Building HA front end from scratch

I’m still very new to this system, but HA really has me interested in expanding my hobby playtime into something new. So pardon if this is a very basic – or even ignorant – question.

I am thinking I’d like to build a front end set of browser-based tablet screens for my system, rather than use the Lovelace interface. Can this be accomplished solely using CSS or would I also need other programing and scripting knowledge to do so?

I learned basic CSS years ago – and have forgotten most of it. But if I can do this by learning CSS, I can focus on spending time doing that. If I need to know other scripting or programing languages to do this in conjunction or better altogether, what would be the best route?

Thanks ahead!

short answer - no
you’ll need an actual programming language to interface with the api

jscript, html & css would be one option.

Personally, if you wanna look at a different style of front end, I’d suggest learning how to create custom cards and manipulate what already exists, custom or not, in Lovelace.