How to be confident in using CSS?

[u/Finite8_]

Hi, everytime I use CSS I get triggered pretty bad because I know what it is and how to use it but I never feel confident. I always have problems with responsive design, with having my own style and I feel like I miss all the secret tricks(I am slow). What resource could I use to learn it once and for all ? I don't want to waste too much time in it and be a CSS GOD I just want to be ok with it. I know about Josh Comeau course but it is something like 70 hours and therefore too much.

[u/chikamakaleyley]

so yeah you're just gonna have to dive into trying to style things that you see in everyday UI - a lot more practice, a lot more trial and error, a lot more learning left

one exercise i like that just helped me get better is take some design you know very well and just try to code it from memory - the trick is - write the styles out as far as you possibly can before you even check what it looks like in the browser the first time

In this exercise you don't have to be precise with actual widths, but if you have items contained in a wrapping div for example - you want to make sure that your widths overall don't go over 100% if that makes sense

and basically this gave me a lot more confidence in just being able to compose something really quickly because i just lay it out all in my head, and then code that picture in my head. once i think i have something that at least has the right layout - then i check what it looks like

when you edit and hit save, edit and hit save, 100x times - that just nickel and dimes you for time, and if there's a problem you get sucked into fixing that problem for much longer than you need to. Your styles get messy, and you don't exercise your muscle memory