Table of Contents for
Mastering PostCSS for Web Design

Version ebook / Retour

Cover image for bash Cookbook, 2nd Edition Mastering PostCSS for Web Design by Alex Libby Published by Packt Publishing, 2016
  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Mastering PostCSS for Web Design
  4. Mastering PostCSS for Web Design
  5. Credits
  6. About the Author
  7. About the Reviewer
  8. www.PacktPub.com
  9. Preface
  10. What you need for this book
  11. Who this book is for
  12. Conventions
  13. Reader feedback
  14. Customer support
  15. 1. Introducing PostCSS
  16. Introducing PostCSS
  17. Setting up a development environment
  18. Creating a simple example using PostCSS
  19. Linting code using plugins
  20. Exploring how PostCSS works
  21. Summary
  22. 2. Creating Variables and Mixins
  23. Creating a hover effect example
  24. Transitioning to using PostCSS
  25. Adding variable support to PostCSS
  26. Updating our hover effect demo
  27. Setting the order of plugins
  28. Creating mixins with PostCSS
  29. Looping content with PostCSS
  30. Summary
  31. 3. Nesting Rules
  32. Navigating through pages
  33. Transitioning to using PostCSS plugins
  34. Exploring the pitfalls of nesting
  35. Making the switch to BEM
  36. Exploring our changes in more detail
  37. Summary
  38. 4. Building Media Queries
  39. Exploring custom media queries in PostCSS
  40. Making images responsive
  41. Adding responsive text support
  42. Optimizing media queries
  43. Retrofitting support for older browsers
  44. Moving away from responsive design
  45. Taking things further with CSS4
  46. Summary
  47. 5. Managing Colors, Images, and Fonts
  48. Managing fonts with PostCSS
  49. Creating image sprites
  50. Working with SVG in PostCSS
  51. Adding support for WebP images
  52. Manipulating colors and color palettes
  53. Creating color functions with PostCSS
  54. Summary
  55. 6. Creating Grids
  56. Creating an example with Bourbon Neat
  57. Exploring the grid plugins in PostCSS
  58. Transitioning to using PostCSS-Neat
  59. Creating a site using Neat and PostCSS
  60. Adding responsive capabilities
  61. Summary
  62. 7. Animating Elements
  63. Moving away from jQuery
  64. Making use of pre-built libraries
  65. Switching to using SASS
  66. Making the switch to PostCSS
  67. Exploring plugin options within PostCSS
  68. Updating code to use PostCSS
  69. Creating a demo in PostCSS
  70. Optimizing our animations
  71. Using our own animation plugin
  72. Summary
  73. 8. Creating PostCSS Plugins
  74. Dissecting the architecture of a standard plugin
  75. Creating an transition plugin
  76. Building a custom font plugin
  77. Simplifying the development process
  78. Guidelines for plugin building
  79. Making the plugin available for use
  80. Summary
  81. 9. Working with Shortcuts, Fallbacks, and Packs
  82. Exploring plugin packs for PostCSS
  83. Adding shortcuts with Rucksack
  84. Linting and optimizing your code
  85. Providing fallback support
  86. Summary
  87. 10. Building a Custom Processor
  88. Exploring our processor
  89. Dissecting issues with our processor
  90. Optimizing the output
  91. Adding reload capabilities
  92. Extending our processor further
  93. Testing the final pre-processor
  94. Getting started with some hints and tips
  95. Introducing the CSStyle library
  96. Summary
  97. 11. Manipulating Custom Syntaxes
  98. Preparing our environment
  99. Implementing custom syntax plugins
  100. Parsing CSS
  101. Formatting the output with the API
  102. Highlighting our syntax code
  103. Summary
  104. 12. Mixing Preprocessors
  105. Exploring the conversion process
  106. Introducing the Pleeease library
  107. Compiling with other preprocessors
  108. Using the PreCSS library
  109. Converting a WordPress installation
  110. Setting up our environment
  111. Considering the conversion process
  112. Making changes to our code
  113. Compiling and testing the changes
  114. Summary
  115. 13. Troubleshooting PostCSS Issues
  116. Exploring some common issues
  117. Getting help from others
  118. Summary
  119. 14. Preparing for the Future
  120. Converting CSS4 styles for use
  121. Supporting future syntax with cssnext
  122. Creating plugins to provide extra CSS4 support
  123. Summary
  124. Index

Chapter 1. Introducing PostCSS

A key part of any website is styling—it doesn't matter if this is for a simple element tag or a complex animation; a website is not a website without color and action. Building styles for any online presence takes time and effort—we can reduce development time by using a preprocessor to automate the creation of styles, automatically apply vendor prefixes and the like, but the extra dependency of a library can be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut!

Enter PostCSS—its unique modular style allows us to create a leaner, faster CSS processor, with no external dependencies. In this chapter, we look at installing PostCSS, understanding its architecture, and learn how to use its speed and power to compile code into valid CSS. We will cover a number of topics throughout this chapter, which will include the following:

  • Considering the benefits of creating our own preprocessor
  • Introducing PostCSS and exploring its features
  • Setting up a development environment using PostCSS
  • Creating a simple example using PostCSS
  • Exploring how PostCSS works and its architecture

Let's make a start…!

Note

All of the exercises in this book are written for the Windows platform; please adjust accordingly if you use a different operating system.

Discovering the art of processing

A question: what do SASS, Stylus, Haml, and Less all have in common?

The answer is, they are all compilers, source to source compiling, or transpilers (to give them their official name), that have been around since the 1980s. They have appeared in many different formats, with Digital Research's XLT86 being one of the earliest versions, dating from 1981.

More recently, the well-known SASS processor arrived in 2006; this was followed by Less, created by Alexis Sellier in 2009. Both work in a similar fashion: they take a set of rules and compile it into valid CSS. We can extend CSS with all manner of features, such as variables, mixins, functions, and more. Although processors may not help cut down the physical number of lines we have to write, they help us reorganize code into more manageable blocks that we can reuse in future projects, which helps make CSS easier to maintain.

But, as is nearly always the case, there are some drawbacks to using processors:

  • There is nearly always a dependency involved, in some form or other—with SASS, it's Ruby; if you're using Less, it's a library, even though it is written in JavaScript
  • Our project may only use a small amount of preprocessed code, yet we are forced to rely on what can be a large library, such as SASS
  • Processing style sheets using a preprocessor is slow; it may only be a few seconds, but this builds up over time to become a significant amount of time spent waiting for processes to complete

Hmm, this doesn't make processing so attractive! But what if there were a way to alleviate all of these issues, and remove the need for dependencies at the same time?

Well, there is: let's build our own processor! Okay, this might sound a little crazy, but as someone once said, there is method in this madness, so bear with me while I explain why this may be a better option.