In my app/webroot/css directory, I have a cake.generic.css file. In app/View/Layouts/default.ctp, I have the following line:
echo $this->Html->css(array('cake.generic'));
I became suspicious when none of my edits to cake.generic.css were being reflected in my application's view.ctp files, so I experimented. I changed the name of cake.generic.css to dummy.dum, and reloaded my View. The layout remained unchanged. CSS was still being served from somewhere.
Now, when I comment out the reference to cake.generic in default.ctp:
echo $this->Html->css(array(/*'cake.generic'*/));
...and reload my View, I see immediately that the CSS is no longer in control of the layout. I get back basic, unadorned HTML. So my question is: If the cake.generic.css file located in app/webroot/css is not controlling my CSS, then what is? This makes no sense to me.