We're currently developing software to assist in the process of CSS coding. We would love to hear your thoughts on this software. Let us know if this is a waste of time or something worth pursing.

We are giving away free copies of this software for those willing to assist in the process of Beta Testing. Overall it's pretty simple and the end goal is to prevent CSS users from wasting time.

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Hate cleaning up and beautifying you Cascading Style Sheets? Wouldn't it be nice to have them consistent from one site to the next with software to re-organize your properties, locate and remove unused styles and even make room for old and new hacks alike?

I know you're thinking this isn't a big issue, but once you've started developing more than a single site it can be an extremely confusing to read through an old style sheet. Simply remembering what you've named the styles is bad enough, but add in the fact that each set of properties is in a different order and you're looking at wasted time scanning through styles looking for a width property. Top that off with extra styles that are not even used and you've got a nice decoy to keep you busy for awhile.

We want to help save your time, make your life easier and get you back to other projects and your social life as quickly as possible. We're proposing the development of software that will assist in the structural organization of style sheets and keeping them tamed.

The proposed software has the following features:

1. Headers:
Provide text areas for developer information in an effort to quickly and easily add common information to a style sheet with automated commenting out. Such information may include the following:

• Style Sheet Name
• Style Sheet Description
• Developer Name
• Developer Web Site
• Version Number
• Last Update ( Automated )


2. CSS Properties Re-Organization:
Place property information in specific orders dictated by you, the developer. For the example below the developer would request three ( 3 ) spaces before each style property, and order the styles properties as ( width, height, margin, padding, background ). If you prefer to skip this step, styles will remain as the developer originally coded them. As an alternative a CSS property orgainzational standard can be implemented which is pre-programmed, using alphabetical or commonalities as a base. Commonalities ( width / height, margin / padding )

#content {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
margin: 100px;
padding: 100px;
background: #333 url(images/myfile.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat;
}

Any and all optimization efforts are left out in an effort to avoid deletion of speciality hacks and custom code.

3. Browser Hacks:
Browser hacks are included with the re-organization. Placing them in the order desired by the developer or re-organized as a pre-programmed option. Additional Hacks can be included into the software through the Hack interface.

4. Removal / Deletion of Unused Styles:
Scan through all styles within a style sheet detecting and removing unused styles. This would be accomplished by the user providing FTP or local folder directory information directly from the desktop, thus allowing the software to search through all ( html or php ) files utilizing a particular style sheet.

Questionnaire:

1. Would you like to assist in beta-testing this software?

2. Is this software that you would find useful?

3. What do you like or dislike about this software?

4. What additional features would benefit your CSS development process?

5. Would you purchase this software for a small fee?

Please send your comments to css@doc4design.com, thank you.