External Style Sheets

[odysseus]

I'm trying to tweak some templates right now and take advantage of the flixibility CSS offers. I was wondering what people think of listing free sites that use an external style sheet to control the look of all four pages of the free site. It could make site production just a little bit faster, but I now it would open up the posibility of cheating by some unscrupulous webmasters by switching just a little bit in the style sheet here and there, so I don't want to piss anyone off. Is this something that would get a person rejected? Should I just stick to keeping the CSS in the HTML document?

[Preacher]

All the freesites I ever built had external .css files. Never been a problem. I would never decline for that either. Unless I'm missing something, that's a better way to go.

-Preacher

[MadMax]

I use only external style sheets on everything I build, except on occasion where I only need some odd style for one page or something. Stick with external and when you build a new template you can just go through and edit all your styles to completely change the formatting before revising the layout

[odysseus]

Thanks guys. That was my thinking. I just wanted to make sure because I've seen some pretty slick tricks done with swapping images and such over at http://www.csszengarden.com .I figured if someone could, they would've found a way to cheat with that and screwed it up for the rest of us. Good to know I'm ok doing it this way, it does simplify things a bit.

[RawAlex]

Just remember! CSS is deadly because not all commands are used by IE, FIREFOX, and Opera. You need to have at least 2 out of the three browser up and running to test things before you submit them, because otherwise it can truly, truly suck!

Alex

[odysseus]

Thanks RawAlex. I sometimes need the reminder about Opera. I use it sometimes, and like it, but I often forget to test in it.

[MrYum]

Yep, I'm another one that uses external css on everything I build...very handy tool.

As Alex says though...be sure to double check for compatibility across multiple browsers. I use a handy little program called TopStyle...easy to use and lets you know if there are any issues. Then, I also validate every page and css before unleashing them on the public

[Xeno]

likewise....I'd say if you know (and can guarantee) all sites will still maintain stability and consistency in "multiple" layouts and designs, I would think making things easier by an external style sheet is good. I think to do this I would assume (and hope) you are a very organized person to know what a change in a style will do to "all" of your sites. The issues with different browsers is key as well which I think was noted...nothing worse than to make a global change and find out something looks wacked somewhere....lol

[MrYum]

At least in my case...I never use the same css on multiple sites. I might use another slightly altered version, but never pulled from exactly the same file. Precisely for the reason you mention...it would be far too easy to forget a particular nuance from a previous site and blow something out. Very good tip pointing out not to use them across multiple sites Goonie

Since css are small in size, it's no biggie to store em in a folder on your server. And for a large site, they're almost indespensable...allowing site wide visual changes with one file change.

[Xeno]

hehe....I learned from exprience. I suppose there are pro's and con's to it, but one other thing to think about for anyone: "is the reason for one css for all sites for the purpose of wanting different looks on a regular basis, or is it just to prevent from creating a new one for new sites as they are built?"

I would personally (after thinking about it more) is to keep each site with it's own (whether it's external or internal). As you said MrYum, css are generally small....unless you build big sites with divs (something else I learned lessons on and something to be very careful with ..lol )