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Preprocessors like Sass and Less certainly help to keep your CSS codebase organized and maintainable. Features like variables, mixins, loops, etc. — by adding dynamic capabilities to CSS coding — contribute to minimize repetition and speed up your development time.
In recent years, a few dynamic features have started to make their appearance as part of the CSS language itself. CSS variables — or “custom properties”, as they're officially called — are already here and have great browser support, while CSS mixins are currently in the works.
In this article, you'll find out how you can start integrating CSS variables into your CSS development workflow to make your stylesheets more maintainable and DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself).
Let's dive right in!
If you've used any programming language, you're already familiar with the concept of a variable. Variables let you store and update values your program needs in order to work.
For instance, consider the following JavaScript snippet:
[code language="js"]
let number1 = 2;
let number2 = 3;
let total = number1 + number2;
console.log(total); // 5
number1 = 4;
total = number1 + number2;
console.log(total); // 7
[/code]
number1
and number2
are two variables which store the number 2 and 3 respectively.
total
is also a variable which stores the sum of the number1
and number2
variables, in this case resulting in the value 5. You can dynamically change the value of these variables and use the updated value anywhere in your program. In the snippet above, I update the value of number1
to 4 and when I perform the addition again using the same variables, the result stored inside total
is no longer 5 but 7.
The beauty of variables is that they let you store your value in one place and update it on the fly for a number of various purposes. No need for you to add new entities with different values all over your program: all value updates happen using the same storage place, i.e., your variable.
CSS is mostly a declarative language, lacking in dynamic capabilities. You'd say that having variables in CSS would almost be a contradiction in terms. If front-end development were just about semantics, it would be. Fortunately, the languages of the Web are very much like living languages, which evolve and adapt according to the surrounding environment and the needs of their practitioners. CSS is no exception.
In short, variables have now become an exciting reality in the world of CSS, and as you'll soon see for yourself, this awesome new technology is pretty straightforward to learn and use.
The benefits of using variables in CSS are not that much different from those of using variables in programming languages.
Here's what the spec has to say about this:
[Using CSS variables] makes it easier to read large files, as seemingly-arbitrary values now have informative names, and makes editing such files much easier and less error-prone, as one only has to change the value once, in the custom property, and the change will propagate to all uses of that variable automatically.
In other words:
By naming your variables in ways that make sense to you in relation to your project, it'll be easier for you to manage and maintain your code. For example, editing the primary color in your project will be much easier when what you need to change is one value for the --primary-color
CSS custom property, rather than change that value inside multiple CSS properties in various places.
One way you might have been taking advantage of the flexibility of variables when styling websites is by using preprocessors like Sass and Less.
Preprocessors let you set variables and use them in functions, loops, mathematical operations, etc. Does this mean CSS variables are irrelevant?
Not quite, mainly because CSS variables are something different from preprocessor variables.
The differences spring from the fact that CSS variables are live CSS properties running in the browser, while preprocessor variables get compiled into regular CSS code, therefore the browser knows nothing about them.
What this means is that you can update CSS variables in a stylesheet document, inside inline style attributes and SVG presentational attributes, or choose to manipulate them on the fly using JavaScript. You can't do any of this with preprocessor variables. This opens up a whole world of possibilities!
This is not to say that you need to choose between one or the other: nothing will stop you from taking advantage of the super powers of both CSS and preprocessor variables working together.
The post A Practical Guide to CSS Variables (Custom Properties) appeared first on SitePoint.
This article was created in partnership with Fiverr. Thank you for supporting the partners who make SitePoint possible.
In this article, we are going to educate SitePoint readers on how to select the right gig on Fiverr for marketing copy.
As a worldwide verified freelancing platform, Fiverr is a 100% safe and productive site where you can buy and sell services. Boasting one of the fastest customer service departments available today, Fiverr's team immediately responds to questions and inquiries for a seamless customer usability experience.
In this guide you will learn:
We are going to go over how to select the right gig every time when shopping on Fiverr.
/1. Be realistic about your expectations regarding the price you need to pay for a required writing job. Quality work costs more, even at Fiverr. Although it's still more affordable than any other freelancing marketplace, you're not going to get published on Forbes, or publish a high-quality e-book with custom illustrations, if you don't invest several hundred dollars.
Think of Fiverr as your go-to marketplace where you can always find the most affordable deals on writing services and more. Projects range from short blog post editing that will cost you only a few bucks, to top quality e-book writing services that will cost you several hundred dollars.
/2. Know how to clearly communicate. A good and bad point of Fiverr is that it's a global marketplace with every nationality selling and buying services. That means you need to be able to clearly articulate what it is that you want, in basic English, without the complexities.
If you can't clearly explain what it is that you need, do not try and outsource the project. That's a sign that you need to go back to the drawing board and reevaluate what it is that you need, first and foremost. When approaching a freelancer, you need to have an adept understanding of the task at hand, and the details required to make it happen.
It's ok to be a pain – the writers expect it. Now is the time to be safe, rather than sorry, and get all the information out in the open. It's up to the writer if they want to take on the task or not.
Be comprehensive.
Now that you're ready to address your marketing copy, first understand that there are a variety of gigs out there related to content marketing. You can work on a press release, e-mail copy, newsletter, blog, product description, website page, and the list goes on.
For the sake of this piece, we're going to look at the 3 most important marketing copy gigs for our business: blogging, emailing, and editing & proofreading.
Blogs are applicable for B2C, B2B, and personal posts, providing brands with an easy way to communicate a message, announcement, or feature to their followers. You want to find a writer that matches your personal style.
Within basic gigs, you can reasonably expect a Fiverr writer to provide 100-300 word blog posts, with titles and references.
When communicating with these writers regarding your blog, we recommend you use the following steps to ensure they have everything they need to write an awesome blog for you:
Your Blog URL: Firstly, send the writer your blog URL. They need to be able to familiarize themselves with your blog tone. Your blog might be informal with a little humor, or it could be incredibly serious and fact-based. Your ghostwriter will know how to take on your tone, but they need the right information first to make it happen.
If you don't have an existing blog, do your best to find at least 1-2 links to other blogs that have the tone you want. Your blog writer is not a mind-reader, and needs some kind of starting point in understanding your overall goal. The more examples you can provide them, the better.
Your Topic: Although blog writers can come up with completely original topics just based on your industry, if you do have a topic in mind, now is the time to communicate it to them (and not after the blog has been written). Let's say you own a social media management company. There is plenty to write on, but where do you want them to begin? Are you looking for more conversions regarding your SEO service? Tell the blog writer you want a blog on the benefits of SEO with a call-to-action at the end pushing the reader to sign up for your SEO services.
Although some of this might seem self-explanatory, be sure to articulate exactly what topic you want if that's your end goal. If not, you can let the blog writer do their thing.
Any Secret Specifications: When we find reliable Fiverr providers, it can be easy to assume they know how to do everything. Ghostwriters can select topics, research them, and write amazing marketing copy for your business. However, they can't know that your company is only six months old and doesn't actually provide SEO services (but will in two months). These secret specifications need to be communicated from the onset. It's not fair to surprise them after the entire blog has been crafted.
Email copy gigs on Fiverr will help you draft one or multiple emails for luring customers and patrons to your website.
Within the basic gigs, providers on Fiverr will vet your platform and draft up one or two emails that you can send to your subscriber list.
If you explore gig add-ons, email writers can write a series of emails, with release dates, so you continue to string on your leads.
A variety of editors are able to provide rewrites, proofing for grammar, syntax, spelling, and capitalization, as well as feedback on the copy.
Within the basic gigs, editors will proofread up to 1k or 2k words on your behalf, tracking their changes in a Word document. You can choose to accept or reject the changes, as well as request that a tracked changes and accepted changes document is provided at the end of the order.
Now that we've explored the types of marketing copy gigs available to you on Fiverr, we're going to look at 5 steps for selecting the right marketing copy gig. There are many writers and editors available to you through the site, so where do you begin? How do you weed out the faulty providers? Here are our recommendations.
As a review-based platform, you want to use Fiverr's publicly stated reviews to your advantage. If a gig only has 2 reviews, and one of them is not 5 stars, chances are you're not going to gamble. But if you see a gig with 300 reviews and a 5 star average, you know you're working with a serious provider.
The post How to Select the Right Copywriting Gig on Fiverr for Marketing Copy appeared first on SitePoint.
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