How CSS Works And The 10 Most Important Key Features

CSS, or cascading style sheets, is a style sheet language created in the 1990s to facilitate the styling of web documents. Today, CSS is now essential for any web development team, as it is a fundamental component of the modern web and complements many other markup languages. You’ll learn the basics of CSS, how it’s put together, and the 10 most important characteristics it has in this article.

CSS, short for “cascading style sheets,” is a programming language used to style and structure documents written in markup languages. It adds a new function to HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). The majority of the time, it’s used in conjunction with HTML to alter the visual style of websites and user interfaces.

In 1996, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed CSS with a specific goal in mind. The tags that could help with layout were never meant to be used with HTML elements. While not absolutely necessary, a website with only HTML elements would be boring to view without using cascading style sheets (CSS). In this sense, the CSS format consists of multiple parts:

Selector

Selectors identify the HTML elements on web pages that should be formatted differently. Using a specific string of phrases and other components known as CSS selectors, one can specify which HTML elements should have the rule’s CSS property values applied to them.

Properties

Specific selectors’ styles are CSS attributes. Just like other attributes like the color scheme, font size, position, etc., it affects the overall appearance of the element. They come first in the CSS ruleset, followed by a colon and the actual property values. Numerous attributes exist for use with a wide range of selectors and components in HTML.

Some characteristics are generic and can be used with any selector. Some others function solely on particular criteria or in specific circumstances. Grid-template-columns are one example of how the layout of a page can be customized. Primarily, it works with divs whose display properties are set to “grid”.  Selectors in HTML also have a wide variety of parameters and their respective values.

Values

The characteristics are defined by the values that are assigned to them. Text values are frequently used in CSS. They are often written without quotation marks, unlike strings. CSS values can be anything from plain text to URLs, units of measurement, numerals, and more. Integer values, including negative ones, can be defined for certain CSS attributes.

Standard CSS units include px, em, fr, and percentages, however, one can express values in any of the property-specific units supported by CSS. You can use CSS to construct shorthand by assigning many values to a single value. Background pictures and other properties that take a URL as their value are case-sensitive.

What is CSS and How Does it Work?

After the HTML has loaded and been parsed, there are two further steps before the content may be combined with the style provided by CSS. The browser modifies them into a DOMA format first (DOM). As soon as the Document Object Model (DOM), a memory representation of the page, combines the content and style of the document, the browser will show the content.

After the HTML document is parsed, the code is deposited in a Document Object Model (DOM). It gives a full rundown of the family’s webpage, including the many members of the family. The CSS files are separated from the header links when parsing. The next step, after the CSS files have been separated, is to load them. After the CSS files have been loaded, the parsing process begins; however, it differs slightly from the parsing of HTML files.

CSS files require a little more involved processing method consisting of two stages. Cascaded resolution of CSS declaration conflicts is the first step. The process involves combining many CSS files and fixing issues such as rule and declaration duplication for the same element. The second phase is the actual processing of the CSS values.

Is CSS Certification Valuable?

Certifications are crucial for establishing credibility and demonstrating competence in today’s more competitive market. The two most common methods for creating websites are Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML); W3School is widely recognized as providing the best online CSS certification available. Alternative certification options exist, such as Coursera’s. Using HTML and CSS, you’ll be tested on both your theoretical knowledge and your practical abilities in this online certification exam.

Important CSS Key Features

In HTML, the appearance and behavior of elements are controlled by CSS properties. The following are some examples: font style; transform; border; color; margin; and In CSS, a property declaration is made up of two parts: the property name and the value. The value for a given property is given after its name, separated by a colon. If more than one CSS property is being set, each name-value pair must be separated by a semicolon.

In spite of the fact that a semicolon should not be included in the last property declaration, doing so facilitates the addition of additional CSS properties without requiring the manual addition of an unnecessary semicolon. Multiple CSS characteristics, such as color, font size, and background, can be set for individual HTML elements.

Display

Elements’ display properties determine the container style used for rendering them. The display supports a wide range of values, but only four are routinely used. The CSS specification details the first presentation for each element.

Color

The element’s text color is set by the color argument. The default text color of the page can be set with the color attribute of the body selector. Hexadecimal values, RGB values, and named colors are the most common ways to specify a color.

Syntax

Paragraphs, headings, etc., are only some of the page elements that can be styled with a CSS stylesheet. The two main parts of a CSS rule are the selector and the declaration(s).

Background

The background of a website has a major impact on how it appears to the user. The background of an element can be modified in a number of ways using the many attributes provided by CSS. Background options include color, picture, repetition, attachment, and placement.

Fonts

For text to be clearly readable, the appropriate font and style must be used. In CSS, you may style text fonts in a number of ways, such as by altering the font face, tweaking the size and boldness of the font, managing variants, and so on. The many font qualities include family, style, weight, size, and variant.

Text

Color, position, space, embellishment, transformation, etc. are just some of the many text-related attributes that may be easily and effectively specified with CSS. Common text characteristics include align, decorating, transforming, indenting, line height, letter spacing, and word spacing.

Dimension

CSS has numerous dimension attributes, including width, height, max-width, min-width, max-height, and min-height, that allows developers to control the width and height of an element. Both the width and the height properties are heavily utilized by the screen. The dimensions shown do not include the surrounding white space.

Margin

The border spacing of a box element can be modified via the CSS margin properties. No matter the background color, element margins are always transparent. The background colors of parent elements can be seen by inspecting their margins.

Lists

The most common types of lists can be styled and formatted using the various characteristics offered by CSS. To some extent, these list properties allow users to shape or alter how a marker appears. The distance between a marker and the list’s text is one of the many customizable features.

Links

Connectivity, often known as hyperlinks, is essential to the success of any website. It enables visitors to navigate the site. A user-friendly website relies heavily on a well-thought-out link design. Links can be in one of four states: link, visited, active, or hover.

Writer: Dania Errissya