@thi.ng/hiccup-css

@thi.ng/hiccup-css

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[!NOTE] This is one of 190 standalone projects, maintained as part of the @thi.ng/umbrella monorepo and anti-framework.

🚀 Please help me to work full-time on these projects by sponsoring me on GitHub. Thank you! ❤️

About

CSS from nested JS data structures. This is a support package for @thi.ng/hiccup.

Following a similar pattern as the @thi.ng/hiccup package, this library generates CSS from plain nested arrays / data structures, functions, iterators.

Features

  • Uses JS arrays to define selector scopes
  • Uses JS object to define selector properties
    • Multiple objects per scope are combined automatically
  • Supports nested selectors and computes their cartesian products
  • Optional CSS class scoping
  • DOM stylesheet injection
  • Configurable auto-prefixed properties & vendor prefixes (disabled by default)
  • Automatically consumes embedded iterators
  • Supports embedded functions, either:
    • to define entire selector branches/scopes
    • to produce single selector items
    • to produce property values
  • Quoted functions to support CSS-as-JSON definitions
  • Various @-rule function wrappers:
    • @import
    • @keyframes
    • @media (incl. nested media queries)
    • @namespace
    • @supports
  • Attribute selector functions
  • Unit formatting wrappers (no conversions yet)
  • Customizable formatting (2 defaults for compact & pretty printing)

Use cases

  • Same as LESS / SASS etc., but enables full use of ES6 to define style rules
  • CSS framework & theme generators
  • Dynamic CSS generation for components

The overall approach of using S-expressions was inspired by these Clojure projects:

Status

STABLE - used in production

Search or submit any issues for this package

Related packages

Installation

yarn add @thi.ng/hiccup-css

ES module import:

<script type="module" src="https://cdn.skypack.dev/@thi.ng/hiccup-css"></script>

Skypack documentation

For Node.js REPL:

const hiccupCss = await import("@thi.ng/hiccup-css");

Package sizes (brotli'd, pre-treeshake): ESM: 2.23 KB

Dependencies

Usage examples

Several projects in this repo's /examples directory are using this package:

ScreenshotDescriptionLive demoSource
hdom update performance benchmark w/ config optionsDemoSource
Generating pure CSS image transitionsDemoSource
Scroll-based, reactive, multi-param CSS animation basicsDemoSource

API

Generated API docs

import * as css from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css()

Signature: css(rules: any, opts?: CSSOpts): string

This is the main function exposed by this module. It accepts a JS data structure (array, object, iterator or function) and returns a CSS string. The optional opts arg is used to control formatting, auto-prefixing and other conversion options. See api.ts for reference.

By default the generated CSS uses the css.COMPACT format, causing "minimized" outputs. Pretty printing is supported via the css.PRETTY format preset, see examples further below.

Property formatting only

This feature is only intended for setting an element's .style attrib:

import { css, percent, px } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css({
position: "absolute",
border: 0,
// function is evaluated during serialization
top: () => percent((Math.random() * 100) | 0),
// the entire properties object is passed to functions
left: (props) => px(props.border),
// arrays are joined with `,`
// nested arrays are joined w/ ` `
font: [["72px", "ComicSans"], "sans-serif"]
});

// "position:absolute;border:0;top:23%;left:0px;font:72px ComicSans,sans-serif;"

Basic selectors

import { css, rem, PRETTY } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(
[
["html", "body", { margin: 0, padding: 0 }],
["div", { "max-width": rem(30)}],
["div.title", { color: "red" }]
],
{ format: PRETTY }
);
html, body {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}

div {
max-width: 30rem;
}

div.title {
color: red;
}

Property object merging & re-use

import { css, PRETTY } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

// re-usable property snippets
const border = { border: "1px solid black" };
const red = { color: "red" };

css(
[
["#foo", { background: "white" }, border, red],
["#bar", { background: "yellow", color: "black" }, border]
],
{ format: PRETTY }
);
#foo {
background: white;
border: 1px solid black;
color: red;
}

#bar {
background: yellow;
color: black;
border: 1px solid black;
}

Iterators & CSS class scoping

import * as tx from "@thi.ng/transducers";

// single rule generator
// e.g. `[".w25", { width: "25%" }]`
const prop = (id, key) => (x) => [id + x, {[key]: css.percent(x)}];

css.css(
// define iterator to produce a number of width & height css classes
// `juxt` is used to process given percentage values in parallel and produces a tuple
// `mapcat` is used to dissolve the tuple and produce a flat stream of generated rules
// REMEMBER: iterators are lazy and can only be consumed once (not a problem here)
tx.iterator(
tx.mapcat(tx.juxt(prop(".w", "width"), prop(".h", "height"))),
tx.range(25, 101, 25)
),
// supply a scope ID (suffix) for all class names
{ format: css.PRETTY, scope: "_xyz" }
);
.w25_xyz {
width: 25%;
}

.h25_xyz {
height: 25%;
}

.w50_xyz {
width: 50%;
}

.h50_xyz {
height: 50%;
}

.w75_xyz {
width: 75%;
}

.h75_xyz {
height: 75%;
}

.w100_xyz {
width: 100%;
}

.h100_xyz {
height: 100%;
}

Nested selectors

Selector nesting can be easily done via array nesting. Each new nesting level defines a child scope of the current selector. The actual CSS selectors are computed using the cartesian product of any selectors in the current scope and their previously defined parents:

import { css, rem, withAttrib, PRETTY } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(
["header", "footer", { "font-size": rem(1.25) },
["nav", { background: "#000", color: "#666" },
["ul", { "list-style": "none" }],
["li", { padding: rem(0.5) },
[withAttrib("selected"), { color: "#0cf" }]]]],
{ format: PRETTY }
)
header nav ul, footer nav ul {
list-style: none;
}

header nav li[selected], footer nav li[selected] {
color: #0cf;
}

header nav li, footer nav li {
padding: 0.5rem;
}

header nav, footer nav {
background: #000;
color: #666;
}

header, footer {
font-size: 1.25rem;
}

Parent selector

Child selectors can use the special & prefix to refer to their direct parent to form derived selectors, for example:

import { css, PRETTY } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(
["#test", { color: "white" },
["&.alt", { color: "black" }],
["&-alt-bg", { background: "black" }]],
{ format: css.PRETTY }
);
#test.alt {
color: black;
}

#test-alt-bg {
background: black;
}

#test {
color: white;
}

The &-prefixed selectors only refer to their immediate parent, but otherwise behave like all other nested selectors:

import { css, PRETTY } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(
["outer1", "outer2",
[".inner1", ".inner2", { color: "red" },
["&--green", { color: "green" }],
["&--blue", { color: "blue" }]]],
{ format: css.PRETTY }
);
outer1 .inner1--green, outer1 .inner2--green,
outer2 .inner1--green, outer2 .inner2--green {
color: green;
}

outer1 .inner1--blue, outer1 .inner2--blue,
outer2 .inner1--blue, outer2 .inner2--blue {
color: blue;
}

outer1 .inner1, outer1 .inner2,
outer2 .inner1, outer2 .inner2 {
color: red;
}

Pseudo-classes

Pseudo-classes follow the same pattern as other nested selectors shown above:

import { css, PRETTY } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(
["p", ["a", [":link", {color: "red"}], [":visited", {border: 0}]]],
{ format: PRETTY }
);
p a:link {
color:red;
}

p a:visited {
border: 0;
}

Attribute selectors

hiccup-css selector functionCSS
withAttrib(id)[id]
attribEq(id, x, caseSensitve?)[id=x]
attribContains(id, x, caseSensitve?)[id~=x]
attribPrefix(id, x, caseSensitve?)[id^=x]
attribSuffix(id, x, caseSensitve?)[id$=x]
attribMatches(id, x, caseSensitve?)[id*=x]

Auto-prefixed properties

(Currently, only prefixed properties are supported. Auto-prefixing based on property values is planned, but currently low priority.)

import { css, PRETTY } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(
["div", {"border-radius": "4px"}],
{ autoprefix: ["border-radius"], format: PRETTY }
);
div {
-moz-border-radius: 4px;
-ms-border-radius: 4px;
-o-border-radius: 4px;
-webkit-border-radius: 4px;
border-radius: 4px;
}

Media queries

Media queries (optionally nested) are supported via the at_media() and at_supports() functions, both taking an object (or string) of conditionals and a body which will be based to css().

The key-value pairs of the conditional object are interpreted as follows and ALWAYS combined using and:

Key/Value pairResult
"min-width": "10rem"(min-width: 10rem)
print: trueprint
print: false(not print)
print: "only"only print

Note: In CSS Level 3, the not operator can't be used to negate an individual media feature expression, only an entire media query.

import { css, at_media, percent, rem, PRETTY } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(
at_media(
{ screen: true, "min-width": rem(10) },
[
[".col", { width: percent(50)}],
[
at_media(
{ "min-width": "20rem" },
[".col", { padding: rem(1) }]
)
]
]
),
{ format: PRETTY }
);
@media screen and (min-width:10rem) {

.col {
width: 50%;
}

@media (min-width:20rem) {

.col {
padding: 1rem;
}

}

}

Keyframes

import { css, at_keyframes, PRETTY } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(
at_keyframes("fadein", { opacity: 0 }, { opacity: 1 }),
{ format: PRETTY }
);
@keyframes fadein {

0% {
opacity: 0;
}

100% {
opacity: 1;
}

}
import { css, at_keyframes, PRETTY } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(
at_keyframes(
"rgbfade",
{
0: {
color: "red"
},
50: {
color: "green"
},
100: {
color: "blue"
}
}
),
{ format: PRETTY }
);
@keyframes rgbfade {

0% {
color: red;
}

50% {
color: green;
}

100% {
color: blue;
}

}

Animations

Animations can be defined via the animation() function and define new @keyframes with given id and related class of same name to configure given animation opts. Only the durationoption is given a default value (250ms), all others are optional.

import { css, animation } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(
animation(
"delayed-fade-in",
{ delay: "0.5s" },
{ opacity: 0 },
{ opacity: 1 }
)
);

Results in:

@keyframes delayed-fade-in {
0% {
opacity: 0;
}
100% {
opacity: 1;
}
}

.delayed-fade-in {
animation-duration: 250ms;
animation-name: delayed-fade-in;
animation-delay: 0.5s;
}

DOM stylesheet injection

CSS strings can be installed into the DOM <head> element via injectStyleSheet():

import { css, injectStyleSheet } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

injectStyleSheet(
css([
"body", { background: "#000", color: "#fff" }
])
);

General function handling

Functions are handled differently based on their position in the rule tree. Also see the section on Quoted functions below...

Functions in scope head position

If a function is given as arg to css() or is in the head position (first element) of a rule scope, the function is expected to produce output directly and is called with an empty result accumulator array and the CSSOpts object passed to css(). This form is mainly used by the various at_*() functions provided (e.g. at_media() example above).

import { css, at_import } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css(at_import("foo.css", "screen"));
// "@import url(foo.css) screen;"

The following example illustrates the head position placement, using the comment() function to emit CSS comments.

import { css, comment } from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

css([
// comments are usually omitted with the default format (css.COMPACT)
// pass `true` as 2nd arg to force inclusion
comment("generated, please don't edit", true),
["div", { margin: 0 }]
]);
// "/*generated, don't edit*/div{margin:0;}"

Functions in other positions

If a function is located anywhere else in a rule scope array (2nd index or later), it will be called without arguments and the return value used in its place. Any returned functions will be eval'd recursively in the same manner.

Quoted functions

One of this project's use cases is to support stylesheets defined as JSON. Since functions cannot be used there, an optional mechanism to map strings to functions is provided:

["function-name", ...args]

The quoted function name is looked up in a dictionary and if found, called with all remaining elements in the same array. I.e. ["@import", "foo.css"] will be the same result as at_import("foo.css").

IMPORTANT: Quoted functions are only supported in the head position of a scope.

import * as css from "@thi.ng/hiccup-css";

const styles = [
["@comment", " CSS from JSON"],
["@import", "print.css", "print"],
["@media",
{ "screen": true, "min-width": "10em" },
["div", { "font-size": "80%" }]
],
["@keyframes", "fadein", { "opacity": 0}, { "opacity": 1 }]
];

css.css(styles, { format: css.PRETTY, fns: css.QUOTED_FNS });

// btw. QUOTED_FNS is simply:
const QUOTED_FNS = {
"@comment": css.comment,
"@import": css.at_import,
"@keyframes": css.at_keyframes,
"@media": css.at_media,
"@namespace": css.at_namespace,
"@supports": css.at_supports,
}
/*
CSS from JSON
*/
@import url(print.css) print;
@media screen and (min-width:10em) {

div {
font-size: 80%;
}

}

@keyframes fadein {

0% {
opacity: 0;
}

100% {
opacity: 1;
}

}

Authors

If this project contributes to an academic publication, please cite it as:

@misc{thing-hiccup-css,
title = "@thi.ng/hiccup-css",
author = "Karsten Schmidt",
note = "https://thi.ng/hiccup-css",
year = 2016
}

License

© 2016 - 2024 Karsten Schmidt // Apache License 2.0

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