Drop Normalize.css

[dgibson666]

Prerequisites

• I have searched for duplicate or closed issues
• I have read the contributing guidelines

Proposal

Since you're providing so much base CSS, much of which appears to overlap with a CSS reset, it's probably best to drop normalize.css as a dependency and include your own CSS reset.

Motivation and context

It's been a while since a new release here, but even longer for normalize.css. It was last updated in 2018 and still littered with rules for IE10 and 11. There's probably a lot that needs to be reevaluated in a post-IE world, and the CSS reset is certainly one of them.

I've been using Andy Bell's as a starting point (https://github.com/Andy-set-studio/modern-css-reset) but have not had the time to go through normalize.css rule by rule to verify what's still valid.

This is important work for modernizing projects.

I'd love to help where I can if this project is still alive.

[roblarsen]

Happy to discuss! We're actually close to a new release. The webpack build PR I have open is the last major issue, but this is worth exploring.

[roblarsen]

@coliff 👓

[roblarsen]

So, I pulled in the Webpack build PR and will have some housekeeping to do over the next couple of weeks. To that end, if, over the next couple of weeks we want to discuss swapping out normalize that would be great. The work of swapping it out is pretty east.

[ghost]

Why doesn't the project just fork normalize and create its own version that way its a win-win? Just a suggestion

[roblarsen]

That sort of work doesn't happen for free, basically. There's a significant time cost with every project we take on, so if there's not someone else managing it, it's not something I'm interested in doing.

[ghost]

@roblarsen Okay, that's fair. What is the game-plan on normalize.css?

[coliff]

I think we should remove Normalize altogether and don't replace it with anything... instead suggest to users that they consider using one of the many available CSS resets (perhaps with a link to: https://github.com/search?q=css%20reset&type=repositories)

[dgibson666]

In my research I also ran across this one, which seems the best maintained:
https://github.com/u1ui/norm.css

It also has a bunch of additional resources/alternatives. Short of using a well-maintained repo like this as a dependency, I think there's a good deal of work in validating each rule and testing to make your own.

[roblarsen]

I would like community input on this one. I do not have a strong opinion on this one. Either way I'd like to make a decision soon as the project can launch right now if we're not making changes to the base CSS.

As an aside... I was going to dust off the h5bp account to tweet about this and I got a request for some 2FA type validation (phone or email) and I realized I don't know what email account is associated with that account and whether or not I have access to it. Here's my annual @paulirish mention 🤣 Paul, do you know what email account is associated with that account?

[roblarsen]

Re: #2960 I haven't made any decisions either way, I just wanted to make sure the work is done and done with care since it touches a few different places. Replacing it would be easier so if we go that route then that's a quicker PR

[rianmurnen]

@dgibson666 BTW, Andy Bell has archived his “modern-css-reset” project and written about why. https://andy-bell.co.uk/a-more-modern-css-reset/

[dgibson666]

@dgibson666 BTW, Andy Bell has archived his “modern-css-reset” project and written about why. https://andy-bell.co.uk/a-more-modern-css-reset/

Good to know. I don't think it's aged badly, but I don't find it to be as comprehensive as I need after more real-world use. I've cherry-picked from several, including Tailwind's reset, and am still refining based on actual use. Tailwind is probably the best standalone that I've found, but I don't know if it holds up as the new Normalize.