Qwwwik style sheets
A style sheet is a text document with a .css file extension like stylesheet.css. Websites mostly all have at least one to inform web browsers how the pages should look. Qwwwik has two main ones with an extra 'transient' stylesheet plus another optional extra one for additional user-created styles – so there are four active style sheets:
- common-h.css or common-g.css (selected in setup)
- stylesheet.css (the main 'theme' styles)
- transient.css (additional experimental styles)
- extra.css (optionally write additional styles)
common-h.css (or common-g.css) is just a normaliser and doesn't really affect the look of the site. Selection of one or the other is done in '/admin/setup' and determines whether 'hosted' fonts are used (i.e. the font files are actually on the website) or Google fonts provided remotely by Google. They both look the same. It's a matter of personal preference.
stylesheet.css and extra.css can both be edited in '/admin/styles' with Get styles and Update styles. The 'Select a stylesheet' dropdown menu offers four options:
- Current styles (the styles currently in use)
- Default styles (the styles in the original stylesheet.css)
- Default minified (a 'minified' version of stylesheet.css)
- Optional extra styles (add styles as desired in extra.css)
Minified versions of style sheets load faster with a smaller filesize. They can be hard to read because formatting and comments have been removed but the styles are exactly the same as a normal version.
The default versions can't be edited. They are always there as backup. The current styles and extra styles can be edited. If a mistake is made in current styles, they can always easily be restored from backup. If a mistake is made in the extra styles you will have to correct it – extra.css has no backup.
The read order is always current styles first. This means extra styles can be used to override the main styles to leave the main styles intact.
From version 2.2 onwards some styles have been moved from the default style sheets to transient.css to get back to the defaults being 'core' rules as way of future-proofing the system with the main essentials. The 'transient' style sheet contains styles that:
- are not part of the long-term 'base' CSS,
- can be ignored without breaking too much,
- are not likely to be user edited in admin,
- may be subject to better alternative ways,
- are for features not all users would use,
- users can save locally as legacy styles.
There is no difference in the styles. Some are just in a different place.
See information