Testing Tricks: CSS Bookmarklets
Post from December 29, 2010 (↻ December 12, 2016), filed under Web Development.
This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved e-book: On Web Development.
A quick tip: If you’re working in a complex development environment that does not allow you to fully test the impact of upcoming style sheet changes, a simple CSS bookmarklet containing all the changes or the new style sheet in its entirety can be a nice way to give other developers a chance to review changes in action before they’re actually live. (That was one sentence.)
Using CSS bookmarklets can be a particularly useful testing complement if you have not thought of or did not yet get to setting up a prototype for your site or framework, and if you can actually ask developers rather than less tech-savvy users to test in order to quickly get to qualified feedback or them to eventually prepare for adjustments on their own end.
Side note: Be cautious around style rules you are about to remove as they will still be in effect on pages to be tested. With a simple CSS bookmarklet you would need to “neutralize” such rules within the bookmarklet, eventually by explicitly setting initial values.
About the Author
Jens Oliver Meiert is a technical lead and author (sum.cumo, W3C, O’Reilly). He loves trying things, including in the realms of philosophy, art, and adventure. Here on meiert.com he shares and generalizes and exaggerates some of his thoughts and experiences.
If you have any thoughts or questions (or recommendations) about what he writes, leave a comment or a message.
Comments (Closed)
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On December 29, 2010, 8:06 CET, Greg said:
Jens,
Having no familiarity with CSS Bookmarklets, it sounds like this isn’t something I need if I run a development version of my work…
Or is this a tool that can compliment development environment?
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On January 3, 2011, 21:37 CET, Brian said:
Wouldn’t Greasemonkey be a little more modern way to achieve this?
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Perhaps my most relevant book: CSS Optimization Basics (2018). Writing CSS is a craft. As craftspeople we strive to write high quality CSS. In CSS Optimization Basics I lay out the, at least some of the most important aspects of such CSS.
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