friggin' awesome Michael. thanks for your clear explanation! i'll try out SASS :) On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 6:03 PM, Michael Schofield <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > Hi Nate, > > I accept your challenge. For those reading who don't know, > SASS--"Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets (www.sass-lang.com)" --is a CSS > preprocessor. When bundled with COMPASS (http://compass-style.org/) I find > that it does a few things: > > 1.) Helps write DRYer CSS > 2.) Makes managing huge site-wide stylesheets easy > 3.) Helps write CSS faster. > 4.) um, variables. > 5.) math. > > Less does all this, too - but IMHO SASS is much more robust and > user-friendly. Oh, Chris Coyier (www.css-tricks.com) agrees > (http://css-tricks.com/sass-vs-less/). He does a very thorough, > perk-by-perk > breakdown and ultimately concludes with SASS. I guess, ultimately, use what > you like. Here's my take: > > We have to adhere to our institutional color scheme. We use about ten > colors > that periodically get changed. As you probably know, running through your > CSS to find and change hex color codes can be a pain. With SASS, you can > store all of your colors as variables and have to only change them once. > For > example: > > $light-blue: #50AFDF; > $dark-blue: #006699; > > a { color: $dark-blue; } > > SCSS (Sassy CSS) is exactly the same syntax as CSS. So the best way to > start > using SASS is to just write CSS. Normally, for hover / focus / active > effects, you would have to write a:hover. With SCSS you can nest > > a { > color: $dark-blue; > &:hover, &:active, &:focus { > color: $light-blue; > } > } > > I've started getting away from hex colors, but I have a hard time > looking-up > rgba. SASS does it for me: > > color: rgba($dark-blue); > > Which, if you remember, I stored as a hex value. It also helps me pick a > consistent hover/active effect without having to have predefined "light > blue". I could just do > > color: lighten($dark-blue, 9%); > > The most important thing for me is the ability to organize. For best > performance, you usually want just 1 CSS file. There are a lot of parts of > the CSS that are modular and benefit from being reused. So, what you can > do, > is make up as many modular .scss files as needed and import them into a > main > stylesheet. @importing in SCSS isn't like in CSS, because the compiler will > take all your different chunks and output one compressed CSS file. My > folder > structure usually looks like this > > _normalize.scss > _mixins.scss > _base.scss > _481up.scss > _grid.scss > _768up.scss > _1030up.scss > styles.scss > > The underscore tells the preprocessor not to compile and output individual, > mini-CSS files. All it outputs is a single styles.css file. This also makes > for an easy mobile-first stylesheet, because you @import into styles.css > first the normalize/mixins/base styles, and then the rest import into > appropriate mediaqueries. Styles.css might look like > > @media only screen and (min-width: 768) { > > @import 'grid'; > @import '768up'; > > } > > Other things: @extending a class rather than repeating styles (again, DRY). > Utilizing @includes and mixins to write prefix free CSS3 (the resulting CSS > is packaged with all the prefixes). > > ... at this point, my wife comes around to pick me up from work. But, Nate > (and whomever else), I think this is definitely a useful bandwagon to jump > on. Again, see: http://css-tricks.com/sass-vs-less/ > > All the best, > > Michael Schofield > > -----Original Message----- > From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of > Nate > Hill > Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2012 5:06 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] one tool and/or resource that you recommend to > newbie coders in a library? > > Huh. Michael, I'd love to know more about why I should care about SASS. > I kinda like writing CSS. > I see why LESS http://lesscss.org/ makes sense, but help me under stand > why > SASS does? > > On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 5:02 PM, Ethan Gruber <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > Google is more useful than any reference book to find answers to > > programming problems. > > On Nov 1, 2012 4:25 PM, "Bohyun Kim" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > > > Hi all code4lib-bers, > > > > > > As coders and coding librarians, what is ONE tool and/or resource > > > that > > you > > > recommend to newbie coders in a library (and why)? I promise I will > > create > > > and circulate the list and make it into a Code4Lib wiki page for > > collective > > > wisdom. =) > > > > > > Thanks in advance! > > > Bohyun > > > > > > --- > > > Bohyun Kim, MA, MSLIS > > > Digital Access Librarian > > > [log in to unmask] > > > 305-348-1471 > > > Medical Library, College of Medicine Florida International > > > University http://medlib.fiu.edu http://medlib.fiu.edu/m (Mobile) > > > > > > > > > -- > Nate Hill > [log in to unmask] > http://4thfloor.chattlibrary.org/ > http://www.natehill.net > -- Nate Hill [log in to unmask] http://4thfloor.chattlibrary.org/ http://www.natehill.net