Re: Proposal to use SASS for writing our CSS

Hi John,

> In my previous mail, I highlight how it's necessary to create per-page
> CSS by enclosing the page in a DIV with a globally unique 'id'
> attribute and scoping any CSS declarations within that.
>

Use the Body tag. Don't need another div for this. (Ok, that is, unless
this is an Ajax response...)

Yea. We can't use the body tag anymore, because we're using the full-page response, rip out everything *between* the <body> and </body> tags and use that as the Ajax response. So, I guess you're right: It's an ajax response.

[ snip more ]

... we organize all the mixins into their own files. In Drupal's Omega4
theme, it provides an organization of Sass into partials, each of which
gets loaded in order, so later partials can rely on earlier-defined
mixins, variables, etc. Main Sass file looks like this:

@import "compass";
@import "breakpoint";
@import "singularitygs";
@import "toolkit";

@import "variables/**/*";
@import "abstractions/**/*";
@import "base/**/*";
@import "components/**/*";

... So first it includes a lot of really useful mixins/Sass functions,
and then it loads our partials, in a specific sequence.

Variables contain all the stuff we might consider the "theme" : colors,
fonts, font sizes, etc.

[ snip ]

I like this setup. It's a nice clean separation of libraries/abstractions out of the regular CSS (both global and page-specific).

> Unless there are objections, I'm going to create a new directory, next
> to the css directory, called 'scss' in which we'll store SASS files.
> Next to that, I'll make sure to write documentation on how to compile
> sass files into css files. There are even tools to compile sass files
> to css files immediately when they are being saved ('compass watch'
> from http://compass-style.org/help/documentation/command-line/).
>

Ah, that's where things get fun. We've had tons of issues with
version/dependency hell with Sass libraries and Compass.

It sounds like you were using Compass for more than just it's 'watch' command for real-time compilation? I'm aware that compass has much more to offer than just real-time compilation. I value your feedback - which I interpret as "go there when you know what you're doing" - but wasn't suggesting we should start using Compass as a CSS library; more as a CSS compiler/developer tool. I'm not aware in what extent Compass and Dojo's Claro theme conflict, so without experimenting, I don't know anything about the validity of such a step.

My best recommendation is to use RVM to manage ruby environments, and
Bundler to install the necessary gems into the environment. Otherwise we
get on a conveyor belt of a constantly moving Ruby Gem version target,
and far too much upkeep...

Well, since we have more than enough to do as it is - and taking into account that I'm happy with the Claro theme - I'm now reading "don't go there" into your words here. So, for now, let's not go there.

Bye,

Erik.

http://efficito.com -- Hosted accounting and ERP.

Robust and Flexible. No vendor lock-in.