Kick Ass with Sass

Who Are We

Lauren Byrwa
@labyrwa
Front End Developer at Palantir.net

Heather Rodriguez
@hrodrig
Web Developer at Rock Creek Strategic Marketing

Slides

Available Online

What is Sass?

Sass is CSS Extended

Sass is a lean, clean CSS extension language:
You write Sass; your browser sees CSS.

What you write

$bold: 700;
$link-color: #33CCFF;
$sans-serif: 'Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif';

body {
  font-family: $sans-serif;
  a {
    font-weight: $bold;
    color: $link-color;
  }
  ul {
    list-style-type: none;
  }
}
            

What the browser sees

body {
  font-family: "Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif";
}
body a {
  font-weight: 700;
  color: #33ccff;
}
body ul {
  list-style-type: none;
}
            

Sass Facts

• Sass is implemented through a Ruby gem
• Stands for "Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets"
• Designed by Hampton Catlin and developed by Natalie Weizenbaum in 2007
• The most widely used CSS preprocessor within our community

Why Sass?

The problem with CSS

• Repetitive and messy
• Bad coupling (especially in Drupal)
• Bloated code
• Difficult to maintain
• Bad for performance

Fight back with Sass!

Benefits of using Sass

• Write fewer lines of code with less repetition (stay DRY!)
• Change values in one place; watch them update everywhere!
• Spend less time in development
• Improve site performance
• Organize files for better maintainability
• Use cool features such as functions and mixins absent from CSS

#winning

Features

Variables

Variables store small pieces of information for reuse throughout your stylesheets.

• Colors
• Font stacks
• Breakpoints
• Common font sizes

$variable-name: code;

// Fonts
$nimbus-sans:     "nimbus-sans", Times, serif;
$bold:           500;
$normal:         400;
$light:          300;
          

// Colors
$highlight-color: #ffca0a;
$link-color: #ff0000;
$black: #000000;
$white: #ffffff;
$charcoal: darken($white, 70);
          

SCSS

// Fonts
$nimbus-sans:     "nimbus-sans", Times, serif;
$highlight-color: #ffca0a;
$bold:           500;
blockquote{
  font-family: $nimbus-sans;
  color: $highlight-color;
  font-weight: $bold;
}
          

CSS

// Colors
blockquote{
  font-family: "nimbus-sans", Times, serif;
  color: #ffca0a;
  font-weight: 500;
}
          

Operators

Math is hard. Let Sass take care of the work.

SCSS

.container{
  width: 100%;
}

article[role=”main”]{
  float: left;
  width: 600px / 960px * 100%;
}

aside[role=”complimentary”]{
  float: right;
  width: 300px / 960px * 100%;
}
            

CSS

.container{
  width: 100%;
}

article[role=”main”]{
  float: left;
  width: 62.5%;
}

aside[role=”complimentary”]{
  float: left;
  width: 31.25%;
}
            

Nesting

Visual hierarchy makes it easy to understand and organize selector relationships.

SCSS

.breadcrumb {
  font-size: .8em;
  margin-bottom: 2rem;
  li {
    display: inline;
    list-style-type: none;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
  }
  a{
    color: $mirage;
  }
}
            

CSS

.breadcrumb {
  font-size: .8em;
  margin-bottom: 2rem;
}
.breadcrumb li {
  display: inline;
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}
.breadcrumb a{
  color: $mirage;
}
            

Nest Sparingly and avoid overly specific code

Ampersand (&)

Use to merge two selectors, either preceding or following an element.

Use Cases:

• Pseudo elements
• Hover and focus states
• Modernizr, HTML5 Boilerplate, Google Webfont loader classes

Preceeding Ampersand (&)

SCSS

.menu a{
color: $crimson;
  &:hover{
    color: $white;
  }
}
            

CSS

.menu a{
  color: #ed1c24;
}
.menu a:hover{
  color: #ffffff;
}
            

Trailing Ampersand (&)

SCSS

.accordion__header{
  margin: 0;
  background: url(../images/retina/accordion-down.png) no-repeat;
  background-size: 13px;
  .lt-ie9 &{
    background: url(../images/ie/accordion-down.png) no-repeat;
  }
}
            

CSS

.accordion__header {
  margin: 0;
  background: url(../images/retina/accordion-down.png) no-repeat;
  background-size: 13px;
}
.lt-ie9 .accordion__header {
  background: url(../images/ie/accordion-down.png) no-repeat;
}
            

Partials

Split your CSS into smaller, more maintainable snippets

Partials are NOT standalone CSS files

_filename.scss

_alerts.scss
_buttons.scss
_checkboxes.scss
_footer.scss
_forms.scss
_icons.scss
_menus.scss
_messages.scss
_throbbers.scss
_typography.scss
            

Import

• Use @import to combine partials into one file
• One HTTP request per non-partial file
• CSS uses @import but creates many HTTP requests

@import "base";
@import "reset";
@import "layouts/responsive";
@import "components/header";
@import "components/navigation";
@import "components/messages";
@import "components/tabs";
@import "components/morelinks";
@import "components/blocks";
@import "components/unpublished";
@import "print";
            

Mixins

• Groupings of CSS declarations you define once and reuse throughout website
• Can include variables
• Use cases:
  • retina sprites
  • clearfix
  • breakpoints
  • CSS3/Vendor prefixes

Mixin

@mixin border-radius($radius) {
  -webkit-border-radius: $radius;
     -moz-border-radius: $radius;
      -ms-border-radius: $radius;
          border-radius: $radius;
}
            

SCSS

.hover-content--featured{
  @include border-radius(10px);
  background: $viking;
  font-size: 1.333333333rem;
  font-weight: $semibold;
  height: 100%;
}
            

CSS

.hover-content--featured{
  -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
  -moz-border-radius: 10px;
  -ms-border-radius: 10px;
  border-radius: 10px;
  background: $viking;
  font-size: 1.333333333rem;
  font-weight: $semibold;
  height: 100%;
}
            

Extend/Inheritance

Using @extend lets you share CSS properties from one selector to another.

It really helps keep your CSS DRY.

SCSS

.btn{
  background: $whitesmoke;
  color: $mirage;
  padding: .6rem .8rem;
  padding-right: 2.666666667rem;
}

.btn--expand{
  @extend .btn;
  background: $crimson;
  padding-right: 2.133333333rem;
}
            

CSS

.btn,
.btn--expand{
  background: $whitesmoke;
  color: $mirage;
  padding: .6rem .8rem;
  padding-right: 2.666666667rem;
}

.btn--expand{
  background: $crimson;
  padding-right: 2.133333333rem;
}
            

When do you use a @mixin vs @extend?

@mixin repeats the code every time and the CSS gets bloated

@extend will add the selectors together and then output the code just once

Mixin - SCSS

@mixin element-invisible{
    position: absolute;
    height: 1px;
    width: 1px;
    overflow: hidden;
    }

    .foo{
    @include element-invisible;
    }

    .bar{
    @include element-invisible;
    }
            

Mixin - CSS

.foo{
    position: absolute !important;
    height: 1px;
    width: 1px;
    overflow: hidden;
    }

    .bar{
    position: absolute !important;
    height: 1px;
    width: 1px;
    overflow: hidden;
    }
            

Extend - SCSS

.element-invisible{
position: absolute !important;
height: 1px;
width: 1px;
overflow: hidden;
}

.foo{
@extend element-invisible;
}

.bar{
@extend element-invisible;
}
              

Extend - CSS

.element-invisible,
.foo,
.bar{
  position: absolute !important;
  height: 1px;
  width: 1px;
  overflow: hidden;
}

              

So really, when do you use @mixin vs @extend?

ANSWER:

%placeholder with @extend

Placeholder

Using placeholder (%) with @extend lets you combine the selectors

No worries about unused selectors

SCSS

%element-invisible{
  position: absolute !important;
  height: 1px;
  width: 1px;
  overflow: hidden;
}

.foo{
  @extend element-invisible;
}

.bar{
  @extend element-invisible;
}
            

CSS

.foo,
.bar{
  position: absolute !important;
  height: 1px;
  width: 1px;
  overflow: hidden;
}
            

So when do you use each?

Mixin:

When you use a variable or the output changes

Extend:

when you’re using the original selector already

Placeholder:

when the code is always the same

when you don’t need the original selector

Drupal and Sass

Base themes that support Sass:

• Zen 5
• Omega 4
• Aurora
• Adaptive Theme
• and others…

Getting Started

Install Ruby

• Macs already come with Ruby (win for us!)
• Download Ruby for PC

Open Terminal and run a short command

gem install sass

YAY! YOU’VE INSTALLED SASS

Compiling your Sass

Sass can compile itself

sass --watch path/sass-directory

So can libraries such as Compass or Bourbon, which can also add much more functionality

gem install compass
compass watch
compass compile
            

If you're using a task runner like Gulp and Grunt, that will compile too.

Not a Terminal fan? Try Scout or CodeKit

Sass Challenges

Nesting: can get crazy long and over specific

Versioning: Bundler to keep team members on same gem

Keep output in mind: Using @import to separate out files requires a logical structure

If you write bad CSS, you will write bad Sass

More stuff to Sass out About

Data Types & Control Structures

Lists and Maps

Lists = arrays
Maps = hashes

$social: (
    "facebook":       '\f204',
    "twitter":        '\f202',
    "linkedin":       '\f207',
    "pinterest":      '\f209',
    "github":         '\f200',
    "dribbble":       '\f201',
    "instagram":      '\f215',
    "email":          '\f410'
  );

And can also be multidimensional

$mega-social: (
    "facebook":   ( content: "\f204", coords: 0 0 ),
    "twitter":    ( content: "\f202", coords: 0 -64px ),
    "linkedin":   ( content: "\f207", coords: 0 -128px )
  );

@each

Mixin

@each $network, $content in $social {
  .#{$network} a:before {
    content: $content;
  }
}

CSS

.facebook a:before {
  content: '\f204';
}

.twitter a:before {
  content: '\f202';
}

.linkedin a:before {
  content: '\f207';
}

...

Resources to learn more

• Sass Documentation (Data Types)
• Sass Maps Are Awesome! - Viget
• Maptastic Maple - The Sass Way
• Sass Documentation (Control Directives & Expressions)
• Sass control directives - The Sass Way
• The Future of Sass - David Walsh

Any Questions?

Lauren Byrwa / @labyrwa
Heather Rodriguez / @hrodrig