doc/refactoring-the-css-with-uiprops.rst
author Pierre-Yves David <pierre-yves.david@logilab.fr>
Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:06:57 +0200
changeset 9052 4cba5f2cd57b
parent 5492 da983679fab5
child 10121 23af005426bf
permissions -rw-r--r--
[repoapi] introduce a basic ClientConnection class This is the new official way to access the repo from client side. It still access Session object directly as the server side connection is not up yet (and it's not up because it would have no user). Multiple follow up commit will install compatibility with the DBAPI. This will ease the migration from dbapi to repoapi. ClientConnection has no user yet but later commit will use it in the whole Web stack. related to #2503918

=========================================
Refactoring the CSSs with UI properties
=========================================

Overview
=========

Managing styles progressively became difficult in CubicWeb. The
introduction of uiprops is an attempt to fix this problem.

The goal is to make it possible to use variables in our CSSs.

These variables are defined or computed in the uiprops.py python file
and inserted in the CSS using the Python string interpolation syntax.

A quick example, put in ``uiprops.py``::

  defaultBgColor = '#eee'

and in your css::

  body { background-color: %(defaultBgColor)s; }


The good practices are:

- define a variable in uiprops to avoid repetitions in the CSS
  (colors, borders, fonts, etc.)

- define a variable in uiprops when you need to compute values
  (compute a color palette, etc.)

The algorithm implemented in CubicWeb is the following:

- read uiprops file while walk up the chain of cube dependencies: if
  cube myblog depends on cube comment, the variables defined in myblog
  will have precedence over the ones in comment

- replace the %(varname)s in all the CSSs of all the cubes

Keep in mind that the browser will then interpret the CSSs and apply
the standard cascading mechanism.

FAQ
====

- How do I keep the old style?

  Put ``STYLESHEET = [data('cubicweb.old.css')]`` in your uiprops.py
  file and think about something else.

- What are the changes in cubicweb.css?

  Version 3.9.0 of cubicweb changed the following in the default html
  markup and css:

  ===============  ==================================
   old              new
  ===============  ==================================
   .navcol          #navColumnLeft, #navColumnRight
   #contentcol      #contentColumn
   .footer          #footer
   .logo	    #logo
   .simpleMessage   .loginMessage
   .appMsg	    (styles are removed from css)
   .searchMessage   (styles are removed from css)
  ===============  ==================================

  Introduction of the new cubicweb.reset.css based on Eric Meyer's
  reset css.

  Lots of margin, padding, etc.