Importance of CSS to Web Development: a beginner`s guide
Importance of CSS to Web Development: a beginner`s guide
Introduction :
As a new learner or an interested individual in web development, you must have come across the words “HTML” and “CSS” respectively and asked yourself their relevance. Web development is a broad field with various career opportunities. It could be easily categorized into main branches known as Front-End and Back-End web development respectively.
The front end is described to be the visual of the website which you interact with. While the back end is said to be that part of the web that powers the front end, it`s behind the scenes of the web and it deals with storing data and databases.
Preview :
Understanding the basics of CSS and its use to new web developers as a user guide. Why CSS is so vital to web development and also a user`s guide. Understanding its basic concept and applications.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language ):
You can't talk about CSS without HTML. It is the building block of the webpage.c It is the skeleton of the webpage and the fundamental building blocks of the webpage we apply our CSS.
CSS ( Cascading Stylesheet ) And Its Relevance to New Developers:
CSS which simply means cascading style sheet and is a basic tool in web development. Its basic use is to a style webpage to certain specifications and add more beauty to the webpage. CSS is used for changing the display or layout of a page such as fonts, background, changing of color and other visual features of the webpage.
There are relevant CSS properties that would be of good value to you and of high importance if you learn and apply them properly. Namely;
Box model: understanding the concept of the box model always comes in handy when a webpage. It guides you when styling properly since most elements on a webpage are displayed in rectangular boxes.
Fluid layouts: this is the use of relative measurement and response to the viewport. It enables you to display and run your webpage smoothly on different sizes of the viewport.
CSS Specificity: sometimes when styling your webpage you must have encountered problems when you can`t override a previous style. this is because of CSS specificity. There styles with higher specificity tend to display above those with lower specificity. Example (inline styles have a specificity of 1,0,0,0), (id have a specificity of 0,1,0,0) and (class has a specificity of 0,0,1,0) while (<tags> have a specificity 0f 0,0,0,1). Based on specificity this implies that inlines styles > id`s >class > tags. And implies those with higher specificity will display the others.
CSS Variables: these are also known as custom properties, they increase efficiency and avoid code duplication. You can write variables in multiple places in your application and you change it in one spot and it changes everywhere. Variables cascade downwards and you can override them in the child.
Display and Positioning: display and positioning are essential in CSS. The display enables you to use and apply the flexbox and grid display where it's needed and it gives our page a beautiful look. Positioning makes our application appear more beautiful with the application of position fixed, position absolute, etc making your work decent and satisfying.
Text-align: as the name implies, this feature enables you to arrange text properly where you want it to be on the webpage.
Effective use of CSS and understanding the of above CSS properties tends to give and help a developer gain a solid foundation enabling him to develop more efficiently and making it easier for him to learn and understand more complex languages.
In conclusion, obtaining the neccessary the knowledge of CSS and proper apllication when working enables smooth running of the apllications and is vital to front-end development enthusiast .