October 25, 2020
Classless is getting classy
HTML has a lot more tags than it used to, but you would never know it from looking at typical source code riddled with divs, each with its own class.
Why is it rare to see sections, articles and asides? Wouldn’t it be easier to style tags that exist than to create classes for a bunch of divs? Classes whose names you will undoubtedly forget and have to look up?
On a complex website, there may not be enough tags to cover all the styles you need. But don’t let that stop you from trying. There is a lot you can do.
CSS Bed has proof, with a lost list of classless themes you can click to see how they look. And the looks vary a lot.
More proof comes from Basic.css. It starts off with two responsive rows of three nice looking cards, in a layout typical of Bootstrap. It’s done with flexbox applied to articles in a section. This allows for an infinity grid — any number of elements.
Basic.css doesn’t appear to allow for a main/sidebar layout, but it should be possible if you stick with flexbox — or even grid.
Someone (me?) should try it.