51 Untitled

Vox wrote a server-side solution to concatenate all their .js and .css files into one each for the client.

http://www.slideshare.net/miyagawa/how-we-build-vox

Start at slide 47. Not much on the detail side, though. Wouldn’t be very difficult, though.

posted at 11:03 pm on July 2, 2007 by Aaron Murray

52 Simple Solution

I really enjoyed this article, and immediately wanted a solution for concatenating all my css files. Basically I wish @import had less side effects.

So I wrote one, and made it public for anyone else who wants to use it:

http://www.georgehuger.com/cssAutoLoad

10KB PHP file and 2 lines of .htaccess, and you’re off to the races. Supports caching, basic compression, and even a little debug.

I’d like to hear feedback, as I’m new to this sort of thing. Thanks again for the inspiration.

Cheers,
George

posted at 03:44 am on July 16, 2007 by George Huger

53 concatenating vs. caching

On HTTP connections vs. stylesheet size, what’s wrong with using @import in a CSS 2.0 world? Cascading is supposed to be a core feature — it’s the ‘C’ in CSS after all.

For the framework I built for our developers, there is a basic.css. More advanced stylesheets import the BASIC.css. Some have multiple imports to other css ‘modules’, for example, TOOL.css imports BASIC and GRID (GRID imports TABLE), while GUIDE.css which doesn’t need GRID only imports BASIC and TABLE.

As long as you keep the functionalities simple and nested, developers only see a few choices (TOOL, GUIDE), and the cascade logic takes care of the rest, while giving me the ability to add new modules or styles only where needed without steadily increasing BASIC.

I’m sure some more advanced folks will let me know why this is bad somehow, but it has worked here for a few years in our (admittedly homogenous) environment (an intranet).

posted at 04:13 am on August 24, 2007 by LeMel LeMel

54 Keep it minimal

As many others, I really like to keep it minimal. But even at minimal, I tend to use at least three CSS files. Basics, IE fixes and then the rest. I’ve never used a framework and probably never will. Good article tough, many points i’ve not know of. Thanks!

posted at 04:55 am on June 15, 2008 by Peter Michael

55 Thanks, Jeff

I know it’s been a while since you’ve written this article, but I wanted to tell you thanks for taking the time to share your experience. We have been getting a lot of requests for larger MVC sites that are very complex from a GUI perspective (not to mention the programming aspect), and we are definitely seeking an optimal approach with our CSS and designs, as we’ve been spending a lot of time looking at each other’s CSS and going, “huh?” and “what the …”.

Your article is just what I was looking for.

posted at 12:54 am on December 15, 2011 by bobro

56 Google Pagespeed

You said:
Have a server-side process that dynamically flattens the individual files into a single response. I’ve not seen this done, but it could be very efficient if done well.

Actually Google Pagespeed project supplies code that can be used to flatten and minify your css into a single request.

posted at 10:23 am on March 5, 2012 by jeffsturgis