Deep Dive Into CSS Preprocessors

Deep dive intoCSS Preprocessors @SFHTML5 – May 31st 2012

Jonathan VerrecchiaFront-End Engineer atAuthor of a French book about HTML5Created H5BPs builderIm @verekia and I blog on verekia.com

Questions• Feel free to interrupt me at anytime• Or tweet your questions using #csspp ?

I will talk about• CSS weaknesses• Preprocessors features• Common misconceptions• Sass, Less or Stylus?• Workflow and techniques• Preprocessors + OOCSS

CSS weaknesses

At the office...Product Manager:“Can we try changing our theme quickly? I thinkblue buttons would be more engaging!”You:“Hm... Its not that quick. Come back in 30 min?”Product Manager 30 min later:“Ah its ugly! Can we try a lighter blue andcompare it to this orange and green too?”

CSS variables?You wont be able to use them untilIE 7, 8, 9 , 10, 11, [...] usage drops below 1%. “Variables... finally!”

3 major CSS weaknesses• Lack of essential basic features• Hard to maintain (huge messy CSS files)• Not DRY enough - leads to mistakes

Working with multiple filesHaving multiple CSS files is essential formaintainability and collaborationBut @import sucks (additional HTTP requests)We need to use a build tool for concatenation.... but maybe it can do more than just that?This is what CSS preprocessors do :)

The 3 most popular preprocessors They are all great :)

Features

About those features...Less, Sass and Stylus support them allThey dont enhance CSS, but improve yourdevelopment workflow

VariablesThey are actually constants (and its fine)$my_blue: #4e6cb0; // Sass@my_blue: #4e6cb0; // Less my_blue = #4e6cb0; // Stylus$primary_color: $my_blue;h1 { color: $primary_color;}

Variables TypesVariables are not just for colors!$fonts: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;$images_path: "../img/"$font-size: 1.5em;$margin: 20px;$width: 80%;

Operations and color functionsMath and colors operationswidth: 25px * 4 + 100px / 2 – 50px; // = 100pxcolor: #990033 + #666666; // = #FF66CCColor functions$light_blue: lighten($my_blue, 20%);$flashy_blue: saturate($my_blue, 50%);

MixinsFunctions like lighten() return a value.Mixins dont return anything but output CSS.@mixin border-radius($radius: 10px) { -webkit-border-radius: $radius; -moz-border-radius: $radius; border-radius: $radius;}.button { @include border-radius(4px);}

Nesting.pop { .link { .pop-btn { &:hover { } }} }// ======== OUTPUT ======== // ======== OUTPUT ========.pop {} .link {}.pop .pop-btn {} .link:hover {} Dont nest too much (4 levels max)

Imports and minificationImports now work with no performance costs!@import "colors";@import "typography";@import "layout";CSS output can be clear or minified#main{color:#fff;background-color:#000}#mainp{width:10em}.huge{font-size:10em;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:underline}

Misconceptions

“I need a Ruby or Node backend”• Sass is written in Ruby• Less and Stylus are written in JavaScriptThis does NOT mean you need Ruby or Nodeon your production server to use them.You need them on yourdevelopment machine.

“Less runs client-side”Less can run client-side.OK for quick testing or to compile in-browserif you cant access your dev environment.Never - EVER - use it in production, its evenworse than CSS @import for performance.Always use Node (or Rhino).

“Its hard to install”Both Ruby and Node are easy to install on anyplatform: Ruby is pre-installed, Node.pkg RubyInstaller.exe, Node.exe apt-get install ruby / nodejs

“Bootstrap uses Less, so its better”According to @fat, they chose Less because:• It was compiling faster than Sass (probably not true anymore since Sass has caching)• They are friends with Alexis Sellier (Less) so they can easily request a fix or a featureSo nothing you should worry about.

Even big guys can make mistakes

Sass, Less or Stylus?

How to choose?Bad criterion • The syntax (almost the same) • Twitter Bootstrap (exists in Sass)Good criterion • Available features (Sass and Stylus) • Community (Sass and Less) • Ruby vs. JS if you want to get involved

Related projectsSass: Hampton Catlin - @hcatlin (Inventor)Nathan Weizenbaum - @nex3 (Lead developer)Stylus: TJ Holowaychuk - @tjholowaychuk

Lead and (almost) unique developer of Less

Choose wisely...

Sass welcome package!• 2 syntaxes: .sass and .scss (CSS-like)• Twitter Bootstrap and ZURB Foundation• Even more crazy features (extend, if, for...)Recommended blog:

CompassChris Eppstein - @chriseppstein (Sass core)CSS3, Spriting, Grids, Typography, Data-URLs,Cross-browser, assets path, tons of helpers...@import "compass/css3/border-radius";.button { @include border-radius(10px);}

sonspring.com

Workflow

Installing and RunningJust Sass:> gem install sass> sass --watch <path>Sass + Compass:> gem install compass> compass create <path>> compass watch

Avoiding the command line Codekit

GUI compilersCodekit, LiveReload, Less.app,Compass.app, Scout, Crunchapp, SimpLessCompass.app, Scout, Crunchapp,SimpLess, WinLess, LiveReload (alpha)Compass.app, Scout, Crunchapp, SimpLess

Syntax HighlightingEditors and IDEs that support Sass:VIM, Emacs, Sublime Text 2, TextMate, Eclipse,NetBeans, WebStorm, Visual Studio, PyCharm,RadRails, RubyMine, Komodo, Coda, GEdit, [...]

Project structure examplecss/ global.scss global.css currentpage.scss currentpage.css scss/ global/ _colors.scss _helpers.scss Underscore-prefixed files _mixins.scss dont generate .css files _reset.scss _typography.scss components/ _buttons.scss _popups.scss

DebuggingDebug mode> sass –-watch <path> --debug-infoFirebug plugin: FireSass

Techniques

Handy conversionsPixels to emsfont-size: (18px / $context) * 1em; // 1.125emPixels to percentages$wrapper_width: 1140px;.responsive-unit { width: percentage(200px / $wrapper_width) margin: percentage(15px / $wrapper_width)}

Nesting and Media Queries.menu-item { display: inline-block; @media screen and (max-width: 480px) { display: block; }}Sass 3.2 allows blocks as mixins parameters:.menu-item { display: inline-block; @include respond-to(small-screen) { display: block; }}

Mobile-first responsive design@media (min-width: 480px) {}

Mobile-first responsive design

Mobile-first responsive design// modern.scss@import "base";@media (min-width: 480px) { @import "480-up" }@media (min-width: 768px) { @import "768-up" }@media (min-width: 1200px) { @import "1200-up" }// ie.scss@import "base";@import "480-up";@import "768-up"; by Nicolas Gallagher ♥

Using nesting with Modernizr and IE.map { .menu-item { display: inline-block; .no-geolocation & { background: "map.png"; .ltie8 & { } display: inline;} zoom: 1; } }// ======== OUTPUT ======== // ======== OUTPUT ========.map {} .menu-item {}.no-geolocation .map {} .ltie8 .menu-item {}

Generating a color palette$base: #633;$complement1: adjust-hue($base, 180);$complement2: darken(adjust-hue($base, 180), 5%);$lighten1: lighten($base, 15%);$lighten2: lighten($base, 30%); by Joshua Johnson

OOCSSOOCSS is a popular solution for large-scale CSSwebsites by Nicole Sullivan (@stubbornella)Its core principle is to use multiple classes tomake objects inherit from each other<a class="button big-button">Its heavy for the DOM but very efficient interms of CSS file size in the long run

Facebooks DOM MOTHER OF DOM...

SASS has @Extend.button { background: #00f;}.big-button { @extend .button; width: 200px;}// ======== OUTPUT ========.button,.big-button { background: #00f }.big-button { width: 200px }

@Extend vs OOCSSIf you build a complex components librarywith @extend, youll have a LOT of selectors• @extend ruins your production CSS• OOCSS ruins your DOMMy opinion: At some point @extend mightovertake OOCSS when well have better tools(we debug seamlessly minified CSS already)

Preprocessors + OOCSSWithout @extend, preprocessors and OOCSSare perfectly compatiblePreprocessors are for the stuff you dont wantin your production CSS (they help developers)OOCSS is for the stuff you want in yourproduction CSS (it is performant)

Developer Efficiency ChartParameters: Less Stylus Sass• DRY and file size OOCSS OOCSS OOCSS• Features• Community OOCSS Sass Less Stylus Naive CSS

By becoming web developers, you agreed onstaying up to date with all the new cool stuff.This is the new cool stuff :)

Thanks!verekia.com/slides/css-preprocessors by @verekia

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Deep Dive Into CSS Preprocessors

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