django-clevercss v0.1

Today I launched another little side project. I call it django-clevercss. Really it's just a simple way to use CleverCSS-formatted stylesheets in Django sites.

At first glance, CleverCSS might not seem like the most useful thing ever, but I personally think it has potential. It is a more concise way to write CSS, and it also allows the use of variables (so you don't have to change 50 of the same hex color codes each time someone wants something a different shade of blue) and simple calculations within the stylesheet. You can also have a sort of "hierarchy" of elements so you don't have to repeat the same element name 30 times for simple styling.

Anyway, since I thought CleverCSS was so clever, I decided that I would make an effort to make the project more accessible for Django developers who agree with me.

This project gives you a way to create CleverCSS stylesheets in your database using the Django administration utility. Then you use a simple template tag to bring the CSS file into your Django templates. Put something like {% get_clever_css "Testing" %} in the href of a regular link tag and that's about it!

Assuming that you have a CleverCSS stylesheet in your database with the title "Testing", the project will do several things. First, it will see if the stylesheet has been parsed and saved to the filesystem. If it has, it will compare the last time the stylesheet on the filesystem was modified with the last modification time of the stylesheet in the database. If the stylesheet in the database is newer than the one on the filesystem, or the stylesheet has not yet been saved to the filesystem, the project will parse the CleverCSS into real, valid CSS and store it in a file on the filesystem. Then you end up with something like this in your template after Django is done with it:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" href="/media/clevercss/testing.css" />

For more information and installation instructions, check out the project homepage. Have fun!