There are a number of CSS pre-processor that are beginning to appear across the web. This is obviously a sign that web developers are a feeling a bit of pain creating stylesheets for their projects, but some have begun to scratch their own itch.
Turbine, a PHP-based utility, is a similar project that seeks to ease the tediousness of writing CSS. It also offers a few features that many pre-processors have yet to offer.
Turbine attempts to decrease CSS development time through concise syntax, automatically minifying multiple stylesheets, and supports variables and constants. This means variables, such as colors, be defined once and then used throughout multiple files.
The project also supports…
- Object-oriented programming inspired inheritance
- Built-in operating system, device, and browser sniffing
- Support for older browsers
- An extensible plugin system
The website also features an interactive shell allowing you to evaluate the utility without actually having to download anything. Additionally, the site offers a converter that will take existing CSS and covert it to Turbine syntax. Nice!
Love this.
sokkz says
These guys have a really nice, solid website. If Turbine is as straightforward as its host site, I may start using this.
Tom says
The ability to try-before-you-buy kinda thing thanks to the shell is a welcome trend. That’s what kept me experimenting with this..
Glenda Jackson says
This does not exist anymore (unfortunately). Alternative (PHP) css preprocessors are css crush or xcss (do a google search) css crush is actively developed, whereas xcss seems to have stopped development, but it looks really easy to use.