use primarycss.com. it helps. Dont blow this
Ask HN: Your coolest, most useful web design/dev tip?
11–18 of 18 posts
Re: Ask HN: Your coolest, most useful web design/dev tip?
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
This goes pretty much 100% against my tip. Absolutely DO use a grid system for your design, please DONT'T use a CSS grid framework. Here's why: Let's say you have a class "column-760" for a 760px wide column. Now let's say you want to re-design the page. Not only do you have to write new styles, you have to go in and remove all the places you've written "column-760" in the actual markup. This entirely defeats the pur…
Why not use semantic class names with the grid system? That's what a tool like Compass ( http://compass-style.org/ ) will do for you. Also, if you're using a template or theme, many of the changes you'd need to make if you were changing the layout would only be made in one place.
To be honest I hear you, if you use semantic class names tied to a grid, and keep the class layering to a minimum it's totally fine. But I've just never found a use for CSS frameworks, SASS etc. (and I work on a relatively large public site). CSS has just never been the bottleneck for me, and the few times I've wanted to use variables and other complications have usually been for "clever" hacks, nothing production quality IMO.
As for your second point, it really depends on the coupling. If you are using a grid system, like I was talking about, it's pretty rare that you would ever want to restyle EVERY single 760px wide div (which just leads to more class layering and more of a headache).
Re: Ask HN: Your coolest, most useful web design/dev tip?
#13Use SASS, you can define functions and keep your stylesheet modular.
Re: Ask HN: Your coolest, most useful web design/dev tip?
#141: Use framework: jQuery (for animated effects/AJAX), CodeIgniter for backend. Or mootools/scriptaculous if you inclined so.
2: Learn to use CSS selectors effectively. It changed my world in a day literally. Easy to digest source: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/the-30...
3: Only use fancy fonts for headings, never body copy.
4: If stuck on design, browse famous Web Design Gallery or CSS gallery for blog and current trend design. For corporate or more convensional, i like to pick inpirations from templatemonster.com
5: For backend, best to learn from basic. Type the tutorial codes one by one and understand how it works. If short on time, just focus on CRUD operation. When got more time, learn how to optimize it for speed and maintainability. After that, pick any frameworks that is popular and promising. It will help shortern your development time tremendously. :)
Re: Ask HN: Your coolest, most useful web design/dev tip?
#15visit HN every freakin day!
Re: Ask HN: Your coolest, most useful web design/dev tip?
#16My #1 tip is to use a CSS grid system such as 960.gs - http://960.gs/ or Blueprint CSS - http://www.blueprintcss.org/ You'll solve so many headaches with layout, at the cost of having ugly CSS class names.
This goes pretty much 100% against my tip. Absolutely DO use a grid system for your design, please DONT'T use a CSS grid framework. Here's why: Let's say you have a class "column-760" for a 760px wide column. Now let's say you want to re-design the page. Not only do you have to write new styles, you have to go in and remove all the places you've written "column-760" in the actual markup. This entirely defeats the pur…
I agree wholeheartedly, however some of the re-use headaches of using a framework with non-semantic class names can be mitigated if you're using some sort of include/templating layer (see my other post in this thread.) Done well, on a site with a fairly standardized design from page to page, you'd hopefully only have to edit the markup and/or class names in a few included files, and then the external CSS. This of course isn't going to help you if you inherit a mess, and you'd be better off just using "content descriptive class names" in the first place, but it can be an option.
Re: Ask HN: Your coolest, most useful web design/dev tip?
#17Use feature detection rather than browser/UA sniffing. Tools such as http://www.modernizr.com and http://www.headjs.com (limited feature detection but also provides other features) can be very helpful.
Re: Ask HN: Your coolest, most useful web design/dev tip?
#18Learn to use Firebug (http://getfirebug.com).
It is one of my most indispensable tools in debugging HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It's also one of the only remaining reasons I still use Firefox for web development. The tool is simply a life saver if you learn it like the back of your hand.