background-color:[5xTAB]#CCC;
text-decoration:[5xTAB]none;

so in the editor you have two nicely vertical-aligned columns. I will then NOT tab when i’m adding temporary values for debug, like:

border:[1xBLANK]1px solid red;

so they stand out and are easy to comment or delete.

Never thought to sort alfabetically the properties, i go for the very same ‘priority’ order as Leo, i think it’s easy to write and grasp (i haven’t shared that much code, but people tells me my .css were beautiful). Also i don’t think you will ever have so many properties that you will need to scroll to get to one. And it is much more foreseeable that if you set/change a “float” you will have to also alter the “width”; with this ‘prioritization’ you have to tap 1-2 times the cursor down, while on alphabetical godzilla only know how many times.

I also comment the .css with “sections”, always on the same ‘prioritization’, so i will go for /* GENERAL */, /* LAYOUT */, /* CLASSES */, /* TYPOGRAPHY */ (plus: /* Headers */, /* Paragraphs */, /* Links */ etc.), /* FORMS */, so forth.

And finally, for what concerns CSS3 properties, i’m used to create a css3.css where i throw in those messy, lenghty, vendor properties and i will import it in the main style.css. Once you set up on those values (and you can get there much before the project is finished) it is uncommon to go back to that, so why should i have them dirty up my code?

With your method, what you personally judge to be of greater importance (in terms of selectors) may be completely at odds with what one of your colleagues thinks. And because you both actually care about this stuff, it’s likely to create a wasted debate over who is right and who is wrong. So why not just go alphabetical and level the playing field?

That said, you can simply write your CSS the way you want and format it alphabetically (or any other way) once you’re done, using a tool like ProCSSor.

Great post, by the way.

@grammar nazi Thank you kindly. Now corrected.

You mentioned the ‘Got To Line…’ functionality in TextMate in your post, so I thought I would add my preferred method:

I use the ‘Got To Symbol…’ functionality (cmd+shift+t on my system). As you type it does a keyword search and filters the results in the window so you don’t even have to know the exact selector to find it, or at least limit the list.

it works fine for me even if I have to admit I’ve never used it ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with other developers