Likewise, if I’m setting a margin or padding, I don’t set a width. Dealing with the box model can be such a pain, especially if you’re dealing with percentages. Therefore, I set the width on the containers and then set margin and padding on the elements within them. Everything usually turns out swimmingly.” [Jonathan Snook68341816]
  • Avoid applying padding/borders and a fixed width to an element. “IE5 gets the box model wrong, which really makes a mess of things. There are ways around this, but it’s best to side-step the issue by applying the padding to the parent element instead of the child that gets a fixed-width. [CSS Crib Sheet6942]
  • Provide print styles. “You can add a print stylesheet in exactly the same way that you would add a regular stylesheet to your page:
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="print.css" media="print">
    or
    <style type=”text/css” media=”print”> @import url(print.css); </style>
  • This ensures that the CSS will only apply to printed output and not affect how the page looks on screen. With your new printed stylesheet you can ensure you have solid black text on a white background and remove extraneous features to maximise readability. More about CSS-based print-Layouts70. [20 pro tips77713635]

2.5. Technical Tips: IE Tweaks

  • You can force IE to apply transparence to PNGs. “In theory, PNG files do support varied levels of transparency; however, an Internet Explorer 6 bug prevents this from working cross-browser.” [CSS Tips, Outer-Court.com72]
    #regular_logo
    {
    	background: url('test.png'); width:150px; height:55px;
    }
    /*  */
    * html #regular_logo
    {
    	background:none;
    	float:left;
    	width:150px;
    	filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='test.png', sizingMethod='scale');
    }
    /* */
  • You can define min-width and max-width in IE. You can use Microsoft’s dynamic expressions to do that. [Ten More CSS Trick you may not know73]
    #container
    {
    	min-width: 600px;
    	max-width: 1200px;
    	width:expression(document.body.clientWidth < 600? "600px" : document.body.clientWidth > 1200? "1200px" : "auto");
    }
  • You can use Conditional Comments for IE. “The safest way of taking care of IE/Win is to use conditional comments. It feels more future-proof than CSS hacks – is to use Microsoft’s proprietary conditional comments. You can use this to give IE/Win a separate stylesheet that contains all the rules that are needed to make it behave properly. ” [Roger Johansson74]
    <!--[if IE]>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ie.css" />
    <![endif]-->

Workflow: Get Inspired

  • Play, experiment with CSS. “Play. Play with background images. Play with floats.” [Play with positive and negative margins75. Play with inheritance and cascading rules. Play. [Chric Casciano764127]
  • Learn from others. Learn from great sites built by others. Any site’s HTML is easily accessible by viewing a page’s source code. See how others have done things and apply their methods to your own work. [20 pro tips77713635]

Sources and Related Posts

Footnotes

  1. 1 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/01/19/53-css-techniques-you-couldnt-live-without/
  2. 2 http://www.maujor.com/blog/2007/05/29/70-dicas-para-escrever-css/
  3. 3 http://cssing.blogspot.com/2006/02/10-css-tips-for-new.html
  4. 4 http://www.crucialwebhost.com/blog/master-stylesheet-the-most-useful-css-technique/
  5. 5 http://leftjustified.net/journal/2004/10/19/global-ws-reset/
  6. 6 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/css_tips_and_tricks_part_1/
  7. 7 http://www.richardkmiller.com/blog/archives/2006/08/css-best-practices
  8. 8 http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/05/01/reset-reloaded/
  9. 9 http://www.christianmontoya.com/2007/02/01/css-techniques-i-use-all-the-time/
  10. 10 http://businesslogs.com/design_and_usability/my_5_css_tips.php
  11. 11 http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/05/18/5-steps-to-css-heaven/
  12. 12 http://www.erraticwisdom.com/2006/01/18/5-tips-for-organizing-your-css
  13. 13 http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/05/18/5-steps-to-css-heaven/
  14. 14 http://www.christianmontoya.com/2007/02/01/css-techniques-i-use-all-the-time/
  15. 15 http://www.blogherald.com/2006/09/08/css-tips-and-tricks/
  16. 16 http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/top_css_tips/
  17. 17 http://cssing.blogspot.com/2006/02/10-css-tips-for-new.html
  18. 18 http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/top_css_tips/
  19. 19 http://www.search-this.com/2007/03/26/10-quick-tips-for-an-easier-css-life/
  20. 20 http://24ways.org/2006/faster-development-with-css-constants
  21. 21 http://christopher-scott.org/blog/10-css-tips-you-might-not-have-known-about
  22. 22 http://www.digital-web.com/articles/markup_as_craft/
  23. 23 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/css_tips_and_tricks_part_1/
  24. 24 http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/05/18/5-steps-to-css-heaven/
  25. 25 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200509/css_21_selectors_part_1/
  26. 26 http://juicystudio.com/article/div-mania.php
  27. 27 http://placenamehere.com/article/156/TenSimpleCSSTips
  28. 28 http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/05/18/5-steps-to-css-heaven/
  29. 29 http://businesslogs.com/design_and_usability/my_5_css_tips.php
  30. 30 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/css_tips_and_tricks_part_1/
  31. 31 http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/link-specificity.html
  32. 32 http://www.456bereastreet.com/lab/developing_with_web_standards/css/
  33. 33 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200502/efficient_css_with_shorthand_properties/
  34. 34 http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/top_css_tips/
  35. 35 http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/design-tutorials/20-pro-tips
  36. 36 http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/design-tutorials/20-pro-tips
  37. 37 http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=FAF76&print=true
  38. 38 http://www.christianmontoya.com/2007/02/01/css-techniques-i-use-all-the-time/
  39. 39 http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=FAF76&print=true
  40. 40 http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/webdevel.html
  41. 41 http://placenamehere.com/article/156/TenSimpleCSSTips
  42. 42 http://www.mezzoblue.com/css/cribsheet/
  43. 43 http://christopher-scott.org/blog/10-css-tips-you-might-not-have-known-about
  44. 44 http://www.456bereastreet.com/lab/developing_with_web_standards/css/
  45. 45 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/css_tips_and_tricks_part_1/
  46. 46 http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-id
  47. 47 http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/goodclassnames
  48. 48 http://learningtheworld.eu/2006/best-practices/#css
  49. 49 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/css_tips_and_tricks_part_1/
  50. 50 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200509/css_21_selectors_part_1/
  51. 51 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200510/css_21_selectors_part_2/
  52. 52 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200510/css_21_selectors_part_2/
  53. 53 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/css_tips_and_tricks_part_1/
  54. 54 http://dbaron.org/css/1999/09/links
  55. 55 http://www.mezzoblue.com/css/cribsheet/
  56. 56 http://lachy.id.au/log/2005/04/handy-css
  57. 57 http://lachy.id.au/log/2005/04/handy-css
  58. 58 http://sonspring.com/journal/removing-dotted-links
  59. 59 http://alistapart.com/articles/bodyswitchers
  60. 60 http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/onetruelayout/equalheight
  61. 61 http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fauxcolumns/
  62. 62 http://evolt.org/article/rdf/17/60369/
  63. 63 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200510/css_21_selectors_part_3/
  64. 64 http://www.richardkmiller.com/blog/archives/2006/08/css-best-practices
  65. 65 http://www.sitepoint.com/article/top-ten-css-tricks
  66. 66 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/css_tips_and_tricks_part_1/
  67. 67 http://christopher-scott.org/blog/10-css-tips-you-might-not-have-known-about
  68. 68 http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/top_css_tips/
  69. 69 http://www.mezzoblue.com/css/cribsheet/
  70. 70 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/02/21/printing-the-web-solutions-and-techniques/
  71. 71 http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/design-tutorials/20-pro-tips
  72. 72 http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-03-30-n51.html
  73. 73 http://www.sitepoint.com/article/top-ten-css-tricks
  74. 74 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/css_tips_and_tricks_part_2/
  75. 75 http://chunkysoup.net/article/12/AbusingMargins
  76. 76 http://placenamehere.com/article/156/TenSimpleCSSTips
  77. 77 http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/design-tutorials/20-pro-tips
  78. 78 http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200503/css_tips_and_tricks_part_1/
  79. 79 http://blog.jm3.net/2007/03/16/the-only-ten-things-to-know-about-css/
  80. 80 http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2003/11/19/css_crib_she/
  81. 81 http://www.sitepoint.com/article/top-ten-css-tricks
  82. 82 http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-03-30-n51.html
  83. 83 http://www.snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/top_css_tips/
  84. 84 http://tantek.com/log/2004/09.html#d07t1434
  85. 85 http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/css/more-css-tricks.shtml
  86. 86 http://www.christianmontoya.com/2007/02/01/css-techniques-i-use-all-the-time/
  87. 87 http://www.stopdesign.com/log/2005/05/03/css-tip-flags.html
  88. 88 http://businesslogs.com/design_and_usability/my_5_css_tips.php
  89. 89 http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/05/18/5-steps-to-css-heaven/
  90. 90 http://lachy.id.au/log/2005/04/handy-css
  91. 91 http://erraticwisdom.com/2006/01/18/5-tips-for-organizing-your-css
  92. 92 http://www.seomoz.org/blog/css-properties-you-probably-never-use
  93. 93 http://christopher-scott.org/blog/10-css-tips-you-might-not-have-known-about
  94. 94 http://www.alistapart.com/articles/12lessonsCSSandstandards
  95. 95 http://www.dkeithrobinson.com/entry/tips_for_a_better_design_review_process/
  96. 96 http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/design-tutorials/20-pro-tips
  97. 97 http://www.richardkmiller.com/blog/archives/2006/08/css-best-practices
  98. 98 http://www.search-this.com/2007/03/26/10-quick-tips-for-an-easier-css-life/
  99. 99 http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/css.html#tips
  100. 100 http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=FAF76&print=true

↑ Back to top Tweet itShare on Facebook

Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. Vitaly is writer, speaker, author and editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine. He runs responsive Web design workshops, online workshops and loves solving complex performance problems in large companies. Get in touch.

Advertisement
  1. 1

    Dont forget to use IE Developer Toolbar and also Firefox Developer Toolbars to help you visualize the css on your page

    0
  2. 152

    oh,I have not view a articale like this one,it really some good idea and professional ideas,I will study them carefully,hope can improve my css design level,thanks!

    -1
  3. 303

    I really like this and a great post will keep this in my additional knowlledge for me, thanks.

    -1
  4. 454

    I would have to agree with all of the previous comments that point out the poor choice of selector names…

    .width100 { width: 100%; }
    .width75 { width: 75%; }
    .width50 { width: 50%; }
    .floatLeft { float: left; }
    .floatRight { float: right; }
    .alignLeft { text-align: left; }
    .alignRight { text-align: right; }
    )

    …these are all really bad choices and should be avoided like the plague, especially by beginners.

    -1
  5. 605

    Here is a very complete an professional CSS Coding Style Convention (Standards Guidelines & Rules), find it here:
    http://www.nodewave.com/document/css-coding-style-conventions–standards-guidelines-rules
    http://www.nodewave.com/document/css-coding-style-conventions–standards-guidelines-rules

    This document give guidelines to improve development productivity with CSS, this by organizing code and making it very readable, and exchangeable among developers without a loss of productivity while “diving-in”.

    0
  6. 756

    very nice set of useful tips

    1
  7. 907

    very nice , thanks

    0
  8. 1058

    Russell Bishop

    July 9, 2009 7:51 am

    Umm I’m pretty sure outline:none is very bad for accessibility, and it’s used by screen readers.

    0
  9. 1209

    Great Article… thanks heaps….

    2
  10. 1360

    PLEAAAASE no more reset style sheets!!! Every site I inherit has a different damn reset sheet which requires me to learn a new reset sheet every time.. Just learn the damn browser css styles it is not hard.

    1
  11. 1511

    Excellent knowledge pack for a Web Designer to use css efficiently…

    1
  12. 1662

    in 2.5 Technical Tips: IE Tweaks is showed expression for max-height, min-height. I needed use it once but there is problem witch it.
    If u got images bigger AND SMALLER than max-height it will stretch smaller ones to max-height make them look like crap. I fun another expression that is free from that :

    max-width: 120px;
    width: expression(this.scrollWidth > 119 ? “120px” : “auto” );

    For max-width 120px for example.

    0
  13. 1813

    professional code ideas for our designs. really thankful to you

    0
  14. 1964

    I like everything about it but since we are talking about simplicity why don you give us an option of downloading a pdf version. otherwise thanks

    0
  15. 2115

    Hi all,
    This question is somewhat related to the topic. Can you guys tell me what you think is the best way to manage CSS files? Would it be changing the file name, by adding version numbers or just keeping the same file name and updating the files?

    If you’re managing a site with thousands of pages, I feel that keeping the file name the same is most efficient. It also helps with management because you’re only dealing with one file. Personally I prefer one file, and having VSS or SVN to manage the different files.

    Another issue I’m having is also related to caching. Is it better to have one file name or by adding version numbers to the CSS file whenever it’s updated?

    Just wanted to get your opinion. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks all.

    0
  16. 2266

    Found the post helpful. Great resource for those wanting to refine their CSS skills.

    0
  17. 2417

    This is by far the BEST collection of suggestions I’ve read on the web. This will help me immensely! Thanks!

    0
  18. 2568

    Hi,

    thanks for the time and effort you put in to bring the great information. I have a small query to ask. Could you tell me what exactly I have to do to remove the round edges from this page? Yeah, am a newbie in css. :(

    Thanks
    Flek

    -1
  19. 2719

    Great article.
    Half of the items here I did not know about. Thinking back on some of my past projects, these could have been very useful.

    Smashing Magazine is simply………….SMAAAAASHING

    0
  20. 2870

    Thanks for this CSS tutorial. i always have problem in having colunms and rows in CSS. and last week i tired to create a simple site and spent 2 day just 2 make sure i can get the columns organized but then i am forced to switch 2 tables :( could you suggest me some good and simple CSS basic tutorial

    0
  21. 3021

    Its really good, for any web developer, novice or veteren. I am gonna refer this from now on , untill I byHeart all.

    0
  22. 3172

    I have been in the design industry for nine years, but have only been developing websites for three years. My background is in print design and architecture, but what is great about css is that it is very logical and structured. In order for it to work, you have to build a good foundation. This is a good refresher on css. I appreciated the example about min/max height in IE, since that is an issue that comes up often. Usually when I develop a page using css and html, it renders beautifully in Firefox, but then when you go look in IE it could be blown out all over the place-especially since IE doubles the margins.

    0
  23. 3323

    Sumit Kumar Ray

    June 3, 2010 3:44 am

    Great tips! Very usefull

    0
  24. 3474

    Keep up the Good Post,
    Good Post,
    Thanks,
    (3cci.in)

    0
  25. 3625

    awesomeness…

    0
  26. 3776

    Çağdaş Karademir

    January 28, 2011 7:22 pm

    Good Job…

    0
  27. 3927

    I saw so many css tutorial websites… but this site is really wonderful

    0
  28. 4078

    Mikolaj Przybysz

    March 6, 2011 3:50 pm

    Dividing css in separate file extends loading time due to the file linking time…
    for development time you can divide it, however
    for deploying I highly recommend reducing number of request made along whit shrinking files size.
    I also recommend doing more research as this article has many inaccuracies i found only by roughly looking through it.
    Although I thank the author for some great points, it learned quite a few things.
    Thank you

    0
  29. 4229

    What made me come here.. ;)

    0
  30. 4380

    Excellent ideas.Thanks

    0
  31. 4531

    Too many cooks spoil the pot. Typical of the web to have so many articles about a topic. I hate when opinions are automatically assumed to have some sort of authority. Nice tips but I double research and triple research and test everything before I trust it. There are a lot of bad advice and it can get pretty messed up, but I think we should test for ourselves. It’s all part of learning, but would be easier if there weren’t so much different ‘non-expert’ opinions.

    -1
  32. 4682

    “Use CSS Constants for faster development”.
    I give you an advice. Instead of using this constants, you could use ColorSchemer Studio(search on google). It’s a very helpfull program. Just try it and you will know why ;)

    0
  33. 4833

    It is perfect time to make a few plans for the long
    run and it’s time to be happy. I have read this put up and if I may just I wish to suggest you few interesting issues or tips. Maybe you can write subsequent articles referring to this article. I wish to learn more issues approximately it!

    Stop by my site … http://disquedurssd.org

    0
  34. 4984

    Thank you, I’ve just been searching for info about this subject for a long time and yours is the greatest I’ve came upon till now.

    But, what in regards to the conclusion? Are you positive about the source?

    1
  35. 5135

    I am really glad to glance at this weblog posts which carries plenty of valuable facts, thanks
    for providing such statistics.

    My website – Shannon

    0
  36. 5286

    The link for 5 Steps to CSS heaven produces a 4o4 not found because the server isn’t configured properly. You need to take out the www. and you’ll get it.

    0
  37. 5437

    You don’t know what you’re talking about kid. Sounds like you are not an expert in CSS, so why don’t you take advices from the experts.

    DIV is a block element but isn’t the only block element. There are block elements that have margin/padding by default. Do your study kid.

    1
  38. 5588

    Home Improvement

    July 14, 2010 6:18 am

    Great article! Maybe I can use this on my home improvement and landscape garden ideas site.

    -21
  39. 5739

    hi am asmi from srilanka pls help me.how to make css coding use ATM web page system

    -8

↑ Back to top