Er …I think Heydon might’ve cracked it. And by “it”, I mean container queries.
This is some seriously clever thinking involving CSS custom properties, calc, and flexbox. The end result is a component that can respond to its container …and nary a media query in sight!
I think Cathy might’ve buried the lede:
The knock on effect of this was removing media queries. As I moved towards some of the more modern features of CSS the need to target specific screen sizes with unique code was removed.
But on the topic of Sass, layout is now taken care of with CSS grid, variables are taken care of with CSS custom properties, and mixins for typography are taken care of with calc().
Personally, I’ve always found the most useful feature of Sass to simply be that you can have lots of separate Sass files that get combined into one CSS file—very handy for component libraries.
I had to read through this twice, but I think I get it now (I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer). Very useful if you’re doing theming in CSS.
In defence of the cascade (especially now that we’ve got CSS custom properties).
I think embracing CSS’s cascade can be a great way to encourage consistency and simplicity in UIs. Rather than every new component being a free for all, it trains both designers and developers to think in terms of aligning with and re-using what they already have.
Remember, every time you set a property in CSS you are in fact overriding something (even if it’s just the default user agent styles). In other words, CSS code is mostly expressing exceptions to a default design.
On Ev’s blog, Marcin goes into great detail on theming an interface using CSS custom properties, SVG, HSL, and a smattering of CSS filters.
I was kind of amazed that all of this could happen via CSS and CSS alone: the colours, the transitions, the vectors, and even the images.
This article is about using custom properties and CSS grid together, but I think my favourite part is this description of how custom properties differ from the kind of variables you get from a preprocessor:
If you’re familiar with Javascript, I like to think of the difference between preprocessor variables and CSS Variables as similar to the difference between
constandlet- they both serve different purposes.
Don’t let the title fool you—this isn’t just for parallax scrolling (thank goodness!)—it’s for triggering any CSS updates based on scroll position. Using CSS custom properties makes a lot of sense. The JavaScript/CSS bridge enabled by custom properties is kind of their superpower. (That’s one of the reasons why I don’t like calling them “CSS variables” which makes them sound like Sass variables—they’re so much more than that!)
Top of the props.
CSS properties …props …top of the. Never mind.
This CSS usage data comes from a Bing-powered scan of 2,602,016.00 pages.
Oh, how I wish I could’ve been at Web Directions Code in Melbourne to see this amazing presentation by Charlotte. I can’t quite get over how many amazing knowledge bombs she managed to drop in just 20 minutes!
Well, well, well …following on from my post about container queries, it turns out that Eric has also been thinking about wrangling custom properties. He’s even written some code.
Mike examines the real power of CSS custom properties compared to Sass variables—they can change at runtime.
I’m convinced that in almost all cases, responsive design logic should now be contained in variables. There is a strong argument too, that when changing any value, whether in a media query or an element scope, it belongs in a variable. If it changes, it is by definition a variable and this logic should be separated from design.
A quick visual guide to CSS Grid properties and values.
Neither matters all that much and you can use every method on the same project without the universe imploding.
Some interesting approaches in the comments too.
This is a really clear explanation of how CSS works.
A whole lotta CSS properties and values gathered together in one place. The one-page view is a bit overwhelming, but search and collections can get you to the right bit lickety-split.
Harry demonstrates a really good use for CSS custom properties—allowing users to theme an interface.
I think I concur with this list. Although I guess it’s worth remembering that, given the size of the CSS spec, this isn’t an overly-long list.
It’s interesting that quite a few of them are about how things are named. It’s almost as if that’s one of the, say, two hardest things in computer science.