Articles Tagged syntax

You know the single-value syntax: .thing { display: block; }. The value "block" being a single value. There are lots of single values for display. For example, inline-flex, which is like flex in that it becomse a flex container, but behaves like an inline-level element rather than a block-level element. Somewhat intuitive, but much better served by a two-value system that can apply that same concept more broadly and just as intuitively.… Read article

There is a variety of HTML that you can just leave out of the source HTML and it's still valid markup.

Doesn't this look weird?

<p>Paragraph one.
</p><p>Paragraph two.
</p><p>Paragraph three.</p>

It does to me, but the closing tags are optional. The browser will detect it needs them and manifest correctly in the DOM anyway. … Read article

This week, Chris Ferdinandi examined a clever JavaScript snippet, one that's written creatively with new syntax features, but is perhaps less readable and performant. It's a quick read, but his callout of our industry's fixation on cleverness is worth... calling out:

...we’ve become obsessed as an industry with brevity and clever code, and it results in code that’s sometimes less performant, and typically harder to read and make sense of for most people.

He made a similar argument late … Read article

CSS is easy, some might argue, but that "easiness" can cause messy code. This is especially true through power of preprocessors like Sass or Less where, if you aren’t careful, your CSS can become harder to deal with instead of easier. Sass? Harder? This Gist shows a great example of Sass nesting hell.

If your Sass code looks like that, you can definitely improve your code with SEM & BIO, a CSS technique I’ll introduce you to now!… Read article

When you're starting to play around with CSS at the very beginning, like any other language, you have to get used to the syntax. Like any syntax, there are a bunch of little things you need to know. Some characters and the placement of them is very important and required for the CSS to work correctly. And some characters are more about clean looking code and generally followed standards but don't matter for the CSS to work.… Read article

I was trying to think of the name of a thing in the CSS vernacular the other day. It made me think we should have some kind of reference right here on CSS-Tricks, as a site with CSS in the title probably ought to have! So, here's the basics.… Read article