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

Guidelines for plugin building

One of the key benefits of the PostCSS ecosystem is its flexibility—it allows any developer to create any plugin, or adapt existing ones, as long as the license allows for further development!

To help retain a sense of consistency, the developer has issued a series of mandatory guidelines, which should be followed where practical:

  • The name of your plugin should clearly indicate the purpose of that plugin—for example, if you built one to mimic the CSS4 :hover pseudo-class, then postcss-hover would be a good example.
  • It is better to create a plugin that does one thing well, and not one that tries to perform multiple tasks at the same time.
  • Always use the postcss.plugin method when creating plugins—you are then hooking into a common plugin API.
  • Where possible, try to use asynchronous methods—you should also set a node.source for each node, so that PostCSS can generate an accurate source map.
  • Do not use the console when displaying errors—some PostCSS runners do not allow console output. Use result.warn instead to manage errors.
  • Any plugin created and published must be tested, with documented examples (where possible) and a change log in English.
  • If you are writing a plugin for Node, then the postcss-plugin keyword must feature in the package.json file—this is used for feedback about the PostCSS ecosystem.

    Tip

    More details on these guidelines are available at https://github.com/postcss/postcss/blob/master/docs/guidelines/plugin.md.

In addition, it is likely that we will use a task runner of some description, such as Broccoli, Grunt, or Brunch, or as in our case, Gulp. To help retain that consistency, the developer has issued a series of guidelines that should be followed where appropriate:

  • If your plugin uses a config file, then it must always be written in JavaScript, and set to support functions in parameters.
  • When using runners, always set the to and from options, even if your runner doesn't handle writing to disk—this is to ensure that PostCSS generates accurate source maps and displays better syntax errors.
  • PostCSS runners must only use the publicly available asynchronous API—runners should not rely on undocumented methods or properties that may be removed in a future release.
  • Don't simply display the full JavaScript stack when handling CssSyntaxError messages—not every developer is familiar with JavaScript! Instead, make sure any errors are handled gracefully.
  • Any warnings that appear from result.warnings() should be displayed by PostCSS runners; this can be facilitated by using the postcss-logs-warnings or postcss-messages plugins if needed.
  • If your plugin uses the source map option, then by default this will be generated as an inline map by PostCSS. Runners must provide an option to save the map to a separate file, if required.

    Tip

    More details on these guidelines are available at https://github.com/postcss/postcss/blob/master/docs/guidelines/runner.md.

The guidelines provided for plugins are mandatory, but in some cases can be seen as a start point—for example, a change log should always be maintained, but it is up to the developer as to whether this is a HISTORY.md, CHANGELOG.md, or a GitHub Releases document. The trick here is careful planning, and to keep it simple—focus on the basics first, before moving onto more complex projects. We can then get accustomed to what must be provided as a minimum for each plugin, before extending it to cover task runner use.

Okay, let's change tack at this point: one of the guidelines we've covered states that every plugin should be tested as part of normal practice; now is a perfect opportunity to explore what this means in more detail.