[Define New Theme] 1. Should we adopt Normalize/SUIT base for a new theme

[hanakin]

*Note This is part 1 of a series found here

As the topics suggests this is a discussion form for weather to use Normalize 3.0 and SUIT base reset in the development of a new theme.

I am proposing that we follow the implementation from the SUIT framework for a reset developed by the same author of Normalize

Description from git:

/**
* A thin layer on top of normalize.css that provides a starting point more
* suitable for web applications. Removes the default spacing and border for
* appropriate elements.
*/

Normalize.css
SUIT Base

Obviously we would not be using the future css variable browser spec in the git repo.

Thoughts

[MattF]

Yes, Normalize.css

If it's good enough for Paul Irish and the HTML5BoilerPlate project, it's more than good enough for me!

[hanakin]

yes keep in mind that it means loosing support for IE7 and below and safari below version 6 not a big deal but still worth mentioning

[brunoais]

That boots up 1 question:
Why do we need to normalize the web pages so that it displays the same way in all browsers?
That can be true for a part of the elements in the page but... Does it really makes sense to do that for all the page's elements? Wouldn't the browser know what's best for the user that is viewing the page?

[PayBas]

That boots up 1 question:
Why do we need to normalize the web pages so that it displays the same way in all browsers?
That can be true for a part of the elements in the page but... Does it really makes sense to do that for all the page's elements? Wouldn't the browser know what's best for the user that is viewing the page?

Considering the fact that we still have IE8, IE9 and IE10 to deal with, I think your point is moot.

[hanakin]

That boots up 1 question:
Why do we need to normalize the web pages so that it displays the same way in all browsers?
That can be true for a part of the elements in the page but... Does it really makes sense to do that for all the page's elements? Wouldn't the browser know what's best for the user that is viewing the page?

Why would I want the browser to choose anything in general they are extremely stupid at choosing how to behave. When I design something to work one way I do not want to have to refactor it to work 300 different ways. Add to this the complexity of responsive design and you have a cluster *beep* of a management task on your hands for the codebase you are attempting to maintain, with hacks and tweaks and ugly code.

[keith10456]

Why would I want the browser to choose anything in general they are extremely stupid at choosing how to behave. When I design something to work one way I do not want to have to refactor it to work 300 different ways...

Good point.

[Frug]

Normalize - yes. It saves time and is well tested/familiar to devs.
SUIT - No opinion, never used it, looks like some conventions that I guess could be useful.

That boots up 1 question:
Why do we need to normalize the web pages so that it displays the same way in all browsers?
That can be true for a part of the elements in the page but... Does it really makes sense to do that for all the page's elements? Wouldn't the browser know what's best for the user that is viewing the page?

Not to be rude, but have you done much design? You can't let browsers control what they want, it ends up breaking layouts or looking awful. Once you've wrangled the browsers into doing what you want, you can end up redoing everything that is already done in normalize. The purpose of it is to save time.

[hanakin]

SUIT - No opinion, never used it, looks like some conventions that I guess could be useful.

SUIT is a fraemwork made by Nicholas Gallagher the same author of Normlize. But we to calrify I am not saying use SUIT. just the Base module which sets up so initial global defaults on top of normalize
such as

• a base font size and color on the HTML element
• a base link style
• removes default margins from elements since it makes more sense and is safer to explicitly set all margins for everything that requires them via wrapping elements.
• removes a few annoyances with browsers like default outlines on fieldsets and focused items

[brunoais]

• a base font size and color on the HTML element

For some elements, yes, it makes a lot of sense to do that. But not on all elements... I still wonder if it's just a designer's pickyness or if it is ligit.

• a base link style

I'm ok with that.

• removes default margins from elements since it makes more sense and is safer to explicitly set all margins for everything that requires them via wrapping elements.

That makes sense. Still, it's just a single "*{margin:0;padding:0}", though.

• removes a few annoyances with browsers like default outlines on fieldsets and focused items

I wouldn't do that to all. I'd just make it element-by-element.