I commonly make quick demo pages or websites with simple content. For these, I don't want to spend time styling them but don't like the ugliness of the default styles.
Water.css is a CSS framework that doesn't require any classes. You just include it in your `<head>` and forget about it, while it silently makes everything nicer.
You probably don't want to use it for a production app or something that is more than a simple document. Rule of thumb: if your site has a navbar, don't use Water.css. It's just not meant for that kind of content.
#### Enforce a theme and ignore `(prefers-color-scheme)`
For the main versions, `dark` or `light` is only treated as a _default theme_: if a user has a system-wide preference for either dark or light mode on their device, `water.css` will respect this. If you want to avoid this behavior and enforce dark or light theme, append `.standalone` to the theme prefix, e.g. `dark.standalone.min.css`.
#### Want to support Internet Explorer?
Sure, just extend the theme prefix with `-legacy`, e.g. `dark-legacy.min.css`.
Be aware that these versions **do not support** [runtime theming](#theming) as they use hard coded values rather than variables. Additionally, if you use a legacy version that is not standalone, we recommend [you add the respective preload tags to improve load times](https://watercss.netlify.com/?legacy#installation).
Do you want to make some adjustments or build your own theme completely different from the official dark or light themes? Since Water.css is built with CSS variables this is super easy to do!
Water.css uses Custom Properties (_"CSS variables"_) to define its base styles such as colors. These can be changed and overwritten right in the browser.
Because of this, you can simply add your own stylesheet to the page and set your own CSS variables there. As long as your stylesheet comes after Water.css in the HTML, your values will override the default ones and your theme is applied!
If you are targeting browsers without support for CSS Custom Properties such as Internet Explorer, runtime theming is not an option. To apply your own theming, you'll need to make your changes in the source files themselves, then re-compile the CSS files. This works like the following:
You also might want to check out the [Contributing Guide](https://github.com/kognise/water.css/tree/master/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md) as it contains further information about the build setup.
If you decide to contribute, after downloading a copy of the repository make sure to run `yarn` to install dependencies useful for development. Then, you can run the following to start a server of the demo with live reloading on change.
**Alternatively, just click this button to develop in Repl.it, a supercool in-browser IDE!** [](https://repl.it/github/kognise/water.css)
Before submitting your first pull request, make sure to check out our [Contributing Guide](https://github.com/kognise/water.css/tree/master/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md)!
