Week 9: Cascading Style Sheet

(1) Cascading Style Sheets, CSS, is a style sheet language used for describing the look and formatting of a document written in a markup language.  (2) A style sheet is a set of one or more rules that apply to an HTML document. (3) CSS allows a web designer to specify the various elements including font sizes and colors that would enable them to make their webpage unique. (4) CSS contains 'rules' that are statements about a stylistic aspect of one or more elements. (5) A rule will consist of two main parts: a selector and a declaration. (6) The selector is the link between the HTML document and the style. Selectors specify what elements will be affected by the declaration. (7) The declaration, then, is the part of the rule that states what the specific effect will be. (8) A declaration can be further broken down into two parts: a property and a value. (9) A property is the quality or characteristic that something possesses and the value is the exact specification of that property. (10) An example of CSS coding would be H1 {color: green}. This rule is stating that the heading will be in green font. Although it is not necessary for web designers to 'hand write' CSS codes or to memorize them, it appears that it is more common for them to do so.  'Hand writing' their own CSS codes for a specific webpage allows them to be able to design their webpage to be exactly what they want.

Notes from Required Readings:
1) W3 School Cascading Style Sheet Tutorial: http://www.w3schools.com/css/
2) CSS tutorial: starting with HTML + CSS http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/011/firstcss
3) chapter 2 of the book Cascading Style Sheets, designing for the Web by Håkon Wium Lie and Bert Bos (2nd edition, 1999, Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-201-59625-3) http://www.w3.org/Style/LieBos2e/enter/