Using CSS3 with WordPress

CSS3 is very well supported in all the latest versions of the major browsers, even IE10. There is very little information about how to actually use CSS3 in WordPress, and it is a little different then including it in a flat HTML website. This session will cover the basics of CSS and CSS3, and how you can use it the right way in Your WordPress sites.

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1. Using CSS3 in WordPress Suzette Franck OCWPWD at Zeek Interactive April 1, 2013 Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple
2. • Suzette Franck • WordPress Evangelist Lead at Media Temple • 18+ Years Web Development & Coding • Twitter: @mt_Suzette • Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/suzettefranck Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Who Am I?
3. • General CSS Information • CSS Terminology & Concepts • Examining CSS • How to use CSS in WordPress • CSS3 Modules Demo Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple What We Will Cover
4. • Controls layout and appearance of page elements • Keeps styles separate from HTML markup • Ability to share common styles across different pages • Completed in 1996, but most browsers didn’t support until 2007 • If you are a web designer that wants to get into coding, CSS is for you! Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple What Are Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)?
5. • Build cross-browser sites with tried and true standards • Add additional features that degrade gracefully • Consider your audience • Definitely consider Mobile Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Progressive Enhancement
6. • Any Plain Old Text Editor • Sublime Text 2 or Coda 2 for Mac • Notepad++ for PC • Latest Version of FireFox • Firebug Extension for FireFox • Colorzilla Extension for FireFox • Good Google Skills • Time and Curiosity Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple CSS Tools +
7. • FireFox with FireBug and Colorzilla Extensions • http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/css/firebug-an-overview.html Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Examining CSS
8. • Test on different platforms with different browsers • Variety of browser extensions to change user agent and screen width Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Browser Testing
9. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Coding Best Practices • Indent and use spaces • Separate declarations on a individual lines • Use shorthand versions when possible • Comment liberally • Principles of writing consistent, idiomatic CSS by Nicolas Gallagher • https://github.com/necolas/idiomatic-css
10. • Zeros out browser defaults: margin, border, padding • Clears floats, sets display properties, etc. • http://git.io/normalize • Consistency of defaults across browsers • Good themes use them • Typically at beginning of style sheet Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple CSS Resets/Normalizing
11. • More specific and closest in proximity takes precedence • IDs take precedence over classes • Added to end of declaration before ; !important; trumps all • If multiple rules apply, the last one wins • More info at: http://css-tricks.com/specifics-on-css-specificity/ Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple CSS Specificity
12. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Terminology of CSS Rules
13. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Element Selector Selects any and all HTML elements with matching tag
14. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Class Selector Selects any HTML element containing the matching class
15. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple ID Selector • Selects the HTML element containing matching ID • Each ID used only once per page, last one wins • IDs are indexed by the browser • Faster to render than classes • Takes precedence over classes • Most specific way to designate an HTML element
16. • Ignored by browsers • Documents code • Use liberally! Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple CSS Comments
17. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Twenty Thirteen Stylesheet
18. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple CSS Pseudo Classes :hover :visited :first-child :last-child :first-letter :first-line
19. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple CSS Selectors That Rock http://web-design-weekly.com/2012/05/31/css-selectors-that-rock/
20. • If available...in theme’s or plugin’s “Custom CSS” section • In child theme’s style.css • Inline in WordPress Page/Post editor (only for emergencies) Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Where Does CSS Go?
21. • Many themes have an option to add Custom CSS • Jetpack Plugin custom CSS module, adds Appearance > Edit CSS Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Custom CSS
22. • Preserve future upgradability of parent theme • Preserves your custom modifications • Allows you to keep parent themes updated with latest version • Takes on code of parent theme Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Why Child Themes
23. • Using SFTP...create a folder under wp-content/themes/ • Create plain text file style.css and copy required header to theme’s root folder • More Info: http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Creating Child Themes
24. • Click on Text view in WordPress Editor • add style=”property: value; property2: value;” to HTML element • Use sparingly! Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Inline CSS in Text Editor
25. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Where Does CSS NOT Go? • Manually linked in between <head> tags in the header.php of your WordPress theme like so: <link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”mystyle.css”> • http://wp.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-include-javascript-and-css-in-your- wordpress-themes-and-plugins/ WRONG
26. • Are necessary evil of CSS3, but will be phased out like border-radius • prefixr.com • CSS Preprocessor like Sass Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Vendor Prefixes
27. • CSS3Pie.com Progressive Internet Explorer • Modernizr Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Much Ado About IE
28. • Way to include font file in CSS • http://www.fontsquirrel.com/ • http://www.fontsquirrel.com/tools/webfont-generator • Add @font-face declarations near the top of the style sheet • Always check font licensing to see if web embedding is allowed Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple @font-face
29. • Building blocks of responsive design • Typically at end of stylesheet • Specify different rules depending on screen min-width and max-width Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple @media queries http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/media-queries-for-standard-devices/
30. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple mediaqueri.es
31. • http://validator.w3.org/unicorn/ • Unicorn: tests against current W3 Recommendations • Use as a guideline • Newer features will throw errors Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple CSS Validation
32. http://suzettefranck.com/css3/ Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple CSS3 Demo! Click the Magical WordPress Unicorn
33. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Interesting CSS3 Tricks ★At-At Walker From Star Wars ★webdesignerwall.com ★CSS3 Patterns Gallery ★CSS Social Media Icons ★Twitter Fail Whale in CSS
34. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple CSS3 Resources ★http://css-tricks.com/ ★http://wordpress.tv/?s=Chris+Coyier ★http://www.css3.info/ ★http://reference.sitepoint.com/css ★http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/tag/css/ ★http://w3schools.com (Not related to W3C)
35. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple CSS3 Generators ★http://css3generator.com/ ★http://css3please.com/ ★http://www.css3.me/ ★http://www.css3maker.com/ ★http://css3.mikeplate.com/ ★http://mothereffingtextshadow.com/
36. Media Temple // 8520 National Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 / 877-578-4000 / mediatemple.net / @mt_Suzette © 2013 (mt) Media Temple Questions? Suzette Franck sfranck@mediatemple.net @mt_Suzette https://speakerdeck.com/suzettefranck