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

Optimizing media queries

Throughout this chapter, we've explored using PostCSS to compile our media queries; while there are plenty of options open to us in terms of what we create, we should be mindful of what we create, to ensure that we're not creating a monster that slows our site down!

PostCSS has a couple of plugins available to help us here. They are:

  • postcss-mq-keyframes: Available at https://github.com/TCotton/postcss-mq-keyframes), this is a simple plugin that moves all keyframes out of existing queries, to the bottom of a style sheet. This allows us to rationalize our keyframe rules—in the event that we have multiple media queries, we can apply the same rule to each of these media queries.

    For example, the highlighted code below would be moved out of the query, and become a rule in its own right:

    @media only screen and (min-width: 415px) {
  .pace {
    animation: pace-anim 5s;
  }

  @keyframes pace-anim {
    100% {
      opacity
  • css-mqpacker: Available at https://github.com/hail2u/node-css-mqpacker), this plugin parses our code and merges any identical rules into one media query rule. It is arguable how much benefit we are likely to get from this plugin; we will likely only see any significant benefit from using it on larger, more complex sites!

Both plugins can be installed using the same process as all of the plugins we've used to date; it's worth noting that we should not overuse our queries. Instead of designing for specific platforms, try designing for instances where content clearly breaks and becomes unusable. The fewer queries we have, the easier it becomes to manage our code; simplicity is absolutely key to a successful site.

Looking further afield, there is one area we should not forget when optimizing our code—what browsers should we support? I'm all for pushing the proverbial browser boat out and using modern browsers where possible. However, some of you may still have to support older browsers (and please don't tell me that includes IE6!). Let's explore an option available in PostCSS to help those of you still having to support applications that really should be put out to pasture, so to speak.