Redefining the style

[Greenweaver]

Just a quick post for now so I can get my thoughts out loud until I consider the best way to possibly implement the idea. But the just of it would be to have a full set of css rules that are "phpBB" prefixed, pretty much like we would do with database table prefixes.

As the open source projects are becoming more integrated with one another, one of the key issues that causes a lot of issue between integration is the clash of css selectors, rules and general markup. My idea would be to prefix all of phpBB's markup selectors and rules allowing easier integration with things such as primarily users websites and/or other like minded projects such as ourselves. If this idea became consistent across multiple applications then we could provide easier integration methods.

A quick example would be to take commonly used tags such as:

Code: Select all

<p>
<div id="header">
<div class="panel">

And convert them to be of a phpBB identity:

Code: Select all

<p class="phpbb4">
<div id="phpbb4_header">
<div class="phpbb4_panel">

The idea would be that we never clash at all with any other css.

[ToonArmy]

My site uses a patched style.php to edit all the CSS rules to prefix div#phpbb in front of them, achieving a similar result.

[topdown]

I think a patch to the style.php would be best for the simple fact is that if all of the selectors were prefixed, it would be a mess for style authors to update.

Now on the other hand, my thought was a new Base style with the use of compatible HTML5 and CSS3 in preparation for future markup standards.
If that was the case then using prefixed selectors would be optimum because it's all fresh anyway.

[ameeck]

topdown: phpBB4 will probably use a completely different style and current styles will not be compatible either way.

Chris' solution is quite elegant but has a drawback if you want to integrate some markup into phpBB itself, as the inserted application/script/widget will also be a descendant of div#phpbb. It will also happen in Greenweaver's solution, but less.

[ToonArmy]

Chris' solution is quite elegant [...]

I beg to differ: http://phpbb.cs278.org/patches/css-namespace.diff

[Highway of Life]

I beg to differ: http://phpbb.cs278.org/patches/css-namespace.diff

LOL!

I think he meant the end result or outcome.

[LiquidSpark]

Now on the other hand, my thought was a new Base style with the use of compatible HTML5 and CSS3 in preparation for future markup standards.
If that was the case then using prefixed selectors would be optimum because it's all fresh anyway.

I second the use of W3C validation using HTML 5 and CSS 3. I plan to release a template mod for ProSilver that updates it all to HTML 5, CSS 3 and uses CSS (and PHP if necessary) in place of all the JavaScript. JavaScript just slows things down, although you might argue that putting more effort on the server will still slow things down for everyone. But many of these JavaScript codes can be simplified with creative CSS coding.

(mods, you can delete my new topic on this)