Single CSS style sheet - for better or worse

I know there has been a few comments on the single style sheet in v1.5 so I wanted see if anyone else thought it's not as good as the previous method.

Apart from the fact that certain class names had changed resulting in the need to change some pages and modules - something I hope won't happen again please - using a single style sheet seems to be counter productive to people developing templates for pages or complete themes.

I appreciate that the new CSS code has got some clever well thought out ideas but 5,000 lines to navigate to get to some code is not very sensible. Buy the time I'd finished scrolling up and down through all the classes checking 1.5 to 1.4 there was smoke coming out of my mouse wheel !

The other point about templates and themes is obvious to me. If someone wants to add different layouts that can be downloaded from the nopCom site it would make a lot more sense to have say the product details page or a category page linked specifically to a style sheet just for that template. Otherwise you're into cutting and pasting any layout styles supplied into the main stylesheet and no doubt all kinds of layout issues.

I don't think you can supply templates or other layout add-ons, say like shorter checkout routines, that users can simply download without having the styles being separate.

Personally I thought base, master, modules,etc was really smart - I bet if v1.4 was a single style sheet then v1.5 would now be separate ones - it's one of those things that always looks better the other way round.

I think I might split the single sheet back to the way it was in v1.4. Maybe I'm missing something or my logic is flawed but is a single sheet really the best way ?

Personally, I prefer multiple .css files.  I think it allows for better organization if it is well thought out.  

Chad

My vote for multiple style sheets!

Personally I prefer multiple stylesheets for development.

If a single stylesheet is required for production then we should implement a stylesheet minifier that combines the css and strips out whitespace.

I like how this is done in mojoPortal.

I usually like importing CSS files into a 'default' one.  I keep things organized that way.

But I have found that it is easier to edit nopCommerce with all the classes in one file.  When I am reviewing my site, I view the source code to find something to change, and then in VWD (Visual Web Developer) I go to Edit > Quick Find.  I can find what I'm looking for right away.

When I work in VWD, I sometimes have a lot of files open simultaneously.  The less files I have open, the better.  So for now while I am in editing mode with nopCommerce, having it all in one place for quick finding helps.  When I am all done editing and it is time for production, then I will organize all the classes.

I have found the one style sheet to work better for me - Just thought i would share.

1 style sheet makes it easier to do quick edits

but for organisation multiple style sheets would be the way forward with a master style sheet that links tot hem all.

header.css
layout.css
products.css

With the news that site speed is a new factor in SEO for google serving style sheets in anyway needs to be rethought.

I was thinking about this in relation to other projects also - in terms of the page speed add on for firefox if you have multiple files it recommends you combine them and if you have lots of CSS loaded which is not used by the page it recommends "remove unused CSS".

So what do you do?

For the sake of actually developing anything one file is easier.

My vote is certainly for 1 style sheet, it may be more line of code but it is by far easier for editing.

1 style sheet is better.

It saves a lot of time finding information.