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John MacFadyen
7,249 PointsWhat is the need for the responsive CSS?
Why couldn’t i just do all the breakpoints in the main.css file?
3 Answers
Neil Anuskiewicz
11,007 PointsYou could put everything in one stylesheet, So you CAN just use one stylesheet, though there are reasons why you might want or need to use multiple stylesheets.
For example, in addition to your main.css you might want to use a stylesheet hosted at a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Another reason might be organization but then a well commented main stylesheet should be easy to read, even if long.
It also occurs to me that when you're learning, as we are here at Treehouse, it might be easier to understand the concepts if there are multiple CSS files rather than one large one. Large documents can be a bit overwhelming.
I'm almost done with the CSS Basics course and I'm looking forward to the responsive course so I can see for myself.
Neil
Jacob Mishkin
23,118 PointsHaving different style sheets is more about organization and readability. If you have a ton of CSS it just makes sense to break it down into different style sheets. If not, there really isn't much need for it. It is always good practice to start with basic mobile layout then use breakpoints to shape the site at different width sizes. this way the desktop version will not be loaded when you view on a mobile device.
if you want to learn more about responsive design I recommend reading Brad Frost's blog:
Neil Anuskiewicz
11,007 PointsJacob, why does it make sense to break it into multiple style sheets if you have a ton of CSS? I'm not disagreeing, I'm just wondering why this would be superior to one well-commented sheet?
Jacob Mishkin
23,118 PointsNeil Anuskiewicz It really depends of the size/scope of the site. sometimes it's easier to breakdown the CSS into different pages. Generally you will always use two style sheets, your main CSS and a normalize or reset style sheet. I would say that most sites that people are making who are learning on Treehouse really only need one, or maybe two style sheets, but If you are writing 2K lines of CSS, I think sometimes it's best to break things down and then, concatenate the sheets when you deploy the site. For me it's about organization. Here is a great blog post from CSS Tricks, I think they explain it much better than I, Also if you're using SASS some people like to keep their Mixins and color, and functions in a separate style sheet. Honestly it's a nightmare to look though a thousand lines of code searching for stuff.
So what I'm saying in short is use multiple style sheets when developing, It will make things easier to manage and know where things are, then when you deploy your site, concatenate the pages to one site that way the caching of the CSS is done for the entire site when you view the site the first time.
I hope this helps, if you have any questions please ask.
Sergey Podgornyy
20,660 PointsYou can read more about responsive design here - http://learn.shayhowe.com/advanced-html-css/responsive-web-design/.
You can write your CSS either all in one file or in separate file, whatever you like.
Neil Anuskiewicz
11,007 PointsIs there a "best" practice in this regard?
Sergey Podgornyy
20,660 PointsThe best practice is to write clean code. I think Jacob Mishkin explained very good this issue.