Ask HN: CSS for developers
1 comments
Quick question: Have you tried to formally learn CSS?
I think you can get by with layouts on 80% knowledge from just tweaking things but to really be able to go start to finish on a frontend layout, I would suggest investing the hours to know things like what the difference is between a fixed, absolute and relative positioned element or the difference between padding and margin.
There are plenty of youtube series and the like, they just require the investment of time.
I think you can get by with layouts on 80% knowledge from just tweaking things but to really be able to go start to finish on a frontend layout, I would suggest investing the hours to know things like what the difference is between a fixed, absolute and relative positioned element or the difference between padding and margin.
There are plenty of youtube series and the like, they just require the investment of time.
Most of these things (absolute, fixed, relative and static layouts or padding/margin/border and the boxing model) I know. The problem (I think) is that I can't get the full picture.
As you say, I want to avoid tweaking things and using trial and error to fix things :/
Formally learning CSS as you propose is a path that is time-consuming but with high success probability so I may try it. Could you recommend me anything for that path? I'd really prefer reading instead of watching videos.
As you say, I want to avoid tweaking things and using trial and error to fix things :/
Formally learning CSS as you propose is a path that is time-consuming but with high success probability so I may try it. Could you recommend me anything for that path? I'd really prefer reading instead of watching videos.
Would recommend going through Shay Howe's course. He covers the subtleties well.
https://learn.shayhowe.com/
https://learn.shayhowe.com/
Thanks!
Let me know if you have any questions too, I'm always happy to help!
Hello Shay, thank you very much! The content on your site is excellent; I have read the Course 101 and already feel much more confident on my CSS skills (and especially the really confusing things like floats and positioning).
Really great work!
Really great work!
Thanks, I really appreciate it and that's great to hear!
Most of my projects just use the stock Bootstrap without any changes; if something (even something small) needs to change then my nightmare begins :( Also, in various projects I need to work with non-CSS designers (i.e people that create the site in photoshop or something similar) and then I need to replicate that design (from a bunch of images) to CSS; this is a huge PITA for me and usually I just avoid such projects.
Now, I believe I am familiar with the basics of CSS (selectors, box model, display, positioning, floats, responsive etc) however I can't undestand the whole picture.
What I would like to be able to do is replicate as faithfully as possible (I mean replicate with CSS) an existing site starting from scratch, i.e just with an empty index.html and my own css (let's forget bootstrap for now) plus maybe a basic reset-stylesheet. Is there a book I should read for learning this? Is there some on-line course/tutorial? Something else that you recommend? Maybe a framework? This mainly has to do with laying out things, having proper classes to reuse styles and being responsive, I don't care that much about colors, shadows, borders, fonts, etc since they can easily be copied over.
Thanks !