Learn External Cascading Style Sheet Basics and Best Practices

Learning External Cascading Style Sheets can seem daunting at first, but trust me, it's easier than you think.

One of the key benefits of using external CSS is that it allows you to separate presentation from content, making it easier to maintain and update your website.

External CSS files can be linked to multiple HTML pages, making it a great way to style your entire website with just one file.

This is especially useful for large websites with many pages, as it saves time and effort in the long run.

By linking your external CSS file to your HTML pages, you can apply styles to specific elements, such as headings, paragraphs, and images, using CSS selectors like class and ID.

To start working with CSS, you need to have some basic knowledge of HTML.

HTML provides the structure of a web page, while CSS adds style and formatting information to it.

Before diving into CSS, make sure you have a good grasp of HTML basics, like understanding how to write HTML code and create web pages with it.

In fact, the tutorial on "Getting Started with CSS" even mentions that having some working knowledge of HTML is a prerequisite for learning CSS.

To get started with CSS, you need to have some working knowledge of HTML.

CSS is used to add style and formatting information to web pages.

Before diving into CSS, make sure you have a basic understanding of HTML.

The first step in learning CSS is to get familiar with its basic concepts.

You'll learn how easy it is to add style and formatting information to the web pages using CSS.

Choosing the right CSS rule can be a bit tricky, but it's essential to get it right. To format the entire report, use a rule for BODY or TD.

A rule for BODY will specify default formatting for the entire webpage, including the report itself, but be aware that it may not format the graph itself. On the other hand, a rule for TD will only specify default formatting for the report and any other table cells.

To choose between BODY and TD, consider the type of report you're working with. If you're working with a graph, use a rule for BODY to format the graph, not TD.

If you want to apply several CSS properties to a single report component, declare them in a single class. This generates more efficient output than declaring one property per class.

Naming a Class is a crucial step in creating effective CSS rules. Class names are case-sensitive, although some web browsers may not enforce this.

It's a good idea to name a class after the function, not the appearance, of the report component it will be applied to. This ensures the name remains meaningful even if the appearance changes later.

Class names like Title are more meaningful than Red, as they describe the purpose rather than the appearance. This approach helps maintain clarity and organization in your CSS rules.

To format the entire report, use a rule for BODY or TD. A rule for BODY will specify default formatting for the entire webpage, including the report itself.

A rule for TD will specify default formatting only for the report and for any other table cells that you may have on the page.

To choose between BODY and TD, consider that a rule for BODY will format the page in which the graph appears, but not the graph itself. Graphs need a rule for BODY to be formatted.

If you want to apply several CSS properties to a single report component, declare them in a single class. This generates more efficient output than declaring one property per class.

You can use a generic class (declared without an element) to format any report component. Assign the class to the component in a WebFOCUS StyleSheet using the CLASS attribute.

Here's a summary of the options:

A web page without CSS looks like a mess, with a white background and blue and black text, which is not very appealing.

Using CSS makes your HTML markup much cleaner and easier to maintain, as you can stylize everything in a separate file.

This saves time and shortens the code, making it less prone to errors, which is a huge advantage.

You can have multiple styles on one HTML page with CSS, making customization possibilities almost endless.

This is becoming more of a necessity than a luxury in today's web development.

Validation can be a challenge when working with CSS-styled documents. HTML 3.2, for instance, doesn't support the SPAN element, CLASS, STYLE, or ID attributes, and lacks TYPE and MEDIA attributes on LINK and STYLE elements.

These unsupported elements and attributes are safely ignored by non-supporting browsers, so you don't have to worry about them breaking your site. Documents using these elements and attributes can be validated against HTML 4 instead.

CSS lets you stylize everything on a different file, thus creating the design there and later on integrating the CSS files on top of the HTML markup. This makes the actual HTML markup much cleaner and easier to maintain.

Without CSS, web pages can look unappealing, with a white background color and most of the text being blue and black, as seen in websites that fail to load correctly or don't have CSS at all.

CSS saves time by not requiring you to repeatedly describe how individual elements look in the HTML markup, thus shortening the code and making it less prone to errors.

Having multiple styles on one HTML page is a possibility with CSS, making customization almost endless and a necessity rather than a commodity.

CSS Types are a crucial part of external cascading style sheet. There are three methods of including CSS in an HTML document: inline styles, embedded styles, and external style sheets.

Inline styles have the highest priority, and external style sheets have the lowest. This means if you specify styles for an element in both embedded and external style sheets, the conflicting style rules in the embedded style sheet would override the external style sheet.

You can load external style sheets to improve loading times, as they are loaded separately from the HTML document. This can make your website load faster.

There are three main types of CSS styles: Internal, External, and Inline. Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks.

Here are the main differences between the three types of CSS styles:

Internal CSS styles are loaded each time an entire website is refreshed, which may increase loading time.