CSS got too many moving parts

#webdev #beginners #css

Why am I struggling with CSS, too many moving parts 😭😭😭

I need help!!

Top comments (14)

Esteban Hernández • Oct 30 '20

A lot of CSS rules are no longer relevant. Further, with tooling like CSS-in-JS, many of the CSS tricks of years ago are no longer necessary since the JS can handle it in a more elegant and legible way.

The most important parts of CSS IMO are Flex, the Box Model, typography, colors and knowing how to copy-paste snippets that accomplish almost exactly what you need and adjusting the one or two values necessary for your use case. Further, you'll end up using CSS libraries like Tailwind and Post-Processors like Sass in most professional environments which handle the rare edge cases under the hood.

My advice is focus on accomplishing clear-cut goals such as replicating a mock-up or a website you like rather than trying to learn all of the rules and values by memory. Again, most of them are no longer relevant.

Esteban Hernández • Oct 30 '20

Sorry, forgot to say. Feel free to post your exact questions and many people will be kind enough to guide you through them.

Saharan-sub • Oct 31 '20

Thanks, this is very insightful

John Peters • Oct 31 '20 • Edited

This will help. Start using html5 grid for all layout. It's better than flex box because it does both columns and rows plus areas.
Then switch to Scss for it's power in Specivity. The only others things needed are margins, colors, borders, font size and padding. Use only em, rem or vh sizes and you're set.

Tarek Hamaoui • Oct 30 '20

Hey buddy. What’s the problem?

Saharan-sub • Oct 30 '20

Just trying to figure out what to use and when to use them.

Been practicing building a number of Tables. Will move on to forms after this.

Just want to be a to style a page from scratch

Jordy Lee • Oct 30 '20

Learn flexbox religiously, as well as the position attribute. After a lot of practice with that CSS will be a walk in the park for you bro.

Saharan-sub • Oct 30 '20

Alright, I have not covered flexbox yet. Maybe that will be the key.

For position attribute, which ones do you mean ?

Esteban Hernández • Oct 30 '20 • Edited

position: relative|absolute|fixed|sticky

Just understand what each of those 4 options does and you'll be miles ahead.

Jordy Lee • Oct 31 '20 • Edited

position: absolute and position: relative. Most important is you understand how this attribute interacts with a child element and its parent container (e.g. an absolute div within a relative div), as well as the bottom, top, left, right attributes.

There's also position: sticky but I think the only time you'll use that is with a navbar

edit: as another user pointed out, there's fixed too. But imo absolute and relative are by far the most important due to how they are influenced by every other element in the DOM.