Anyone who has used the internet has most likely heard of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. While HTML and JavaScript are responsible for the structure and dynamic parts of a webpage, CSS is responsible for the aesthetics of a website. In this post, we’ll take a quick look at the technology and get a general understanding of ‘how it works.’
What is CSS?
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is a style sheet language that is used to describe the appearance and formatting of a markup document. It adds to the functionality of HTML.
It’s commonly used in conjunction with HTML to change the look of web pages and user interfaces. It supports all types of XML documents, including plain XML, SVG, and XUL.
In most websites, Cascading Style Sheets is used in conjunction with HTML and JavaScript to develop user interfaces for web apps and mobile devices.
HTML creates the structure of a website. Consider it analogous to the skeleton of the human body. CSS can be thought of as analogous to the clothes you wear and the manner you wear them.
JavaScript is used to bring a website to life. From the simple animation of a button press to complex gaming animation, everything you see moving on a website is animation. JavaScript is responsible for this.
Before CSS, there was simply HTML and JavaScript. At that time, developers would have to sit and style each individual element, which is a time-consuming and inefficient process. Enterprise-level websites may now be styled in a matter of hours thanks to Cascading Style Sheets. CSS’s cascading nature explains this.
What is the Purpose of CSS?
You may give your old HTML documents a new design with Cascading Style Sheets. With just a few modifications to your CSS code, you can dramatically transform the design of your website.
Why Should You Use CSS?
These are the three most important advantages of Cascading Style Sheets:
1) Resolves a major issue
Before the advent of CSS, font, color, background style, element alignment, border, and size tags had to be duplicated on every web page. This was a lengthy procedure.
For example, if you’re building a large website with typefaces and color information on every page, it’ll be a time-consuming and costly procedure. Cascading Style Sheets was established to address this issue. It was a recommendation by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
2) It allows you to save a significant amount of time
Because CSS style definitions are kept in external CSS files, altering just one file can have a significant impact on the entire website.
3) Expand the number of qualities available
Cascading Style Sheets provides more sophisticated options for designing a website’s appearance and feel than plain HTML.
How does CSS Work?
The Cascade
The “Cascading” section of CSS is quite significant. Style definitions in a style sheet are read from top to bottom by the browser. This indicates that any prior styles declared earlier in the style sheet will be overridden by a style defined lower in the style sheet.
A style sheet can also override another style sheet. Because our custom style sheet is usually the last one seen by the browser, we can override standard styles from our blog themes or plugin widgets.
CSS revolutionized web development and how people think about the process of creating a website. Prior to the introduction of Cascading Style Sheets, elements had to be styled in-line or in the head section of an HTML page. CSS’s cascading nature has caused some changes. The three major methods of CSS cascades are as follows:
- Elements – To obtain the same style, the same CSS style can be applied to many elements.
- Various Styles, One Element – To achieve a distinctive style, many styles can be applied to a single HTML element.
- Same style, Multiple Pages – To quickly achieve template styling, the same stylesheet can be applied to multiple HTML pages.
Selectors
Selectors are a technique to target certain HTML elements for stylistic purposes, as the name implies. If you’re familiar with HTML, you’ll recall the two unique properties ID and CLASS, which can be applied to any HTML element. Cascading Style Sheets can be aimed at certain elements with the use of these two properties.
The selector is the content that we wish to style and target. It’s either a Class Name or an HTML element. We utilize the tag name without the opening and closing brackets when defining an HTML element.
Property
Curly brackets are always used to contain properties and their values. Properties are established phrases in Cascading Style Sheets that are understood by all web browsers.
Value
The value of a property is the style or variable that you choose to apply to it.
Errors in Syntax and Troubleshooting
When you reload your browser window after editing your style sheet, you may receive an error or discover that a certain style definition is not working. Syntax problems are frequently the source of these issues.
When it comes to proper syntax, browsers may be incredibly picky, and one small error can throw everything off. If something like this happens check for missing semicolons, spelling problems, and opening and closing curly braces on your style sheet. If the problem still persists, then check:
- Have you forgotten to put a dot before a class name or an HTML element?
- Do multiple selectors have commas between them?
If the problem is still unsolved then it’s possible that the problem is in your HTML. Check these questions:
- Did you use an equal sign and no spaces after the word ‘class’?
- Did you use double quotes around the class name?
- Is the name of the class spelled precisely the same in HTML and CSS?
Types of CSS
Cascading Style Sheets is a programming language that is used to style web pages that incorporate HTML components. It controls the background color, font size, font family, color, and other properties of web page elements. There are three ways of adding CSS to your website:
1) Inline CSS
It is a kind of Cascading Style Sheets in which the CSS property is included in the body section of an element. Within an HTML tag, the style property is used to provide this type of style.
2) Internal CSS
Internal or embedded CSS can be used to style a single HTML document in a unique way. The CSS ruleset should be inserted in the head section of the HTML file.
3) External CSS
With the use of tag attributes, external CSS creates a new CSS file that solely contains style properties (for example, class, id, and heading). Cascading Style Sheets properties should be kept in a separate .css file and linked to the HTML document using the link tag. This means that each element can only have one style applied to it, and that style will be applied across all web pages.
External CSS has the lowest priority, followed by inline and internal. You can define many style sheets on a single page. The order indicated above will be used if multiple style sheets describe styles for an HTML tag.
Moreover, styles defined in the internal and external style sheets are overridden by inline styles. This is because inline CSS has the highest precedence. The second choice is embedded CSS, which takes precedence over the styles in the external style sheet.
External style sheets get the smallest amount of attention. The HTML tags are styled using external style sheet rules if no styles are provided in the inline or internal style sheets.
Browsers that are supported include:
- Google Chrome
- Internet Explorer
- Firefox
- Opera
- Safari
Conclusion
Cascading Style Sheets is an important pillar of web development. Along with HTML and JavaScript, it forms the basis of modern websites and web apps. CSS frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation further facilitate web development with Cascading Style Sheets.
Hi! I am Shekhar, a professional web & mobile app developer with expertise in MEAN Stack, Next.js, React.js, and React Native. Being interested in working with different IT technologies, I always look forward to learning something new and challenging. Along with JavaScript, I also know several other programming languages, including Python and TypeScript.