Continuing our tutorial on how to create a Responsive Template, we are moving to step 3 of the process where we add the CSS links to the stylesheets on the head section. The previous tutorial explained what you need to create for the CSS stylesheets. This tutorial will explain how to link your stylesheets to your HTML document.
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Link for the Main Stylesheet
To get the general styles to work on your website, you will need to link to the file. Below is the code for the link to the style.css file.
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />Using CSS Media Attribute
Link for the Desktop Styles
The first style sheet will need to load when the browser size is the typical Desktop computer monitor size. Lately, wide screen monitors are popular, so we will have the large styles load when the browser is larger than 1440 pixels. Below is the link to the desktop-style.css stylesheet from the previous tutorial. You place the code in the head section of your site.
<link rel="stylesheet" media="screen and (min-device-width: 1440px)" href="desktop-style.css" />The min-device-width is set to 1440px to make the desktop-style.css sheet load when the browser size is at 1440 pixels.
Link for the Tablet Styles
When the browser window goes below 1440 pixels, the medium stylesheet will load. The minimum width is 800 pixels before it will switch to the mobile stylesheet. Below is the code that goes in the head section for your medium-style.css stylesheet for tablets and smaller screens.
<link rel='stylesheet' media='screen and (min-width: 800px) and (max-width: 1439px)' href='medium-style.css' />Now when the browser goes from a minimum of 800 pixels to a maximum 1439 pixels, the medium-styles.css sheet will load.
Link for the Mobile Styles
The mobile style sheet will be set up to load when the width is a minimum width of 100 pixels and a maximum width of 799 pixels. This will make the website adjust to the mobile version when the width goes under 800 pixels. We will use the following link to the mobile-style.css stylesheet.
<link rel='stylesheet' media='screen and (min-width: 100px) and (max-width: 799px)' href='mobile-style.css' />This code will load the mobile-styles.css sheet when the browser is below 799 pixels. The style sheet will stop shrinking at 100 pixels.
CSS Media Attributes explained
Below is a brief explanation of what each attribute does.
| CSS Attribute | What the Attribute Does |
|---|---|
| width | The width of the browser window area. |
| height | The height of the browser window area. |
| min-width | The minimum width of the browser window area. |
| max-width | The maximum-width of the browser window area. |
| device-width | The width of the device’s entire display area regardless of browser window width. |
| min-device-width | The minimum width of the device’s entire display area regardless of browser window width. |
| max-device-width | The maximum width of the device’s entire display area regardless of browser window width. |
| device-height | The height of the device’s entire display area regardless of browser window height. |
| orientation | The orientation of the device whether “landscape” or “portrait“. |
| aspect-ratio | Detects the aspect ratio of the “browser width” to “browser height” of the media. Example 2/1 |
| device-aspect-ratio | Detects the ratio of value of the “device width“to “device height” media. |
| color | Number of bits per color component of the device. |
| color-index | Number of entries in the color lookup table of the output device. |
| monochrome | Number of bits per pixel in a monochrome frame buffer. |
| resolution | The “dpi” or “dpcm” resolution on the device. |
| scan | The scanning process of a “tv“. |
| grid | Detects whether the device is grid or bitmap. |
The entire code for the head section
Once you understand how the stylesheets will load, you can add the code to your website. The below code is the entire head section you will need at the top of your HTML code. The links to the stylesheets are in red. Copy the following code and place it at the top of your HTML code.
<html xmlns="https://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Your Website Title</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" media="screen and (min-device-width: 1440px)" href="style.css" />
<link rel='stylesheet' media='screen and (min-width: 800px) and (max-width: 1440px)' href='medium-style.css' />
<link rel='stylesheet' media='screen and (min-width: 100px) and (max-width: 799px)' href='mobile-style.css' />
</head> Now that you have the code for the stylesheets and the HTML you will need to add the Viewpoint META tag for the mobile devices to accept the styles.
Thanks for the reply TJ!
I didn’t think about an ‘include’. That’s a good idea. Correct me if I’m wrong; that would be as simple as:
““<?php
include(‘path/to/your/style.css’);
?>
Next thought would be, where in the document would you place this…, the head or body?
And would your page that uses this stylesheet need to have the extension “.php” if this little include snippet were the only reference to php code in the document?
Thanks guys!
Hey Scott,
Yes, including the css file like that is perfect. I would place it at or near the top so that it falls in between the header tags of the HTML output. The page would need to have the .php extension in order to process the snippet.
Hope that helps!
Kindest Regards,
Scott M
Great Job!
You guys are fantastic! I’m going to be looking into moving over to your servers as soon as I can get my domain out from under them.
I’m really impressed with the open and honest way that you guys represent yourselves as well as your willingness to give information by way of these tutorials at the risk of sacraficing what others would consider profitable ‘information’.
My thoughts on that are ‘Bring them in? Do exactly what you guys do!’
There seems to be many ways to quiry media types. And none of them could be considered the wrong way simply because they work. I don’t know if that statement could be an indication of loose web standards or not but sometimes I find myself wishing there was an A to C area from which to build within. Anything outside of that breaks and thats that! This of course only apply’s to syntax/markup etc.
I’m actually refreshed to see that the only difference between how you do it and how I do it is the number of stylesheets involved. I place all my quiry’s with their corresponding configurations into one CSS document. Is this not a good practice? Should I be using separate sheets?
Thanks again and have a great day folks!
Hello Scott,
Using the same stylesheet is fine, I tend to put all the css files in one folder and then create a php file to include each css file. Then include that one php file which in turn pulls all of the css files. There are a few different ways to do what you are looking for but what every works best for you should be fine.
Best Regards,
TJ Edens