Kickoff Meeting

[1cg]

Kickoff Meeting for missing.css

Welcome! We are in a position to have a kick off meeting for missing.css (the missing style sheet).

We have the following volunteers:

• @dz4k - Lead
• @1cg - Developer
• @benpate - Developer
• @jvosloo - Ideas/Feedback

We will have the first meeting via zoom on Wednesday, Feb 16th at 10 MST/14 GMT:

https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/?pl=1&lid=0,745044,5641727&h=5641727&hf=0

Zoom Info

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/73370779708?pwd=3g1H6f82LSFn2WsNylwcuAhVg3eKr0.1

Tentative Agenda

• Introductions
• Carson - Purpose of missing.css
• Deniz - present basic ideas for syntax
• Carson - a plea for a depth variable
• A Review of classless.css project
• Decide on layout of missing.css project
  • Divide work up between developers (possibly delay pending exploratory work)
• Discuss how project will be built and distributed
  • https://missing.style - main website
  • https://the.missing.style - the latest version of the style sheet

[1cg]

@fractaledmind @maco @carlotm let me know if you are interested in joining this zoom

[fractaledmind]

I think I can make it

[1cg]

Recommended for tomorrows zoom, a close reading of classless.css's excellent style sheet:

https://github.com/emareg/classlesscss/blob/master/docs/classless.css

[fractaledmind]

One note, I think using :where() to manage complex selectors' specificity will help us (I think) to allow class-based utilities to override defaults

[waldyrious]

Just to be sure, are you guys aware of the list of classless (and class-light) stylesheets at https://github.com/dbohdan/classless-css?

[benpate]

This is a great list, and should absolutely inform what we're doing here. Missing.css will have to add something interesting and better than what's already out there. What should be the differentiator?

[fractaledmind]

I think the best differentiator is default styling of accessible and opinionated HTML structures. Adrian Roselli has a series of posts on his blog about "under engineered" UI widgets (e.g. https://adrianroselli.com/2021/12/under-engineered-dependency-questions.html). You can find excellent examples of CSS selectors that style accessibly structured HTML. Mix that with a foundation of utility classes and I think you have something powerful

[waldyrious]

Missing.css will have to add something interesting and better than what's already out there. What should be the differentiator?

Totally agreed. I checked the READMEs of all the classless styles and noticed none of them mention ARIA roles. So that sounds like it could be a differentiator of missing.css.

That said, I then searched around a bit and came across Ariato. Quoting from the README:

ariato.css first targets classless HTML elements.

Then, ariato.css targets classless Wai-aria roles and states to style other usual web application components.

Only after that, if no existing html element or wai-aria role does the job, it uses minimal css classes. (ex: .card)

There definitely seems to be some overlap there. Quoting @1cg from Discord, in a statement I really liked and helped me get a clearer idea of what missing.css could be (emphasis mine):

High level statement: A CSS library that starts with good default styling, akin to classless CSS libraries, that offers purely semantic HTML components, utilizing ARIA where appropriate and, finally, where tweaks are needed, offers a small & curated set of class-based utilities.
We want users to have to go beyond bog-standard HTML as little as possible, but no littler.

It will be important to validate what projects like Ariato are doing to match this vision, and what missing.css will do differently.

[benpate]

I'm very sorry, but I won't be able to make this meeting. I have another scheduled meeting every Wednesday at ten, and I can't miss this one.

I'll do my best to participate in the next one 😊