Complete Guide to CSS—Outline

The following is our complete guide to CSS outline, for all our resources on CSS.

---

Introduction to CSS

1. What is CSS?

• Definition and purpose.
• Evolution of CSS over the years.

2. Importance of CSS

• Enhancing user experience.
• Separation of content and presentation.
• Making websites responsive.

3. Relationship between HTML and CSS

• How they work together.
• Importance of clean HTML structure for effective CSS styling.

4. Quick Peek into How CSS Works

• Basics of the cascade and specificity.
• Inline vs. internal vs. external styling.

5. Overview of Main CSS Components

• Briefly touch upon selectors, properties, values.
• Mention of different CSS functionalities like layout, positioning, text styling, etc.

---

How CSS Works

1. The Cascade

• Understanding specificity and inheritance.
• Importance of source order.

2. The Box Model

• Margins, borders, padding, and content.
• The difference between box-sizing: content-box and box-sizing: border-box.

3. CSS Selectors

• How they target elements.
• Categories of selectors.

4. Applying CSS Styles

• Inline styling.
• Internal (embedded) styling.
• External CSS files.

5. Rulesets and Declarations

• Structure of a CSS rule.
• Importance of property-value pairs.

---

CSS Selectors

1. Basic Selectors

• Universal selector.
• Type selectors.
• Class selectors.
• ID selectors.

2. Combinator Selectors

• Descendant selectors.
• Child selectors.
• General sibling selectors.
• Adjacent sibling selectors.

3. Pseudo-class Selectors

• :hover, :active, :focus, etc.
• Structural pseudo-classes like :nth-child() and :first-child.

4. Pseudo-element Selectors

• ::before, ::after.
• ::first-line, ::first-letter.

5. Attribute Selectors

• Basic attribute matching.
• Substring matching: ^=, $=, *=.

---

Layout and Positioning

1. Display Property

• block, inline, inline-block, none.
• flex and grid.

2. Positioning

• Static, relative, absolute, fixed, and sticky.
• Use cases and best practices.

3. Floats and Clears

• Floating elements.
• Clearing floats.

4. Flexbox Layout

• Container and item properties.
• Alignment, ordering, and wrapping.

5. CSS Grid Layout

• Defining grid templates.
• Placing grid items.

6. Multi-column Layouts

• Creating columns with column-count and column-gap.
• Controlling column flow.

---

Styling Text

1. Font Properties

• font-family, font-size, font-weight, font-style.
• Using web fonts with @font-face.

2. Text Alignment and Decoration

• text-align, text-decoration, text-transform.
• Line height, letter spacing, and word spacing.

3. Styling Lists

• List style types, images, and positions.

4. Responsive Typography

• Using rem and em units.
• Viewport relative units.

---

Colors and Backgrounds

1. Color Definitions

• RGB, RGBA, HEX, HSL, HSLA.

2. Background Properties

• background-color, background-image, background-repeat.
• background-position, background-size.

3. Gradients

• Linear and radial gradients.
• Creating complex gradient patterns.

4. Handling Opacity

• opacity property.
• RGBA and HSLA for color transparency.

5. CSS Variables with Colors

• Defining and using CSS custom properties.

---

Responsive Design and Media Queries

1. Understanding Responsive Design

• Fluid grids, flexible images, media queries.

2. The Viewport

• Setting the viewport with the meta tag.

3. Media Queries

• Using different conditions for styling.
• Common breakpoints.

4. Responsive Images

• srcset and sizes attributes.
• The picture element.

---

Transitions and Animations

1. CSS Transitions

• Defining transition properties.
• Timing functions.

2. Keyframe Animations

• Creating animations with @keyframes.
• Animation properties.

3. Transformations

• 2D and 3D transformations.
• Rotate, scale, translate, skew.

---

Advanced Techniques

1. Filters and Blend Modes

• Blur, brightness, contrast, grayscale.
• Blend modes like multiply, screen, overlay.

2. Clipping and Masking

• Using clip-path.
• CSS masks.

3. CSS Shapes

• Defining shapes around content.

4. 3D Transforms

• Perspective, rotate3d, backface-visibility.

---

Preprocessors and Post-processors

1. Introduction to Preprocessors

• Sass, Less, Stylus.

2. Features of Preprocessors

• Variables, mixins, nesting.

3. Introduction to Postprocessors

• Autoprefixer, PostCSS.

4. Setting up a Workflow

• Integration with build tools.

---

Frameworks and Libraries

1. Overview of Popular Frameworks

• Bootstrap, Tailwind CSS, Foundation.

2. Advantages and Disadvantages

• When to use and when not to use frameworks.

3. Customizing Frameworks

• Theming and overriding styles.

---

Best Practices and Optimization

1. Writing Maintainable CSS

• Methodologies like BEM, SMACSS, OOCSS.

2. Performance Optimizations

• Minification, purging unused CSS.

3. Critical CSS

• Loading above-the-fold content faster.

4. CSS Testing and Debugging

• Browser developer tools.
• Cross-browser testing.

---