Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

CSS

Aurelian Spodarec
Aurelian Spodarec
10,801 Points

Mastering CSS - Help

How to master CSS?

Practice.. yeah sure.. but we all know that not enough otherwise id be a master by now, well, I am, in bad practices.

So I was doing front-end track, I did like 50% of it, in a week, and i got 100% better with my CSS and overall. Amazing how much i didn't even know and how many things i was doing wrong and or bad practices + it was messy as hell.

So while i did CSS that's on the track , and a bit more outside the track, I don't feel there is enough CSS courses that cover more advanced stuff. Here it's just very very basic.

What are some things I can immprove my CSS? books? websites? OOCSS? umm

I want to master CSS in the upcoming months.

3 Answers

David Bath
David Bath
25,940 Points

In order to master anything it takes time and practice, there's no getting around that. You can't absorb all of the details of any field or skill overnight, that takes time. Blasting through all the videos and quizzes that Treehouse has on CSS will not get you there, and it may give you false confidence. You need to practice and experiment on your own, which is like testing yourself on what you know.

With that said, you'll also need to make sure you are grounded in all of the related technologies like HTML and Sass: HTML of course is WHAT you are styling, and Sass is one of the most important "extensions" to CSS. Treehouse has courses in both of those.

Within the world of CSS itself you can deepen your knowledge by reviewing the MDN documentation periodically. Websites like css-tricks.com also have some great and helpful information. Another great way to further your understanding is to analyze the code of any website that catches your eye - open up your browser's inspector and try to understand what they are doing to achieve certain effects or layout. There are many ways to achieve similar layouts, and sometimes you'll be surprised by how other people do things!

Then as I said before, practice, practice, practice, and test yourself along the way. Give yourself 30 minutes to build a simple webpage using a layout you haven't tried before. Try to accomplish things with CSS that most people do using JavaScript. Keep challenging yourself and you should get far in a few months. Good luck!

Aurelian Spodarec
Aurelian Spodarec
10,801 Points

I am doing HTML and CSS for over two years now. I can do any website and whatever you wish for in terms of HTML/CSS and jQuery to an extend can check out some sites here. So while I knew HTML/CSS and stuff before i blasted the CSS coueses here, i was bad. Now i blasted it and in a week I absorbed the basics and I'm wiring my code a lot more clean and better, iv learned so much. I did 4projects in the week as you can see on the portfolio, one of them isn't there, but that how I learn. I just had to re-adjust my self to code well. I have made many websites with HTML and CSS. SOme plugins of JS and some jQuery added too.

I always check out the inspect tools, infact every single website I'm curious and i go and loook how things are made. I learn from it a lot sure, but thats not enough, plus I don't have their souce code, unless i could suck it and learn from it.

Previously someone gave me their agency HTML/Sass website, and I have learned from it a lot, but thats not enough.

The CSS logic i suppose isn't the hard part, but rather the way HTML and CSS is writen in terms of DRY and OOCSS as well as organizing the wbesites. I have some code here on github the top ones are the best, and the hc are handCoded.

I can't think about much of what I can do with CSS, making solar system and stuff... well.. not really now. i could leanr about transitions more etc.. but thats a bit of playing. I want to write a code that's maintanable and that a top level programmmer would write, in terms of HTML and CSS. See i have github and stuff... i can make pretty much anything.. i have even codepen with my name but that's just not enough. I was doing bad practices when i started, i was doing position absolute everything, then i did responsive design, then i did this and that.. now im at TTH and im polishing what i know which means getting closer to what i want to do but thats not enough.

I believe that in a month or so i could write a very good code if i had some guidance on architecture, organizing and stuff. I picked up the infor from treehouse pretty quickly, and made 4small sites each time i made it better. You can compare galaxy site to christmas site. Now i did most of the CSS here t treehouse in terms of layout and stuff.. but this is really jsut Basic.

I want to move forward with this. I had a guidance now frmo TTH and i improved, but i just need more guidance.

David Bath
David Bath
25,940 Points

I see, sounds like your making great progress. Have you taken the Sass courses on Treehouse? One of them (I can't remember which, maybe the one about converting a site to Sass?) gave very good ideas about how to organize all of your Sass partials.

I don't know how old you are or what the job situation is where you are, but can you get a job or internship doing FE development, maybe at that agency you mentioned? You sound like you have the skills to get in the door, and working with companies that already have best practices in place is a great way to learn about that.

Aurelian Spodarec
Aurelian Spodarec
10,801 Points

I haven't taken Sass courses here at Treehouse yet, although I know somewhat how it works. Right now I'm doing JS on the front-end track, i finished the HTML and CSS there, and now doing JS, after which i will do dev tools. I will probably do Sass once i get throw half way JS courses. Basically when i will be doing Bootstrap 4 on the track ,since now I will follow the track the way they got it, but i did HTML and CSS there, apart fom bootstrap4.

Oh, thats great! I'm looking forward to it then :) Guil has made few challenges here on making site in the CSS Basics etc.. but that was way too easy, and not enough code to actually try to implement anything like OOCSS and stuff.

I suppose Sass is going to have it, as you mentioned it. Well, either way I'm going to learn for a month before i move out, so still got time.

I just turned 19. Well, yeah... I will be able to know what I'm doing In a month, so i still got time to prepare. Well, before October : p

Well, few people said the last code i wrote is pretty good, i suppose it's alright then. I know what is OOCSS .btn .btn-warning .btn-large yeah.. but then writing my own CSS for this, while not knowing the full project? is challenging, and or, i don't even know how to organize it well, i think i don't know lol i tried to organize the last proejct without knowing what i was doing, since it happen to be a christmas site, with random layouts i had to come up lol , agile development is called i suppose.

I really want to develop :D and i feel reading books is the way : p step by step, 1 out of 300page at a time, learning about HTML and CSS. And programming as well. Because TTH doesn't go any futher than basics : / nor any other wbeistes.

Thank you for the answer :)

David Bath
David Bath
25,940 Points

If you already have some development experience, and it sounds like you do, then I can understand how some of the front-end track will seem a bit "basic". But keep going, because there really is more challenging material here, and I think it will help you! Console Foundations, CSS to Sass (and others), Gulp Basics, Git Basics, these are all good courses that should give you some useful tools for development. And since you're looking to focus on CSS I'd suggest the Flexbox Layout and CSS Transitions courses too, as well as their workshops!

Aurelian Spodarec
Aurelian Spodarec
10,801 Points

Yeah, I will :D I did Console Foundation and other too xD and Git Basics :D not on treehouse. I will do them, especially Git, since I don't know it as well , just the basic stuff, and console, well, i don't know what's more to it.

I want to finish the front-end track, I'll stick with it like you said. And I will definitelly look at what you pointed out, I never heared about Gulp , or if I did, i don't know what it is.

I saw that they have bootstrap and foundation here, so i think it's good to do them off track. See how they code it, and if i can learn something.

My current plan is to finish the front-end track, 30hours left, which i shoudl be done in less than a week. After i want to finish Sass, which will take me aprox a week + foundation since they go together, slo i think 2 weeks could be good to practice Sass syntax and stuff as well as doing bootstrap. As well as doing other CSS. I think 3-4 weeks i shoudl complete most of the CSS courses here, so it stick in my head, as you said, don't want to blast them without having any knoweledge. I have no idea how much Sass has to offer, and Git has more to offer, so practice will be handy here.

Thank you for your answer and advice :D really appriciate it :D

Do you think i should master flexbox as well? i never used flexbox in my porject, maybe few times.. but not seriously. Think i should dedicate 3days or so to make 1-2 websites with flexbox to get a hang on it? it seems easy so far from what i seen in the tutorials, but i don't even remember the flex syntax, but on the other hand if i wont use it then i might just not learn it deeply lol i swa that flexbox support is good, i suppose flexbox is going to be the number one.