Style sheet efficiency

How do most people handle their style sheets? Do you reference them as an external file or do you include them in every page?

I have template files that I include with php at various places in each page. My preamble used to contain

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">

in the header section until I noticed that most of the hits to my site were for my style sheet. I then changed it to

<style type="text/css">
<?include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/style.css" ?>
</style>

in the body section.

Both validate according to the w3 css validator and both appear the same in msie and opera.

My guess is that my server can do the server side include of the style sheet much faster than the client can turn around and request it. This is likely to have a small amount of bandwidth reduction but more importantly a performance improvement.

What do the rest of you do? Do server side merge your style sheet or do you have the client request it?

 

Welcome to the forum

I just let the file be called by the client and it does the trick just fine and dandy for me

 

I use external style sheets using this code:
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">

But your idea does sound interesting. I might have to look into that. Thanks for the idea.

 

<link href="/stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

This works for me fine.

 

<script type="text/javascript"></script>
<style type="text/css" title="currentStyle">
@import "main1.css";
</style>

The empty javascript to correct the unsightly Flash of Unstyled Content - most of our sites are pure CSS designs ( base layout of 2 or 3 columns with header and footer, no tables).

 

External CSS files can be cached by proxies and browsers, reducing your bandwidth use. On top of this external stylesheets often result in faster rendering because browsers don't have to parse styles again and again.

J.D.

 

CSS design is goooooood....

 

JD nailed it ... including it in your actual HTML is counter-productive. if you had those 1-page sites, like those 1 page "sales" pages, then it's effective ... otherwise ... it will save your users download time AND .... very important... searcg engines will be closer to your content ... less muck to wade through (especially with G's file size limits)

 

i voted...
....sounds like we have a winner.

 

I suppose SSI could be useful if you have vastly-different sections of the site and want to save band by coding a seperate style sheet for each...