How do you keep your CSS optimized?

CSS preprocessors also ensure you don't need to use "vendor prefixes." Vendor prefixes look like: -moz-...-... -webkit-...-... They are needed to get the CSS to work in particular browsers, but the preprocessors will fill these in for you

CSS preprocessors like Sass or Less allow you to write more organized and modular CSS code using features like variables, mixins, and nested rules. Preprocessors also compile your code into optimized CSS for production.

Implement Lazy Loading: Lazy load stylesheets for components or sections of your site that aren't initially visible. This reduces the initial load time.

One thing I've found helpful is css preprocessors allow you to define variables for common values like colors, font sizes, and spacing. This makes it easy to maintain a consistent design and update styles globally by changing the value of a variable.

There are many benefits of using CSS preprocessors. SCSS is one of the powerful, and advanced CSS preprocessors that makes writing stylesheets easier and more efficient. It uses a syntax similar to traditional CSS but adds dynamic features like variables, mixins, and functions that make it faster and more versatile. With SCSS, you can write clean CSS that is easier to read, easier to maintain, and allows for better organization of style rules. It is also fully compatible with existing CSS, so you can switch to using SCSS without any problems. Thank You.

Using CSS frameworks like Bootstrap, Tailwind can help you save considerable time when building apps from scratch. Because, they provide a variety of convenient styles, classes and utilities that can significantly speed up app development. Furthermore, CSS frameworks are accompanied by the comprehensive official documentation, which ensures that all developers look towards the same direction, so they can work efficiently and productively.

CSS frameworks are good, but be sure to get your foundations right first. Start by doing CSS on your own and start using frameworks later on to save time. Understanding the fundamentals will help with making sure you know what the framework is doing, how to use it, and how to opt out if you need to go custom

Efficiently creating consistent and responsive designs with predefined classes and components, saving valuable development time. While they offer predefined styles, CSS frameworks can be customized to achieve unique designs that align with project requirements.

To optimize CSS, focus on minifying the code by removing unnecessary elements like whitespace and comments. Consolidate CSS files to reduce HTTP requests, use external stylesheets for caching, and keep selectors simple and efficient. Avoid redundancy and excessive use of !important. Consider using CSS frameworks and preprocessors for cleaner code. Employ media queries for responsiveness and optimize background images. Regularly review and clean up CSS. CDNs can help with common libraries, and consider lazy loading non-essential styles.

CSS frameworks are essential for web development because they provide a foundation of pre-designed, responsive, and cross-browser compatible styles and components. They save time, ensure consistency, and enhance code maintainability. Frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation offer a structured approach to design, making it easier to create visually appealing and user-friendly websites. They also come with documentation and community support, making it accessible for developers of all levels. Additionally, frameworks facilitate responsive design, reducing the effort required to adapt websites to various screen sizes and devices. Overall, CSS frameworks are indispensable tools for efficient, professional, and scalable web development.

Regularly audit your CSS to remove any unused or redundant styles. Tools like PurgeCSS can help automate this process. Use browser developer tools to profile and optimize your CSS. Identify bottlenecks and performance issues for targeted improvements.

Minifying helps reduce the amount of data you send to the user, which is great. The less data you send to the user, the faster the page can load and the less money you cost users who pay for data

I'm a big fan of minimising CSS and then embedding only the needed styles into the HTML response (assuming server side rendered) to really speed up perceived loading time. Making your bundle as small as possible, without needing extra requests can really make your page 'pop' on slower connections, and get you some nice lighthouse scores (which is a solid bonus)

Significantly reducing file size and improving loading speed by removing unnecessary characters and whitespace from CSS code. While it makes CSS less human-readable, it doesn't affect the original code; it's only optimized for production.

Minifying involves removing all the whitespace in the file that is only there for human readability, once the code is put into production. You can reduce loading times considerably by minifying your CSS. Minification is generally done as part of a build process (for example, most JavaScript frameworks will minify code when you build a project ready for deployment). In addition to minification, make sure that the server that your site is hosted on uses compression such as gzip on files before serving them.

Efficiently reducing file size and improving website performance by encoding and compressing CSS files into a more compact format. It can be seamlessly integrated into your website through methods like HTTP headers, server settings, or content delivery networks.

Using CSS compression is a technique to reduce the file size of your CSS code, which can lead to faster loading times for your web pages. Here's how you can effectively compress your CSS. Minifying your CSS involves removing unnecessary characters like whitespace, comments, and indentation. There are online tools and build processes that can automatically minify your CSS for production use.After compressing your CSS, run performance tests to ensure that your website still functions as expected and that there are no rendering issues.

Similar to minifying, compression helps reduce the amount of data you send to the user, which is great. The less data you send to the user, the faster the page can load and the less money you cost users who pay for data

Compressing/obfuscating CSS is a very important step to reduce data size sent through the wire and requires fewer resources by the browser to download.

Generally, I recommend using class names and pseudo selectors like :hover, :focus-visible, :disabled, :active, etc. Otherwise, you can use data attributes or aria attributes, since that can be seen as a source of truth for the status of the component. You can also use libraries like `classnames` so that CSS classes only get applied when particular conditions are true

Improving the performance, maintainability, and readability of style sheets by employing simple, descriptive selectors that align with HTML structure and semantics. Too many or overly specific selectors can add unnecessary weight and complexity to your CSS code, impacting performance and making it harder to maintain.

Keep your selectors concise and avoid using overly specific selectors. This reduces the likelihood of style conflicts and makes your CSS easier to manage.

Be mindful of selector specificity. Highly specific selectors can lead to unintended style conflicts and make it challenging to override styles when needed. Prefer using classes and IDs for targeting elements, and avoid overly specific selectors like nested IDs.

Using asterisk and !important are sometimes unavoidable but it's necessary that we understand the impact both of these are making before using them. Having too many asterisk selectors that target a wider set of nodes can negatively affect performance. As for !important override for properties, it should be considered as a last-resort option because adding it severely impact the maintainability of the code in the long run. A !important will eventually have to be overridden in some other use-case and that'll require another !important. See the problem with it? Best to avoid it entirely and if you find it, try to fix it than to override it.

Creating more consistent, maintainable, and readable code by following guidelines on naming conventions, formatting, indentation, comments, media queries, relative units, and CSS variables. They're essential for improving code quality, compatibility, and long-term maintainability.

Adding @layers to define priority of cascading is also important as many of time stge styling is coming from frameworks and their build systems allowing prioty of cascading

Very niche but when working with applications that need to run on a low-powered device, especially one that does not have hardware acceleration available for optimized rendering -- it's best to avoid certain types of styles. These include things like transitions, animations, box and text shadows, filters, etc. Avoiding these will help the application make most out of the available compute resources (rather than sharing them for computing complex styles).

Use a consistent naming convention for classes and IDs (e.g., BEM, SMACSS) to make your code more understandable. Minimize the use of global styles to prevent unintended conflicts. Use classes and IDs that are specific to the component or section they belong to. Prioritize responsive design by using media queries to adapt styles to different screen sizes and devices. Use relative units like percentages, ems, and rems to ensure flexibility across various screen sizes. Break down your styles into smaller, reusable components. Add comments to explain complex or non-obvious styles and their purpose. Use consistent indentation and formatting to enhance readability. Minify your CSS for production to reduce file size.

It is important to exercise proper separation of concerns with CSS as well. That means avoiding mixing up generic styles with various random overrides, putting reboot styles outside its own reboot.css, or having highly specific styles for page A in page B's css file. When dealing with a large project, various css modules can be categorized into its own subfolders and organized accordingly.

I have observed that websites often make more HTTPS requests when using @import statements. To improve the website's load time, it is recommended to directly call CSS from the HTML code. Instead of referencing one CSS file inside another using @import, which slows down the website, you can use link tags in the HTML to download multiple stylesheets simultaneously resulting in faster load times.

Vanilla CSS has come a long way, many of the features previously only supported by the preprocessors are now available natively. Variables, calculations and selector nesting are some of the biggest additions in recent years.

- Use Responsive images instead of writing CSS to resize - Define placeholder size to avoid content layer shift - Avoid imports in CSS to avoid late file discovery.

Where applicable, I think component-based programming makes CSS / styling significantly easier and safer to manage and to maintain. In my experience local scope is much better than global scope, albeit for javascript or CSS. One of the ways this happens is keeping the component and most of the styling in the same file. (Examples: React, styled-components.)

A good CSS framework shouldn't be judged only by the components it provides out-of-the-box, but also by the basic instructions it applies when loaded into your project. Always check: - the type of CSS Reset used; - how many types of resolutions the MediaQuery cover; - if there is a style sheet for typography, tables and forms.