CSS formatting preference

[Anonymous]

Just curious to see which of these is preferred and why.

margin: 0 0 20px 0;

or

margin-bottom: 20px;

I tend to use the upper method in case I ever want to quickly make changes.

[Paulie_D]

If I just want bottom margin, I’ll use the second option.

I don’t see any need to tell the browser NOT to do something it wasn’t going to do anyway…but I’m not going to be a css-nazi about it.

[joshuanhibbert]

I generally use the longhand property. Shorthand can unknowingly override other styles.

[Historical Forums User]

i use the first format, be specific as i can .

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I like the idea of not telling the browser what not to do also, but sometimes the browser defaults screw with things, so adding the zero margins make it specific. I guess then, if you use normalize or a reset, you’re telling the browser a whole lot of what not to do!

Thanks for the feedback as usual.

[Senff]

Depends so much on the issue. Normally, use the longer version. However, when overriding another (general) style, the short version is preferred.

[Kitty Giraudel]

When there is only one direction out of 4 concerned, I use the long hand version. But for maintainability, the short hand may be easier.

[GMB]

The top one if I’m specifying more than one margin, otherwise the bottom one.

[Author]

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