Sent by Zoe M. Gillenwater on 22 March 2007 13:01
Bradley Wright wrote:
> On 21 Mar 2007, at 18:21, ~davidLaakso wrote:
>
>> Bradley Wright wrote:
>>
>>> To alleviate cross-browser issues like this myself, I tend to use
>>> a "reset" CSS file which reverts all browser styling to a blank
>>> slate, allowing you to start from scratch and render them however
>>> you please. An example is the Yahoo! User Interface library CSS
>>> file:
>>> http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/reset/
>>>
>> Everyone is entitled to an opinion.
>> I /do not/ agree with yours.
>> Set only what is necessary to set.
>>
>
> Sometimes resetting the styles is necessary for a better cross-
> browser experience.
>
I think David was saying exactly that. Reset the styles that you need to
reset for a better browsing experience. Don't reset the styles that you
don't need to reset, or that the user ought to have the majority of
control over.
>> Keep the CSS lean, mean, and on-target.
>>
>
> How is an extremely small CSS file resetting default styles going to
> add much bloat to the overall styling of the page?
>
Again, I think what he meant is not that the "global reset" rule is
adding a lot of filesize, but that your CSS file should only contain the
bare minimum of things you need to change from the defaults, or, more
broadly, the bare minimum of declarations to achieve a particular
effect. When people use the "global reset" rule, they follow it later in
their sheets with rule after rule adding back in those margins that they
just did away with. That's fine if you want to do that, but David,
myself, and others find it safer to keep everything in place until we
need to change it, instead of the other way around. This isn't so much a
filesize issue, for me anyway, but rather one of complexity: being able
to keep track of all the things I have done, which rules are affecting
each element, where a buggy behavior might be coming from, etc.
>> It will be far easier to maintain and revise.
>> And it will be more future proof.
>>
>
> How will it be more future proof if the next version of IE, Firefox,
> or Safari has different default styling? Do I then need to go through
> all my style sheets and update them because the vendors decided to
> use padding instead of margin to offset list elements? Why not just
> do away with all vendor-based styling to begin with? That is much
> more future proof in my opinion.
Well, this list is not a place to discuss what the vendors, or W3C,
ought to do or not do, as it doesn't affect what we have to do to deal
with the reality of vendors now. I can't really comment on whether the
global reset rule is more or less future proof than any other
approaches. I do agree with David that it is easier to maintain and
revise when you don't use it, though, but this is much a matter of
personal preference and habits.
There's no use trying to convert either side over: we can each offer
what we find useful about our particular method, but in this case it's
not really possible to assert that either is "better" than another
inherently. It's really up to the developer and even the particular
site. As David said, it's just an opinion.
Best,
Zoe
--
Zoe M. Gillenwater
Design Services Manager
UNC Highway Safety Research Center
http://www.hsrc.unc.edu
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