CSS Flashcards
What is CSS selector specificity and how does it work?
The browser determines what styles to show on an element depending on the specificity of CSS rules. We assume that the browser has already determined the rules that match a particular element. Among the matching rules, the specificity, four comma-separate values, a, b, c, d are calculated for each rule based on the following:
a, is whether inline styles are being used. If the property declaration is an inline style on the element, a is 1, else 0.
b, is the number of ID selectors.
c, is the number of classes, attributes and pseudo-classes selectors.
d, is the number of tags and pseudo-elements selectors.
The resulting specificity is not a score, but a matrix of values that can be compared column by column. When comparing selectors to determine which has the highest specificity, look from left to right, and compare the highest value in each column. So a value in column b will override values in columns c and d, no matter what they might be. As such, specificity of 0,1,0,0 would be greater than one of 0,0,10,10.
What’s the difference between “resetting” and “normalizing” CSS? Which would you choose, and why?
Resetting - Resetting is meant to strip all default browser styling on elements. For e.g. margins, paddings, font-sizes of all elements are reset to be the same. You will have to redeclare styling for common typographic elements.
Normalizing - Normalizing preserves useful default styles rather than “unstyling” everything. It also corrects bugs for common browser dependencies.
I would choose resetting when I have a very customized or unconventional site design such that I need to do a lot of my own styling and do not need any default styling to be preserved.
Describe floats and how they work.
Float is a CSS positioning property. Floated elements remain a part of the flow of the page, and will affect the positioning of other elements (e.g. text will flow around floated elements), unlike position: absolute elements, which are removed from the flow of the page.
Describe z-index and how stacking context is formed.
The z-index property in CSS controls the vertical stacking order of elements that overlap. z-index only affects elements that have a position value which is not static.
Without any z-index value, elements stack in the order that they appear in the DOM (the lowest one down at the same hierarchy level appears on top). Elements with non-static positioning (and their children) will always appear on top of elements with default static positioning, regardless of HTML hierarchy.
A stacking context is an element that contains a set of layers. Within a local stacking context, the z-index values of its children are set relative to that element rather than to the document root. Layers outside of that context — i.e. sibling elements of a local stacking context — can’t sit between layers within it. If an element B sits on top of element A, a child element of element A, element C, can never be higher than element B even if element C has a higher z-index than element B.
Each stacking context is self-contained - after the element’s contents are stacked, the whole element is considered in the stacking order of the parent stacking context. A handful of CSS properties trigger a new stacking context, such as opacity less than 1, filter that is not none, and transform that is notnone.
Describe Block Formatting Context (BFC) and how it works.
A Block Formatting Context (BFC) is part of the visual CSS rendering of a web page in which block boxes are laid out. Floats, absolutely positioned elements, inline-blocks, table-cells, table-captions, and elements with overflow other than visible (except when that value has been propagated to the viewport) establish new block formatting contexts.
Knowing how to establish a block formatting context is important, because without doing so, the containing box will not contain floated children. This is similar to collapsing margins, but more insidious as you will find entire boxes collapsing in odd ways.
A BFC is an HTML box that satisfies at least one of the following conditions:
The value of float is not none. The value of position is neither static nor relative. The value of display is table-cell, table-caption, inline-block, flex, or inline-flex, grid, or inline-grid. The value of overflow is not visible.
In a BFC, each box’s left outer edge touches the left edge of the containing block (for right-to-left formatting, right edges touch).
Vertical margins between adjacent block-level boxes in a BFC collapse.
What are the various clearing techniques and which is appropriate for what context?
Empty div method - <div style="clear:both;"></div>.
Clearfix method - Refer to the .clearfix class above.
overflow: auto or overflow: hidden method - Parent will establish a new block formatting context and expand to contains its floated children.
In large projects, I would write a utility .clearfix class and use them in places where I need it. overflow: hidden might clip children if the children is taller than the parent and is not very ideal.
Explain CSS sprites, and how you would implement them on a page or site.
CSS sprites combine multiple images into one single larger image. It is a commonly-used technique for icons (Gmail uses it). How to implement it:
Use a sprite generator that packs multiple images into one and generate the appropriate CSS for it.
Each image would have a corresponding CSS class with background-image, background-position and background-size properties defined.
To use that image, add the corresponding class to your element.
How would you approach fixing browser-specific styling issues?
After identifying the issue and the offending browser, use a separate style sheet that only loads when that specific browser is being used. This technique requires server-side rendering though.
Use libraries like Bootstrap that already handles these styling issues for you.
Use autoprefixer to automatically add vendor prefixes to your code.
Use Reset CSS or Normalize.css.
If you’re using Postcss (or a similar transpiling library), there may be plugins which allow you to opt in for using modern CSS syntax (and even W3C proposals) that will transform those sections of your code into corresponding safe code that will work in the targets you’ve used.
How do you serve your pages for feature-constrained browsers? What techniques/processes do you use?
Graceful degradation - The practice of building an application for modern browsers while ensuring it remains functional in older browsers.
Progressive enhancement - The practice of building an application for a base level of user experience, but adding functional enhancements when a browser supports it.
Use caniuse.com to check for feature support.
Autoprefixer for automatic vendor prefix insertion like SASS.
Feature detection using Modernizr.
Use CSS Feature queries @support
What are the different ways to visually hide content (and make it available only for screen readers)?
These techniques are related to accessibility (a11y).
width: 0; height: 0. Make the element not take up any space on the screen at all, resulting in not showing it.
position: absolute; left: -99999px. Position it outside of the screen.
text-indent: -9999px. This only works on text within the block elements.
Meta tags. For example by using Schema.org, RDF, and JSON-LD.
WAI-ARIA. A W3C technical specification that specifies how to increase the accessibility of web pages.
Even if WAI-ARIA is the ideal solution, I would go with the absolute positioning approach, as it has the least caveats, works for most elements and it’s an easy technique.
Have you ever used a grid system, and if so, what do you prefer?
Before Flex became popular (around 2014), the float-based grid system was the most reliable because it still has the most browser support among the alternative existing systems (flex, grid). Bootstrap was using the float approach until Bootstrap 4 which switched to the flex-based approach. As of writing (2020), flex is the recommended approach for building grid systems and has decent browser support.
For the adventurous, they can look into CSS Grid Layout, which uses the shiny new grid property; it is even better than flex for building grid layouts and will be the de facto way to do so in the future.
Have you used or implemented media queries or mobile-specific layouts/CSS?
Yes. An example would be changing a horizontal text by image into a image over text at an certain break point.
Are you familiar with styling SVG?
Yes, there are several ways to color shapes (including specifying attributes on the object) using inline CSS, an embedded CSS section, or an external CSS file. Most SVG you’ll find around the web use inline CSS, but there are advantages and disadvantages associated with each type.
Basic coloring can be done by setting two attributes on the node: fill and stroke. fill sets the color inside the object and stroke sets the color of the line drawn around the object. You can use the same CSS color naming schemes that you use in HTML, whether that’s color names (that is red), RGB values (that is rgb(255,0,0)), Hex values, RGBA values, etc.
Can you give an example of an @media property other than screen?
Yes, there are four types of @media properties (including screen):
all - for all media type devices
print - for printers
speech - for screenreaders that “reads” the page out loud
screen - for computer screens, tablets, smart-phones etc.
What are some of the “gotchas” for writing efficient CSS?
Firstly, understand that browsers match selectors from rightmost (key selector) to left. Browsers filter out elements in the DOM according to the key selector and traverse up its parent elements to determine matches. The shorter the length of the selector chain, the faster the browser can determine if that element matches the selector. Hence avoid key selectors that are tag and universal selectors. They match a large number of elements and browsers will have to do more work in determining if the parents do match.
BEM (Block Element Modifier) methodology recommends that everything has a single class, and, where you need hierarchy, that gets baked into the name of the class as well, this naturally makes the selector efficient and easy to override.
Be aware of which CSS properties trigger reflow, repaint, and compositing. Avoid writing styles that change the layout (trigger reflow) where possible.
What are the advantages/disadvantages of using CSS preprocessors?
Advantages:
CSS is made more maintainable.
Easy to write nested selectors.
Variables for consistent theming. Can share theme files across different projects.
Mixins to generate repeated CSS.
Sass features like loops, lists, and maps can make configuration easier and less verbose.
Splitting your code into multiple files. CSS files can be split up too but doing so will require an HTTP request to download each CSS file.
Disadvantages:
Requires tools for preprocessing. Re-compilation time can be slow.
Not writing currently and potentially usable CSS.
For example, by using something like postcss-loader with webpack, you can write potentially future-compatible CSS, allowing you to use things like CSS variables instead of Sass variables. Thus, you’re learning new skills that could pay off if/when they become standardized.
How would you implement a web design comp that uses non-standard fonts?
Use @font-face and define font-family for different font-weights.
Explain how a browser determines what elements match a CSS selector.
This part is related to the above about writing efficient CSS. Browsers match selectors from rightmost (key selector) to left. Browsers filter out elements in the DOM according to the key selector and traverse up its parent elements to determine matches. The shorter the length of the selector chain, the faster the browser can determine if that element matches the selector.
For example with this selector p span, browsers firstly find all the <span> elements and traverse up its parent all the way up to the root to find the <p> element. For a particular <span>, as soon as it finds a <p>, it knows that the <span> matches and can stop its matching.</span></p></span></p></span>
Describe pseudo-elements and discuss what they are used for.
A CSS pseudo-element is a keyword added to a selector that lets you style a specific part of the selected element(s). They can be used for decoration (:first-line, :first-letter) or adding elements to the markup (combined with content: …) without having to modify the markup (:before, :after).
:first-line and :first-letter can be used to decorate text.
Used in the .clearfix hack as shown above to add a zero-space element with clear: both.
Triangular arrows in tooltips use :before and :after. Encourages separation of concerns because the triangle is considered part of styling and not really the DOM.
Explain your understanding of the box model and how you would tell the browser in CSS to render your layout in different box models.
The CSS box model describes the rectangular boxes that are generated for elements in the document tree and laid out according to the visual formatting model. Each box has a content area (e.g. text, an image, etc.) and optional surrounding padding, border, and margin areas.
The CSS box model is responsible for calculating:
How much space a block element takes up.
Whether or not borders and/or margins overlap, or collapse.
A box’s dimensions.
The box model has the following rules:
The dimensions of a block element are calculated by width, height, padding, borders, and margins.
If no height is specified, a block element will be as high as the content it contains, plus padding (unless there are floats, for which see below).
If no width is specified, a non-floated block element will expand to fit the width of its parent minus padding.
The height of an element is calculated by the content’s height.
The width of an element is calculated by the content’s width.
By default, paddings and borders are not part of the width and height of an element.
What does * { box-sizing: border-box; } do? What are its advantages?
By default, elements have box-sizing: content-box applied, and only the content size is being accounted for.
box-sizing: border-box changes how the width and height of elements are being calculated, border and padding are also being included in the calculation.
The height of an element is now calculated by the content’s height + vertical padding + vertical border width.
The width of an element is now calculated by the content’s width + horizontal padding + horizontal border width.
Taking into account paddings and borders as part of our box model resonates better with how designers actually imagine content in grids.
What is the CSS display property and can you give a few examples of its use?
none Does not display an element (the element no longer affects the layout of the document). All child element are also no longer displayed. The document is rendered as if the element did not exist in the document tree
block - The element consumes the whole line in the block direction (which is usually horizontal)
inline - Elements can be laid out beside each other
inline-block - Similar to inline, but allows some block properties like setting width and height
table - Behaves like the element
table-row - Behaves like the element
table-cell - Behaves like the element
list-item - Behaves like a <li> element which allows it to define list-style-type and list-style-position</li>
What’s the difference between inline and inline-block size?
inline-block - Depends on content.
inline - Depends on content.
What’s the difference between inline and inline-block Positioning?
inline-block - Flows along with other content and allows other elements beside it.
inline - Flows along with other content and allows other elements beside it..
