CSS Posts

I recently listened to a really interesting panel from ShopTalk about using javascript for styling. Inline styles have been a huge pain-point in web development, so I’m glad to hear several top-tier devs finally giving it some formal validation in the context of javascript. I’ve seen cases of talented devs having their work criticized by less experienced people for inline-styling without any understanding of javascript’s role.

This panel is the first time I’ve heard about relying completely on javascript for styling, and I’m pretty swept-off-my-feet at the idea. I’ve used dynamic styling on the server before using Sass and even PHP, but being able to calculate and run everything client-side sounds really useful.

As a Sass user, I really love the Susy grid framework. It’s ultra-flexible and doesn’t mess with your markup (unlike most grid systems). That said, I can’t wait for the day that I can finally abandon Susy entirely for the new CSS3 Flexbox layouts.

Flexbox is everything I’ve ever wanted in a layout system. It’s so tempting to throw all my cares to the wind and dive straight in. Support is already really strong, but unfortunately it’s completely unavailable in IE9 and below. That represents a little over 5% of browser users. That may not sound like much, but it equates to around 30,000 visitors a year on some sites I’ve worked on.

I can’t wait for the days when we can look back on float-based layouts and laugh…