Most of the xHTML/CSS websites I’ve done have been small and generally easy to manage, but after recently launching a large scale website, I’ve begun adding anything and everything I can do to keep the pages organized.
First, comment your stylesheets. Keep the global styles and page resets at the top with a comment declaration like general or global. Then begin the structure styles. Finish with the footer.
Second, use the “cascading” concept of CSS to your full advantage. Contrary to (semi) popular belief, you can declare styles early in the stylesheet and change the same elements by adding altered styles below it. It’s especially helpful if you’re forced to use a commercial grade content management system that uses global stylesheets that are hard to access. You can concatenate changes to the same styles by adding them below the original.
And finally, one of the most useful organization elements I’ve begun using is a concept most of us have been doing for years in our html pages: Tab in elements that belong to a section of the site.
For example, say you create a page wrapper and then put everything inside of it. Chances are you will tab once, put in the div and ID, then tab again and begin inputting the elements that are held within.
Now apply this tool to your stylesheets. Create your sections first, then add your paragraph, heading and link styles for that section by tabbing in once or twice below the enveloping element.
Hopefully these few tips will help with creating large (and small) scale sites while maintaining your sanity!
Anyone else have any other ideas?