clean up messy CSS

[elenac4971182]

Hi, I just downloaded CC 2017. I'm wondering if there is an automated way to clean a messy css, deleting tags that are not used and things like that.

I'm trying to put order in a website that I did non create myself (I inherited it from someone who modified a template bought on internet) with bootstrap jquery etc. There is much more code than it is needed, and I'm looking for a tool like 'Tools > Clean Up HTML' that works for css.

Thank you for your help
Elena

[BenPleysier]

Yes the bog standard site that uses mass production code and features and may look very good, but it works and feels like every other site.

It's called standardisation.

Take the Volkswagen group with Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Škoda, Bugatti, Bentley, Porsche and Lamborghini that all share common (mass produced) components. It has made the Volkswagen group the most successful car manufacturer ever.

This has saved the treasured Bentley brand amongst others. Could it save the web developer from the likes of Wix?

[pziecina]

BenPleysier  wrote

This has saved the treasured Bentley brand amongst others. Could it save the web developer from the likes of Wix?

Each manufacturer caters for a specific market, and even though many components are standardised, each one offers something the other does not. This can go from Skoda offering a mass production vehicle that drives and feels like every other mass production vehicle, to Bentley offering hand built vehicles, built to a much higher quality with added components and a much more luxurious feel and drive.

If Bentley only offered the same vehicle as Skoda, but tried to charge Bentley prices only idiots would pay the extra. Web sites are no different, offereng a mass production model and charging custom prices will never work in the long run.

So my answer to your question Ben, is yes. I do think clients will and do pay more for a web site/app that is better and of a higher quality than something "off-the-shelf".

[osgood_]

pziecina  wrote

If they paid for that extra comfort and quality, and only recieved the standard tourist class of service, they would look elswhere, and that is the difference between a high quality custom site and one that is bog standard. Yes the bog standard site that uses mass production code and features and may look very good, but it works and feels like every other site.

I can't say I've ever personally seen this utopia website you mention, completely manually coded or consisting of a lot of off-the-shelf components. Most look generally the same and work the same to me, including the ones I produce.

It would be nice to code absolutely everything manually of course but for all, apart from the few, its an impossibility. What I find unnacceptable are those that make no attempt at trying to reduce the 'overheads' by blatently using whatever is out there that supposedly gets the job done quicker or because they have no desire to learn anything. I think the lack of desire to learn anything other than pointing and clicking is of more concern to me. If its truely because they need to get the job done as quickly I can live with that but I feel that is too often used as an an excuse for just being plain lazy and we are creating a generation of developers totally inadequate when push come to shove.

These days my Doctype template comes complete with a jQuery and Fontawesome link

I guess it could be worse, I might have a framework css and js link included, plus several other js files.

[pziecina]

osgood_  wrote

I can't say I've ever personally seen this utopia website you mention, completely manually coded or consisting of a lot of off-the-shelf components. Most look generally the same and work the same to me, including the ones I produce.

You will probably never see one, as most of them are not sites that the vast majority will ever visit. I don't know if you remember, but Nancy posted a link to the Bentley sites ad last year that included an almost infinite zoom from the shore to the inside of a Bentley being driven across the golden gate bridge.

The reason much of such content is not available to the average web developer using point and click is simply because the developers of such content do not tell others how to do it, if they did then it is a certainty that all their hard work and innovation would quickly be copied and pasted into the general run of the mill web sites, with no acknowledgement given to the original developers, completely loosing those original developers their exclusivity.

A few days ago there was a so called innovative article for creating css only components on the Sitepoint home page, all of which have been in regular use by those developing none mass produced sites for years.

[osgood_]

pziecina  wrote

osgood_   wrote

I can't say I've ever personally seen this utopia website you mention, completely manually coded or consisting of a lot of off-the-shelf components. Most look generally the same and work the same to me, including the ones I produce.

You will probably never see one, as most of them are not sites that the vast majority will ever visit. I don't know if you remember, but Nancy posted a link to the Bentley sites ad last year that included an almost infinite zoom from the shore to the inside of a Bentley being driven across the golden gate bridge.

The reason much of such content is not available to the average web developer using point and click is simply because the developers of such content do not tell others how to do it, if they did then it is a certainty that all their hard work and innovation would quickly be copied and pasted into the general run of the mill web sites, with no acknowledgement given to the original developers, completely loosing those original developers their exclusivity.

A few days ago there was a so called innovative article for creating css only components on the Sitepoint home page, all of which have been in regular use by those developing none mass produced sites for years.

But thats like 'exclusive' - only a few ever get to experience it until such time as it becomes 'affordable' at which point it becomes 'open-source', is used widely and becomes part and parcel of what is currently happening. If everyone was so selfish we would not be where we are today, thank goodness some like to share their skills.

I'd rather a 1000 or 2000 people see my work than just a handful of exclusive clientel.

Im sure the developer that gave us cycle and cycle2 could have been sitting on a fortune my now had they chosen to wrap up their hard work and sell it as a package but they chose to freely share and it is being used in miilions of websites, personal satisfaction is sometimes greater than financial reward.

[Nancy OShea]

If you're getting paid 50,000 instead of 5,000, what does it matter how many people see it?

Commissioned art works are rarely seen by the public until the owner is ready to display them.

Nancy

[osgood_]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Nancy+OShea  wrote

If you're getting paid 50,000 instead of 5,000, what does it matter how many people see it?

Commissioned art works are rarely seen by the public until the owner is ready to display them.

Nancy

Read the last line of my last post. Money isn't everything to everyone. Infact thats why we live in a dog turd world because this thing called money seems to have warped most of our brains into beleiving there is no other purpose in life but to get rich, pretty sad really.

[pziecina]

osgood_  wrote

Read the last line of my last post. Money isn't everything to everyone. Infact thats why we live in a dog turd world because this thing called money seems to have warped most of our brains into beleiving there is no other purpose in life but to get rich, pretty sad really.

How much work did the developers of those two plug-ins get, just from people knowing that they developed them?

It's o/k to say everything should be open source, but i want paying for my work, (and it is part of my job description to develop those 'new' ways), i am certain you are not giving away your work to your clients, so what is the difference between what i am doing and you charging clients for your work.

[osgood_]

pziecina  wrote

How much work did the developers of those two plug-ins get, just from people knowing that they developed them?

You can find out by doing the same?

pziecina  wrote

It's o/k to say everything should be open source, but i want paying for my work, (and it is part of my job description to develop those 'new' ways)

Well I don't see that you have the right to whinge and then turn around and say I'm keeping everything a secret.........shrug.

pziecina  wrote

am certain you are not giving away your work to your clients, so what is the difference between what i am doing and you charging clients for your work.

I give quite a bit of time and code experience away in this forum rather than just blowing out a bag of hot air a lot of the time. Its the same code I supply to my clients so why not share some of this amazing stuff you produce, that none of us, according to you are currently using or using very badly, for the benefit of others, youre getting paid by your client right, the same as I am?

[pziecina]

Simple, its generally known as exclusivity contract, (also known as NDA).

Anyone who posts a question asking how to do something like flexbox, grid layouts, animations, css only components, i do help if i can, but until Dw includes what i think are essential features for those,  99% of Dw users will never ask.

I do not keep anything secret, it is all out there, all people have to do is read the specs and experiment with them.

[osgood_]

pziecina  wrote

Simple, its generally known as exclusivity contract, (also known as NDA).

Then you can't expect everyone else to be using solutions that are so exclusive they are not readily accessible and are shrouded in secrecy to all but a few. Only a small minorty of websites will fill your requirements just as only a small minority of wines will satisfy a wine connoisseur, the rest of us will be content with a cheap £4 bottle from ASDAs.

[osgood_]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Nancy+OShea  wrote

Commissioned art works are rarely seen by the public until the owner is ready to display them.

I call that indulgence. Probably not a good philosophy to use on the web if you want to stay in business, the rarely seen and ready to display bit.

[pziecina]

I have to disagree, it is not exclusive it is targeted at the market willing to pay for the development. If someone else wishes to learn how to do such items then it requires much research and the creation of trials, followed by proof of concepts, then finessing of those proofs.

As someone who has done all those things, i will also never give anyone anything beyond what i create at the trials phase of development unless i am paid to do so. My argument for doing so, is that if i provide the trials code, anyone who is willing and has the necessary coding skills will be able to take it through the next two stages themselves.

Sorry if that sound egoistic or if anyone thinks it is wrong and i am holding the web back, but i have heard too often that people do not have the time to spend doing those things, and are too busy earning a living. I am simply protecting my living.

[osgood_]

pziecina  wrote

I have to disagree, it is not exclusive it is targeted at the market willing to pay for the development. If someone else wishes to learn how to do such items then it requires much research and the creation of trials, followed by proof of concepts, then finessing of those proofs.

So we are talking about high end specific products that account for what percentage of companies on the web? Not every company has the finances to afford such investment therefore you should not be surprised you dont see this high-end solutions as standard.

pziecina  wrote

As someone who has done all those things, i will also never give anyone anything beyond what i create at the trials phase of development unless i am paid to do so. My argument for doing so, is that if i provide the trials code, anyone who is willing and has the necessary coding skills will be able to take it through the next two stages themselves.

Well maybe you are the kind of person that is holding all this new and exciting technology you want others to use back because your not willing to share, without financial reward which is fine, then don't moan, because you are contributing to the situation.

pziecina  wrote

Sorry if that sound egoistic or if anyone thinks it is wrong and i am holding the web back, but i have heard too often that people do not have the time to spend doing those things, and are too busy earning a living. I am simply protecting my living.

Well there you go I didn't even read the above  before I answered your previous reply, so you must be thinking like that as well.