I very frequently use the CSS line numbers in Inspect Element to find where a rule is in a particular CSS file. When Sass outputs a CSS file, it imposes its own style rules on it which really don't line up 1:1 with how my SCSS is formatted. This makes it hard to find CSS rules in my code because none of the line numbers match. It's completely disturbing my workflow and is a major barrier to my further adoption of Sass.
I've already looked at sass --style=expanded and sass --style=compressed but neither of them come anywhere close to matching the whitespace style I want.
What I really need is a way to make Dart leave all my whitespace and line breaks exactly as they are, and minify mixins down to a single line each. Something you might call --style=preserve-line-numbers Is it possible?
No. That is not possible by SASS itself.
If you like you may have a look to the avaiable styles:
https://sass-lang.com/documentation/js-api#outputstyle
But to be honest: if you use SASS in the intended way with nested styles, mixins, using modules ... the compiled CSS will considerably differ from the SASS code anyway. That even applys to the line numbers. So your problem is a common challenge in the coding process.
As fast debugging is important SASS offers mapping technique:
If activated you are able to see the source code in the browser on the fly. That's really easy and should meet your demands. Maybe you like to have a look on it. Here is a good overview to it: https://thesassway.com/using-source-maps-with-sass-3-3/
Or however if not that way there is another little trick/workarround which may help:
Most SASS projects organize/structures code in partial files (which doesn't make it possible to keep line numbers). That's for different reasons and speeds up working as well. If you do so you just start every file with a CSS comment which notes the file name only. As comments are shown in the browser tools you are able to find the relevant SASS source file without mapping ... and as partial files are almost not as long finding the relevant code (which differs from the CSS) should not longer be the problem.
// ### examples partial filename in a CSS comment
/* base-typography */
...
/* base-forms */
...
/* section-hero */
...
That is not as fast as mapping technique I would really recommend. But finding the code that way is faster than try to keep line numbers exactly the same and missing that way a lot of other advantages of SASS which speeds up my work (like nestings, setting SASS only comments, using mixins and modules ...).
I'm a full stack developer that uses sass (.scss) for styling. However, my backend crew, when they have to make front end changes, use css because they are comfortable with it.
I have to convert the css to scss every time manually or else I will overwrite their changes. Is there a way to update my scss file to pull in css changes automatically?
My IDE is PhpStorm (if that helps anybody)
SASS version 3.4.24
I don't see a plugin for PHPStorm to do that; you might have to make one yourself. But even if you do, the SCSS it'd produce probably wouldn't be much better than the CSS you already have. It's silly to convert to SCSS only to compile back to CSS. The whole point of SCSS is so that you don't have to write CSS.
You could convert the CSS to SCSS with sites like this one. Again, results will probably not be much better than if you just kept it CSS.
My solution would be to split the CSS file. One part would be for the stubborn devs, while the other one is the CSS compiled from the SCSS you like to use. So, they can work in CSS, and you can work in SCSS.
You probably need a workplace solution before a technical one.
When you're in flow, it's hard to stop yourself and make sure all the css properties you are using have the right compliance.
Is there a way to analyze css files, and see where I could have used compass mixins to maximize browser compatibility?
SassMeister is a playground that specializes only in Sass-related stuff.
http://sassmeister.com/
Of course, SassMeister lets you choose the syntax you feel more comfortable with and you even can choose the output style (expanded, compressed, and so on). Most importantly, because SassMeister is specific to Sass, it allows you to import Sass libraries (Compass extensions actually). You can even propose your own extensions if you think they should be added.
Update - 20140614:
After not getting any answers to this question, or on github,
I decided to come up with my own solution to the problem.
I was using Compass for a number of things,
but its main utility was in its ability to generated image sprites.
Most other things could be accomplished using pure SCSS.
Thus, I wrote broccoli-sprite.
This, used in conjunction with ember-cli's built in support for SCSS
using broccoli-sass,
was able to meet my needs.
You can read more about the process here.
Original question:
With Sass, but without Compass, is it possible to create CSS sprites?
I am looking for a way to accomplish the equivalent output as this Sass + Compass would accomplish:
#import"compass/utilities/sprites";
$icon-layout: smart;
$icon-sprite-dimensions: true;
#import"icon/*.png";
#include all-icon-sprites;
#import"compass/css3/images";
Essentially this would comprise of two things:
Joining several images together
Generating the CSS classes such that background-image would point to the joined image, and the coordinates and dimensions for it to show just the right section of the joined image.
The latter, generating the CSS classes should be do-able using Sass, however, is the former, joining several images, possible? If so, how can this be done?
NOTE: Am not sure if anyone has done this before, mainly because googling "image sprites with sass without compass" and "image sprites with sass -compass" simply did not return any relevant results.
Sass itself will not help you with sprites generation.
You'll have to use a task runner to achieve that. As you're not willing to use Compass, i assume you're in a Node environment.
The most popular (but not the best there is) task runner is Grunt.
Grunt has a number of recipes for sprite generation. I managed to google up some for you (in no particular order):
https://www.npmjs.org/package/grunt-sprite
https://www.npmjs.org/package/grunt-imagine
https://www.npmjs.org/package/grunt-sprite-generator
https://www.npmjs.org/package/grunt-spritesmith
https://www.npmjs.org/package/grunt-sprite-packer
I've just been assigned the task to refactor a huge 5000 line CSS file... but here's the worst part - I also need to make it IE6 compatible. Any CSS gurus have suggestions of tools, or possibly tips (common pitfalls) for use in my monolithic expedition? Cheers.
checkout sass... it includes the ability to convert css to sass.
http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/docs/rdoc/classes/Sass.html
A sass file is a yaml file that can be parsed down into a css file. It allows you to use variables and alternate organization...
sass example:
!main_color = #00ff00
#main
:color = !main_color
:p
:background-color = !main_color
:color #000000
css output:
#main {
color: #00ff00; }
#main p {
background-color: #00ff00;
color: #000000; }
Some tips:
Use version control so you can roll back when needed.
Come up with a checklist of visual tests to run through after each change, in each browser. A spreadsheet of URL links and things to look for, building on them as you run across problems (think "unit tests" but not automated).
Use a CSS-specific beautifier first to get everything into the format you prefer for braces, etc.
Consider using something like SASS to "compile" your CSS as you go along.
Comment the heck out of things, especially where you're doing IE6-specific stuff.
Future-proof yourself by building a separate file with IE6-specific directives as you go along, or at least use Microsoft's way of filtering them out for other browsers.
Use the W3C Validation often.
Mechanically, I would attack it like this:
<link type="text/css" href="newhotness.css" />
<link type="text/css" href="newhotness-ie6.css" />
<link type="text/css" href="oldandbusted.css" />
Move code from the third (old) file into the other two, cleaning up as you go. That way you can validate your code without worrying about tons of errors in the old stuff, and you can track your progress, Ctrl-Tab between them more easily than between locations in a single file, etc.
(If you can't control the markup to add your CSS files, use an #import at the top of the old file.)
Start from scratch!
Assuming you can check all the major pages manually, I would be VERY tempted to wipe the entire file and start from scratch. Spot-checking for IE6 inconsistencies, you'll be doing nearly the same amount of work anyway, but it will be much, much more painful if you're modifying old, browser-specific CSS.
That 5000 lines may well be expressable in 2000 lines of modern, well-designed CSS. I think most experienced CSS developers would find it less work to write 2k lines of new CSS than modify 5k lines of horrible CSS.
http://www.codebeautifier.com/
which is based on this:
http://csstidy.sourceforge.net/
Not necessarily CSS, but here's worflow tip: use GIT.
start off by importing the files in git;
commit for every minor step, and record what you did;
whenever you find that you broke something, you can identify the exact same step broke using git bisect ( a good description );
For extra kicks, here's a talk about code coverage for CSS to help you quickly weed out unused rules.
As Triptych said, I would start from scratch. Also, consider the following:
use a CSS reset file to smooth out cross-browser inconsistencies: http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/05/01/reset-reloaded/
get it working perfectly in Firefox, then tweak for other browsers as needed
study the underlying HTML. How is it organized? Is it laid out with tables? all DIVs? Semantic tagging?
is the CSS used for layout or simply styling (fonts, colors, etc.)?
Once you get a feel for that, study the content. Categorize the layout and elements as much as possible, so that you identify all the common elements and can maximize the efficiency of your CSS
remember the C in CSS, Make the most commonly used font the body font, so that other elements will inherit it by default.
use relative units (ems) for font size, to allow proper scaling of text
try not to use ANY inline styles
make use of Firebug - it will let you inspect an element and see exactly what CSS is in effect and where the rules came from
don't be afraid to re-use portions of the old CSS, especially for things like dropdown menus, which can need very specific incantations to work properly
have fun! starting from scratch lets you implement best practices and learn a ton along the way. When you are done you are probably going to look back on this as a good experience.
there is a presentation here that should get you in the right headspace for tackling this task: CSS Systems
I would be tempted into creating a test suite first: automating page visits (perhaps with Selenium?), taking screenshots, then using something like ImageMagick to compare those with reference images.
Also, I second all the suggestions to use source control. If you later discover that your refactorings broke something that wasn't checked by the test suite, you can add a new test and then bisect your history to find the change that broke it. Git is good for that.
Get a code editor with good syntax highlighting. Also, goodluck I dont envy you.
My initial thought was does some like NCover exist for CSS, as it would be handy to see if all of the CSS is referenced. A quick Google on CSS code coverage found a few things- you might want to look yourself though: http://development.lombardi.com/?p=436
Install sass, run css2sass on your 5000 lines of css, proceed. After you are done with your sass file refactoring, run sass2css to regenerate the css file. Best of luck!
I'd suggest Stylizer - it is a CSS editor with an embedded live preview browser. It makes life much easier when editing CSS files and can tell you which rules affect which element on the page and more.
All of you guys saying he should start from scratch are wrong. You shouldn't. Try to identify the different parts the site uses. Put them on a sheet of paper. Find the parts that match together. Build a structure. Find parts of the application that are the same but are still styled with different rules.
Take that one part and name it. Then match all app parts that use that "pattern" with the correct HTML/CSS.
Repeat until you're done. Break up the large task in small chunks.
Identify whether the original CSS writer used standard methods like using a CSS reset. If he didn't, and everything is defined by #id without reusable classes, well, then maybe the guys saying you should start from scratch are in fact right. But my point here is that you can't just recommend that without assessing the situation.
Using the Dust-Me Selectors Firefox Plugin can be handy. It's a bit like a code coverage tool for CSS.
Tool suggestion: ReSharper by JetBrains. It will autocomplete CSS and rename selectors site wide from the CSS file editing window.