Flavors vs.Themes for CSS Libraries

    Colors aside there's a lot more happening in css themes that one needs to develop or maintain. So I've asked myself countless times if I should just create my own Css library but time was always against me. I think having bootstrap as a base line is a good starting point. Not only for my sake but non front-end developers. As a front-end developer organization with my teams is critical. Every application sooner or later ends up with too many developers doing their “own thing” especially with the styles if there is not standard or company brand. Don't get me wrong the freedom can sometimes be great for a creative projects. However when looking to creating a brand, my applications need to force some rules. I'm not looking to challenge other developers on their approach to new things or change the way they develop. If I can include them in my work flow and at the same time organize them then I will.
    So what I'm leading up to is this idea flavors instead of themes. For awhile I've been working on my npm packages called flavorstrap. Currently it only works locally, so you'll have to look at the package it's self to see how it works. Or if you want to do without it you can look at my bootstrap-sidenav-component also on github. Flavorstrap is really just a bundle of packages and follows a work-flow I've created to help my team without changing the way they develop! It's awesome I can now let anyone develop however they choose just make sure they use separate files (per developer). Later I go in and change it to sass if it's not already. Then I just merge and cleanup the css for production but what's the difference from a theme!?
To do this I create a couple of rules for myself in order to make things easier for myself. The first rule is that I'm are not going to work against the base css library; interface and leverage it. This is different from a css theme, which is just another css that seats on top the base css library. A flavor is the opposite, it allows you to integrate rather than seat on top the css library. This doesn't just work with bootstrap it could work with any css library if created, plus your dependencies with a given css library would be clearer. Meaning that if a class became deprecated, the sass compiler would simply fail. Giving you an idea where to make changes with your flavor of the css library.

Popular posts from this blog

UI-Bootstrap Collapsible Sticky Footer

    I could have done this a lot of ways and ultimately I made it work with javascript modifying the class names. I also had to create multiple class names which I didn't like to much, I might come back and improve this but for now this is was I got. Also I call bootstrap+angularjs = ui-bootstrap, not sure if that's common sense but thought I should include it somewhere in my notes. Working Example: http://plnkr.co/edit/2N9ENlbw3bSvg1W9n0ch?p=preview This little css was key to prevent any kind of animation on the collapse, which would result in a scrollbar appearing on the body. A scrollbar can appear when the content's too long but not on the sticky foot duh! .no-animate { transition-duration: 0.0125s; } Research Angular-UI Bootstrap Collapse without animation - Stack Overflow http://jsfiddle.net/paulalexandru/Z2Lu5/  - Was looking at this to see if I could reuse it but I ended but just doing my own thing. Another way which I've seen Using a sticky
Read more

Installing Windows on Acer chromebook 15 cb3-532

Much of my notes are just small problems I faced (what's new!) haha. Either way this was a really fun project to do for a friend and I got excited once I research all the information. You can find instruction videos but what helped me the most was the coolstar website. Sadly they don't have parameters in the url so I can link the machine I used in this article. -  https://coolstar.org/chromebook/windows-install.html Scared of messing with the bios? Don't be!    So you need to first remove the screw to put a legacy bios on the machine. Its easy to backup the chrome os one and with the same steps to change it. You can go back in and revert to the chrome version bios. Its that last part that had me worried and its very easy to do.  Problems getting into Developer Mode?   Follow the instructions to the letter, during the step to disable the OS verification, press Ctrl-D to boot into os. If you hear two beeps I would go back to set one. I got in a loop where it s
Read more

Aspetcore: NLog with Postgresql

This Article is base ASP.Net Core 2 and the latest version of Nlog. 1. Install NLog and the Postgresql Package Using NuGet to install the package into your ASP.NET Core project: PM > Install-Package NLog.Web.AspNetCore PM > Install-Package Npgsql 3. Register NLog Add in your Startup.cs  public void Configure ( IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory ) { ... env.ConfigureNLog( "nlog.config" ); ... // make sure Chinese chars don't fk up Encoding.RegisterProvider(CodePagesEncodingProvider.Instance); //add NLog to ASP.NET Core loggerFactory.AddNLog(); //add NLog.Web app.AddNLogWeb(); } 4. Add to Your Controller Add a logger object to your Controller. private readonly ILogger<YourController> _logger; Modify the constructor to use it public YourController ( ILogger<YourController> logger = null ) { if ( null != logger) { _logger = logger;
Read more