I'm working on a little html/css framework that I can use for most of my websites, at least to have a basis to build on. Here's what I've been using so far:
CSS framework
- Reset.css - I use the one by Eric Meyer, www.meyerweb.com.
- Typography.css - All main typography styles for the site (from blueprintcss.org)
- Forms.css - basic form styles (from blueprintcss.org)
- Wireframe.css - Here I set up the wireframe for one, two and three columns plus a header and footer. I used the Holy Grail technique, and implemented it so that by setting a class of 'onecolumn', 'twocolumns' or 'threecolumns' to the container div I can switch between the three.
Basic techniques
Some techniques I have some pre-fab examples of for me to re-use in any website:
- Suckerfish dropdown menus - Horizontal and vertical in various versions
- Sliding Doors tabs - although I try to use CSS3 where possible
Scripting
- jQuery - I try to use it as little as possible (that is, if there's css solutions at hand, like the Suckerfish dropdown menu vs. jQ menus)
Plugins
None, yet. I looked into css3pie yesterday and it looked real promising.
Yet to look into
What I haven't used so far but might be interesting is css and js minifiers. Also, currently I include the 5 css files mentioned above in the main.css with @import, maybe I should have them merge automatically before I upload?
Also there's CSS grid systems of course. I never got the hang of those, but maybe I should give it another try. I know the 960 grid is very popular, but I'm not sure if I want to use classes purely for markup (grid_4, column_5, etc.) To me it's a bit like <span class="red"> to make a text red, that's just as bad as using inline style.
Anyway, this is just a basic setup and there's plenty of problems in websites that are not yet incorporated in this framework. So, what should I really check out to improve my framework? (HTML5 and CSS3 welcome, no flash please :P)
Suggestions
I'll make a list here of suggestions made below that I'll check out.