SMACSS - Speaker Deck

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SMACSS

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Hi, there! I’m Luciano Battagliero @battaglr

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Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS MEANING

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Jonathan Snook WHO

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~2011 WHEN

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A little bit of context BEM ~2009 OOCSS ~2010 SUIT CSS ~2012

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What it’s not

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A framework, a boilerplate or a library

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There’s no code

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What is it, then?

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A series of guidelines, recommendations and advices

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It’s a methodology

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What’s the goal?

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Author organized and structured code

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Easier to build, maintain and scale

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Okay, got it! Let’s dive into that “smacks” thing

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Categoriza- tion

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Every code-base needs some organization

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One of the core aspects is categorization

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There are five categories

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Base, layout, module, state and theme

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Base

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The low-level defaults, or the global scope if you prefer it

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body { margin: 0; }

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b, strong { font-weight: bold; }

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*, *::before, *::after { box-sizing: border-box; }

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Using things like `reset.css` or `normalize.css` It’s okay to use them as long as you know what they do, and don’t remain as a black-box kind of stuff

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Layout

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The main building blocks of a page

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Generally defining structure-related styles

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Based on reuse, we can divide them into major and minor

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Major layouts

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#header { … }

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#sidebar { … }

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#footer { … }

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To ìd`, or not to ìd` There’s no real advantage on using an ìd` over a `class`, and you will be avoiding a potential specificity-related headache

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Minor layouts

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#header { … } .l-fixed #header { … }

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.l-grid { … }

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Namespacing With the exception of `id` selectors, the recommendation is to namespace layouts using an `l-` prefix

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Nesting Layouts will mainly contain modules, although they can contain other layouts too

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Module

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The reusable blocks of a page

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Should be built to work as stand-alone blocks

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Providing flexibility and context independence

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Building modules

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Avoid element selectors

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42 KB

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.folder span { … }

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/* This may be a better idea */ .folder > span { … }

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42 KB 01/01/2021

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.folder > span { … } .folder > span + span { … }

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42 KB 01/01/2021 John Doe

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.folder > span { … } .folder > span + span { … } .folder > span:last-child { … }

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42 KB 01/01/2021 John Doe

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.folder-size { … } .folder-date { … } .folder-owner { … }

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Kind of a bold statement You can use element selectors, but only if they can and will be predictable; also avoid going more than one level deeper

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Namespacing Descendant elements of a module use its name as a prefix

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Subclass modules

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Modifies certain styles of a module

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.nav { … } .nav > li { … }

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.nav { … } .nav > li { … } #sidebar .nav { … } #sidebar .nav > li { … }

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.nav { … } .nav > li { … } .nav-stacked { … } .nav-stacked > li { … }

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…

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Namespacing Subclass modules use as a prefix the name of the base module

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Nesting Modules will be inside layouts, although they can be inside other modules, too

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State

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Describes modules or layouts in a particular state

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Subclass modules are applied at render-time and will not change on run-time

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States may be applied at render or run-time and are likely to be modified at run-time

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States are most likely triggered by user’s actions

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…

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.is-hidden { display: none !important; }

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…

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.tab { … } .is-tab-active { … }

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Namespacing Global states are prefixed with `is-`, while scoped states are prefixed with `is-` followed by the module or layout name

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Theme

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The different variations of look and feel

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Can affect rules of any category

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/* On buttons.css */ .button { border: 1px solid; }

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/* On theme-navy.css */ .button { border-color: #001f3f; }

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Depth of applicability

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The number of generations that are affected by a given rule

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section#contact ul.details li { … }

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#contact .details li { … }

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/* Depth of 3 */ section#contact ul.details li { … } /* Depth of 3 */ #contact .details li { … }

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Heads up! Don’t confuse depth of applicability with specificity

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Keeping the depth as low as possible

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Increases the flexibility and makes the code easier to reuse

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Avoids relying heavily on a specific HTML structure

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Lowers the specificity

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#footer form { padding: .625em; } #footer form > input { display: inline-block; }

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#footer form, #sidebar form { padding: .625em; } #footer form > input, #sidebar form > input { display: inline-block; }