CSS with Web Application

Question

What is the best way to allow web designers separate access to css files in a web application so it doesn't need to be recompiled everytime a change is made to just those files and they can overwrite their changes easily?

Answer 1

I suggest looking into Backbone and Twitter Bootstrap for good inspirations for how to manage CSS, JS and HTML content in general including general, logical separation.

http://coenraets.org/blog/2012/02/sample-app-with-backbone-js-and-twitter-bootstrap/

Compilation does not apply, unless you are referring to something server side, but I think I get what you mean.

Answer 2

Very simple.. Always keep the CSS files in a separate folder. Never use inline style sheets. Use only External CSS files.

http://blog.totusinfo.com/

Answer 3

The conventional method is to create a seperate folder for css files, so that designers will get their hands on what they are supposed to. But the change in the css files will not reflect quickly because of the caching problem. In development stage you can counter this problem by giving some random parameters with style sheet import in your html file. For example

<link href="css/styles.css?t=somecode" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

That somecode must be replaced with a random number generated by the server side language you are using, like <%Math.random()%> for java and <?php echo(rand(1,7));?> for php. This ensures the css file used is not from cache. But this is not a good practice and be sure to remove the parameters before deploying to the production environment.