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HTML How to Make a Website Creating HTML Content Include External CSS

A few questions re: normalize.css in creating a website from scratch and issues with current project.

I asked this question in an earlier lesson, but didn't get the answer I was looking for...

  1. If I were required to build a website from scratch, would this mean that I cannot use a file such as normalize.css? When there are updates to this file, does this mean I must update the normalize.css file in order for the appearance of the site to continue to be viewed the way I intended?

  2. In this lesson, when the instructor used normalize.css, the bullets were removed from his unordered list. In my project, the bullets were removed from the <ul> belonging to PORTFOLIO, ABOUT, CONTACT... however, the bullets remained for the <ul> in my section tag (jpg). What did I do wrong? Here is a link to my code: https://w.trhou.se/sr69x3xztq

Any help would be much appreciated!

3 Answers

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

Hi Jordan

  1. My opinion - from scratch would mean devoid of a CMS. However I don't think using something as simple as normalize.css would count against that. There are better ways to do something, and to not follow those better ways in the name of working from scratch are silly. I'd have no problem integrating plugins, and libraries into my from scratch project. In my opinion, even using an MVC framework like Rails, Flask, Slim, or Meteor is still from srcatch. Using something like Wordpress, or another CMS would not be. I guess you need to define what "scratch" means. You would only need to update normalize when you felt necessary. It wouldn't be necessary to update it just "because".

  2. Different versions of Normalize. Bullets on list items was one that changed between versions in Normalize, and the reason why you're seeing the difference between yours and the teachers code is because you are using different version of it.

Exactly the answer I was looking for! Thanks Kevin.

McCoy Buck
McCoy Buck
672 Points

I hope to not repeat this question but would like to get an answer directly from a MOD would be great.

I know it would definitely take a lot longer, but for beginners, wouldn't it make more sense for us to learn what exactly normalize.css is doing? What I mean by that is fixing all of the bullet points and such manually so we learn what it's actually doing? So how come Tree House went with a 3rd party route using plug ins and such rather than teaching us the nitty gritty. Is it really not that necessary to know that?

best regards,

McCoy

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

What reset.css, normalize.css, or any other base package does is trival. It is important and it is worth learning, but I think from a course flow standpoint, it was an ok decision to not divert down this side path, especially this early in the courses.

Using these libraries in production is quite common. For almost all problems, normalize makes development easier for new users, even when they don't know what it does.

The bonus of using a 3rd party package like this is that it's been combed over by many developers, to create something to address as many fringe cases as possible, in as small of a package as possible, with as light of a selector as possible.

If you stick with it, you'll learn enough about CSS to be able to read through these libraries, and realize what it does it boring and repetative, and resets a lot of tags to 0 and none

I used to wonder the same thing, McCoy. Then I figured I can cross that bridge when it comes.

McCoy Buck
McCoy Buck
672 Points

Awesome thanks so much Kevin, that answers my questions!

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

No problem McCoy, happy coding!