What is CSS? And How It Works!

Create a Pro Website

30 Apr 202003:47

Summary

TLDRIn this video, Dale from 'Create a Pro Website' explains what CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is and how it works. He covers how CSS is used to style websites, altering things like fonts, colors, and layouts. Dale demonstrates how CSS contributes to a website's appearance by disabling it on his own site to show the difference. He also explains key CSS concepts, including cascading (how styles are applied across elements), properties and values, and the importance of selectors (classes and IDs) for targeting specific elements. The video is beginner-friendly and designed to help viewers build professional websites with ease.

Takeaways

😀 CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is essential for defining the appearance and style of a website.
📑 A modern website is built with three key components: HTML for structure, JavaScript for behavior, and CSS for appearance.
🎨 CSS controls visual elements such as colors, fonts, positioning, and even animations.
📉 The 'Cascading' part of CSS means that you can apply styles to multiple elements, and changes will cascade across the website, affecting all elements with the same class or identifier.
🔤 CSS allows you to assign various properties (like font size, color, weight) to elements, creating a consistent style across your site.
📄 A 'stylesheet' is essentially a file that contains all the custom CSS rules, which can be applied to multiple web pages.
🔍 Selectors in CSS are used to identify which elements to style, and these can be classes or IDs.
👥 A class in CSS is used to apply styles to multiple elements and is indicated by a dot (.), allowing you to group elements together for consistent styling.
🎯 An ID is used to style a specific, unique element on the webpage and is indicated by a hash (#).
💻 CSS significantly impacts the aesthetics and user experience of a website by making it visually appealing and cohesive.

Q & A

What are the three main components that make up a modern-day website?
-The three main components that make up a modern-day website are HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.
What role does HTML play in a website?
-HTML defines the structure of a website, determining the layout and how content is organized.
How does CSS contribute to the appearance of a website?
-CSS defines the overall appearance and style of a website, controlling elements like colors, fonts, positioning, and even animations.
What does the term 'CSS' stand for?
-CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets.
What is meant by 'cascading' in Cascading Style Sheets?
-'Cascading' means that you can write CSS code to apply styles to multiple elements across a website at once, and the styles are applied in a hierarchy, allowing you to override or cascade them as needed.
How do you use CSS to change multiple elements on a website at once?
-By assigning the same class to multiple elements, you can apply CSS styles (like font or color) to all of them at once.
What is the difference between a CSS 'class' and an 'ID'?
-A 'class' can be applied to multiple elements to style them all at once, while an 'ID' is unique to one element and is used to apply styles to just that specific element.
How are CSS classes and IDs indicated in code?
-Classes are indicated with a dot (.) and IDs are indicated with a hash (#) in CSS code.
What are CSS properties and values?
-CSS properties define what aspect of an element you want to change (e.g., color, font size), and values specify what you want the property to be (e.g., red, 16px).
What is a 'style sheet' in the context of CSS?
-A style sheet is a file that contains a collection of CSS rules that can be applied across multiple web pages to maintain a consistent style.

Outlines

00:00

💻 Introduction to CSS

The speaker, Dale from Create a Pro Website, introduces CSS and explains its role in website development. He highlights that CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets, is crucial for determining the appearance and style of websites, including colors, fonts, and element positioning. The video aims to break down CSS with visual examples to make it easier to understand.

🛠️ The Three Building Blocks of a Website

Dale explains the three essential files that form the backbone of any modern website: HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. HTML defines the structure, JavaScript manages the behavior, and CSS controls the appearance. Each of these elements plays a unique role in creating a functional and aesthetically pleasing website.

🎨 The Power of CSS in Visuals

To demonstrate the importance of CSS, Dale disables the CSS on his website using a Chrome extension and shows how the site looks without it. The result is an unattractive, unorganized page, highlighting how CSS significantly enhances the visual appeal of a website by managing key style elements.

📜 Understanding Cascading in CSS

Dale explains the meaning of the term 'cascading' in CSS, using an example where multiple sections of a website can be styled consistently by applying a single CSS rule. This cascading effect allows developers to assign attributes like fonts, colors, and sizes to multiple elements across a website, making style management efficient.

⚙️ Styling Various Elements with CSS

The speaker emphasizes that CSS is not just for text but can style any visual component of a website, including backgrounds, boxes, headers, footers, and images. He reinforces the idea that CSS is versatile and can be used to control every visual aspect of a site, down to the smallest detail.

📋 The Role of Style Sheets in CSS

Dale delves into the concept of 'style sheets' in CSS. Style sheets allow developers to save and apply a set of CSS rules across multiple web pages. This ensures a consistent look and feel throughout a website, regardless of the varying content and layouts of individual pages.

🏷️ CSS Selectors: Class vs. ID

The video explains the difference between two important CSS selectors: classes and IDs. Classes can be used to style multiple elements at once, indicated by a dot (.), while IDs are unique to a single element, marked by a hash (#). This distinction allows for flexible styling, either for broad changes or specific alterations to individual elements.

👍 Wrapping Up: The Value of CSS

Dale concludes the video by summarizing what CSS is and how it works. He encourages viewers to like the video if they found it helpful and to subscribe to his channel for more tutorials on building professional websites from home, even without coding experience.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡CSS

CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets, is the language that defines the appearance and style of a website. It controls how elements such as text, colors, and layout are displayed. The video explains that CSS is essential for transforming a basic HTML structure into a visually appealing website.

💡HTML

HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is the foundation of any website, defining its structure. The video states that while HTML sets up the layout and structure of web pages, it works in tandem with CSS, which enhances the visual presentation of the content.

💡JavaScript

JavaScript is described as the programming language responsible for the behavior and interactivity of a website. In the video, it is differentiated from HTML (structure) and CSS (style) as it controls dynamic features like animations, pop-ups, and form validations.

💡Cascading

Cascading refers to the hierarchy in which CSS rules are applied to HTML elements. The video explains that styles 'cascade' from top to bottom, meaning that specific rules can override general ones. This allows for consistency and the ability to easily modify styles across multiple sections of a website.

💡Style

The term 'style' refers to the aesthetic aspects of a website, such as fonts, colors, and layout. In the context of CSS, styling dictates how elements like text and images are presented. The video highlights that CSS is essential for creating a polished, professional-looking site by adjusting these visual elements.

💡Sheets

'Sheets' refers to the files in which CSS rules are stored. A single style sheet can apply styles across multiple web pages, ensuring a cohesive appearance throughout a site. The video emphasizes how CSS allows for maintaining consistent visual design across different parts of a website.

💡Selectors

Selectors are used in CSS to target specific HTML elements to apply styles. The video explains that selectors like classes and IDs help define which elements are styled. For example, you can assign a class to multiple elements or use an ID to uniquely style one element.

💡Class

In CSS, a class is a selector that allows you to apply styles to multiple elements. The video demonstrates how a class, represented by a dot (.), can be used to style several elements on a page, like making all headings a certain font. This enables easy and consistent styling across multiple sections.

💡ID

An ID is another CSS selector, but it is unique to a single element. In the video, the ID is explained as a way to style one specific part of a website, such as a unique section or button, and is represented by a hashtag (#). This ensures that only that one element is affected by the applied style.

💡Property and Value

In CSS, properties define what aspect of the element is being styled (e.g., font size or color), and values specify the setting (e.g., 16px or blue). The video gives an example where a property like 'font-family' can be set to a value such as 'Open Sans,' affecting how all assigned elements are displayed.

Highlights

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and defines the overall appearance and style of a website.

CSS determines elements like colors, fonts, and positioning of visual elements on a website.

HTML defines the structure of a website, JavaScript defines its behavior, and CSS defines its style.

CSS can affect any visual element on your website, including text, backgrounds, headers, footers, and images.

CSS is responsible for animations and styling across various elements to improve website aesthetics.

The term 'cascading' in CSS refers to how styles are applied across multiple elements at once using properties and values.

You can apply CSS to multiple elements by assigning them a common class, allowing for consistent styling across a site.

A CSS property can define values like font size, color, or font weight to alter the look and feel of elements.

A style sheet is a file containing CSS settings that can be applied to different pages for a cohesive style.

Selectors are used to target specific elements for styling: class selectors apply to multiple elements, while ID selectors are unique to one element.

Class selectors are indicated with a dot (.) and are used to style multiple elements at once.

ID selectors are indicated with a hash (#) and are used to style one unique element specifically.

CSS allows for flexibility in design and layout changes without altering the website's content.

By disabling CSS in a website, the page will lose its style, demonstrating the significant role CSS plays in aesthetics.

CSS provides a way to separate content (HTML) from design (CSS), making it easier to maintain and update a website.