doc/dev/refactoring-the-css-with-uiprops.rst
author Denis Laxalde <denis.laxalde@logilab.fr>
Mon, 20 Mar 2017 10:25:04 +0100
changeset 12071 fb0b74fecc4d
parent 10492 68c13e0c0fc5
permissions -rw-r--r--
[test] Add user-site to PYTHONPATH before installation of new cube in test_newcube_install Otherwise, setuptools complains that the target installation directory (i.e. "user site" is not in PYTHONPATH). This is probably because we use a fake HOME with --user install option. Failure shows up when running tests through tox without system site packages (see next patch).

=========================================
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.