Provision CSS in sites

Question

In my current project, I checked something that was already developed, and there is a webpart project item, which has embedded CSS on the HTML markup.

I dont like this way because the code does not look clean, and I think it would be easier to maintain if there is a separate css file in the 14 hive or something

The question is: 1. How to provision CSS files to the 14 hive? 2. Will those css be available to all site collections? 3. I suppose that I would need to change the master page to be available to use the CSS classes in the webparts.

Answer 1

There's two ways to do this:

1. store your css file in the style library (css can be different for eacht site collection.

To do so: Use a module

 <Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
   <Module Name="Test" Url="Style Library/CSS Style Sheets" Path="" RootWebOnly="FALSE">
     <File Url="Test.css" Type="GhostableInLibrary"/>
   </Module>
 </Elements>

More info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg447066.aspx

1. store your css in the 14/_layouts folder (css will be the same for all site collections)

To do so: add a mapped folder (layouts) in your Visual Studio 2010 solution and add the css file in a subfolder of this folder. This will be provisioned on deployment without feature or so.

more info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee231521.aspx

1. You will, indeed, need to change your masterpage by adding this line:

http://pastie.org/3379314 (could not paste it here, dont know why)

BTW, the above explanation also works for jquery files etc...