[TYPO3-project-4-3] Fluid CSSEngine folder structure

[Jigal van Hemert]

Hi,

Ernesto Baschny [cron IT] wrote:
> Come one guys, once the basis XHTML/CSS is integrated in TYPO3, it turns
> more and more unproductive to continue developing it "outside" TYPO3:
> there is css_styled_content rendering, there are extensions providing
> crazy XHTML-templates with subparts and markers which you cannot style
> outside the TYPO3 environment, there are TypoScript generated content
> which also needs to be styled...

In most cases you'll end up with only a couple of CSS files: e.g. 
layout.css, general.css, ie6.css, ie7.css, ie8.css How difficult can it 
be to keep them up-to-date?

> What the CSSEngine brings us is a proven way to get more productive once
> the CSS is integrated in TYPO3. For example concatenating all those CSS
> snippets (the main ones from the "agency", from extensions, from
> TypoScript) into one single CSS file: this is something noone would do
> "by hand", because every component can change at any time. Automating
> this task is pretty obvious to me. Speed improvement guaranteed!

I'm not quite sure about speed improvement:
- how does it handle the conditional comments for separate ie#.css 
files? if it doesn't you will still have multiple files.
- how much resources does it take to make different combinations for 
each page? Most pages contain different plugins, so the combined CSS 
will change with almost every page.
- caching. The separate CSS files are cached by the client and only need 
to be downloaded once. The ever changing combined CSS needs to be 
downloaded again and again.

> And the additional features which would provide me a way to have more
> "powerful" css syntax is a bonus I will for sure make use! Aren't you
> annoyed about the lack of operations in CSS (e.g. margin-left:
> @main-width - 300px)? Or some way to define "constants" to be used
> throughout the CSS? The XHTML/CSS crack might live without it, but
> maintaining such a CSS is crazy ass boring and error prone.

Adding stuff like "less" turns CSS into something different. The CSS guy 
(or lady) will have to come up with something else than (s)he is used to.

> So my final conclusion: The concept (after all there is no real code and
> my arguments are just considering a final product which would fit my
> vision) is nice but optional. Just like most other features in TYPO3
> are, they can be switched off (or have to be explicetly switched on).

My conclusion: the concept may have some potentially useful features, 
but it is unclear whether it will bring any performance gain or just 
slows the system down. At this point the uncertainties are such that it 
needs further investigation, but even that should be a low priority matter.

Regards,

-- 
Jigal van Hemert.