Style sheet priority

[Andrew Bartle]

Hi there,

I have a web application that will be deployed for multiple clients. I
would like to have a set of styles that apply to the site that can be
overwritten for each specific client as required.

My proposed approach is to have two stylesheets: one containing all
the default styles, and the other containing those styles that I want
overwritten for the specific instance. This requires control over
which stylesheet takes priority. Can I do this with consistant results
across all mainstream browsers (i.e. by placing one link tag before
the other), or is there another approach that you would recommend?

Thank you very much for your time.

Cheers,
Andrew

[Gus Richter]

Andrew Bartle wrote:

Hi there,

I have a web application that will be deployed for multiple clients. I
would like to have a set of styles that apply to the site that can be
overwritten for each specific client as required.

My proposed approach is to have two stylesheets: one containing all
the default styles, and the other containing those styles that I want
overwritten for the specific instance. This requires control over
which stylesheet takes priority. Can I do this with consistant results
across all mainstream browsers (i.e. by placing one link tag before
the other), or is there another approach that you would recommend?

Thank you very much for your time.

Cheers,
Andrew

Don't forget to apply the same title attribute to both stylesheets and
the two stylesheets will combine as a preferred style.

--
Gus

[Paul]

Andrew Bartle wrote:

Hi there,

I have a web application that will be deployed for multiple clients. I
would like to have a set of styles that apply to the site that can be
overwritten for each specific client as required.

My proposed approach is to have two stylesheets: one containing all
the default styles, and the other containing those styles that I want
overwritten for the specific instance. This requires control over
which stylesheet takes priority. Can I do this with consistant results
across all mainstream browsers (i.e. by placing one link tag before
the other), or is there another approach that you would recommend?

I suggest linking to the specific stylesheet and importing the default
stylesheet into this by @import... If you link to two stylesheets for
the same medium type then the user should be given a choice of which
stylesheet to use - not really what you want.

[Frostillicus]

I can't really see a way around this except for some server-side scripting
to dish out the relevant stylesheet according to the customer login. If you
were thinking of dishing out stylesheets to customers based on their
language, you could use content negotiation to have the web server
automatically send the stylesheet that matches the languages the customer's
browser can accept.

[Stephen Poley]

On 4 Aug 2004 20:48:09 -0700, an*****@iname.com (Andrew Bartle) wrote:

I have a web application that will be deployed for multiple clients. I
would like to have a set of styles that apply to the site that can be
overwritten for each specific client as required.

My proposed approach is to have two stylesheets: one containing all
the default styles, and the other containing those styles that I want
overwritten for the specific instance. This requires control over
which stylesheet takes priority. Can I do this with consistant results
across all mainstream browsers (i.e. by placing one link tag before
the other), or is there another approach that you would recommend?

Make sure you're familiar with the cascading requirements:
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-CSS2-1...e.html#cascade
In particular the specificity rules sometimes trip people up.

Having said that, I don't recall any problems with a browser failing to
observe the requirement that the latter-specified rule wins.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Andrew Bartle]

Thank you all for your tips. It seems that a browser should prioritize
the styles in the latter specified stylesheet so I will give that a
go. A quick test with IE indicates that it works, but I need to test
it with the other important browsers. If it fails then I will find a
workaround based on your other ideas.

Cheers,
Andrew
Stephen Poley <sb******************@xs4all.nl> wrote in message news:<tv********************************@4ax.com>. ..

On 4 Aug 2004 20:48:09 -0700, an*****@iname.com (Andrew Bartle) wrote:

I have a web application that will be deployed for multiple clients. I
would like to have a set of styles that apply to the site that can be
overwritten for each specific client as required.

My proposed approach is to have two stylesheets: one containing all
the default styles, and the other containing those styles that I want
overwritten for the specific instance. This requires control over
which stylesheet takes priority. Can I do this with consistant results
across all mainstream browsers (i.e. by placing one link tag before
the other), or is there another approach that you would recommend?

Make sure you're familiar with the cascading requirements:
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-CSS2-1...e.html#cascade
In particular the specificity rules sometimes trip people up.

Having said that, I don't recall any problems with a browser failing to
observe the requirement that the latter-specified rule wins.