Remove csslab

csslab was a valuable experiment in splitting CSS from CE. Given our recent discussions around CE CSS cleanup I think we should consider alternate approaches for CSS. For example use the CE styles as a base, and fix any values that don't match design system.

Possibly some sizing/spacing needs tweaking, but fixing in CE is lower effort than porting or integrating

Reasons to remove:

Efficiency

Trying to rewrite Bootstrap without measurable benefit goes against Efficiency and Results values. It added development overhead and complexity. And styles being far from where they are used makes debugging/troubleshooting harder.

Doesn't address actual problem

Greenfields repo for CSS kinda sidesteps-but-doesn't-fix our existing CSS issues. We have docs and architecture improvements to make in CE, and cleanup of this negates much of the need for separate style repo.

Illusion of safety

Screenshot testing is valuable, but limited-value when we are using arbitrary hardcoded markup. The test markup in gitlab-ui gives limited assurance that CE is still OK. More useful would be markup generated (and auto-updated) from our fixtures.

Some unexpected bugs popped up due to added specificity :not(.csslab)

Where to raise UI issues?

This is enough of a challenge with gitlab-ui and CE. I think issues should be raised based on where they are for a user (generally CE), rather than us splitting up the codebase by file extension and working from that.


Reasons to keep:

  • We'd need to redo markdown style fixes in CE
Edited Mar 28, 2019 by Simon Knox
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