Best Practices for Customizing Style Sheets

[nealgilbert]

I am thinking of implementing the following rules that govern CSS style sheets.

Rule #1: Never Modify the style.css
For global CSS changes: Instead of modifying the style.css, I use the Jetpack "Edit CSS" plugin.

Rule #2: Modifying CSS on Individual pages using the "Scripts" section on that page
When a style applies only to a single page/post, I use the "Scripts" section on that page.

Question: Is there a problem with this methodology? What are, if any, the unintended consequences of this strategy?

http://avadtech.wpengine.com/

[Ginger]

Hi Neal,

For rule #1, the only problem with that is if you ever decided to stop using the Jetpack plugin, or removed it from your site, the contents of your "Edit CSS" would go away with it.

For rule #2, this would , like rule #1, have your CSS is scattered in many different places. I recommend thinking of the styles as a flow that covers it site-wide. You might end up repeating CSS on pages that could possibly be listed once in the actual style.css file.

My recommendation is: #1, always keep current backups of your site including the content and your database on the backend. If you have current backups then you can almost always recover if something goes wonky.

As far as making changes in your style.css or your functions.php files, I would keep everything in one place. Each time you'd go to make a change, just make a quick copy of the file prior to changing it and you'll be fine. Also, and probably most important, do not do cowboy coding 🙂 By this I mean editing those files from within Appearance > Edit in your WP Dashboard. If you make a typo you can cause your site to white screen where you cannot access your Dashboard at all.

See this helpful post by Genesis recommended developer Carrie Dills on best practices for editing your site. Basically become familiar with FTP or some way to access the files no your site outside of the WP dashboard and you'll be in good shape.

http://www.carriedils.com/editing-wordpress-site-101/

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