SASS/SCSS

What is SASS?

Sass is a CSS pre-processor. So, the question now becomes: What is a CSS pre-processor?

What is a CSS pre-processor

A CSS pre-processor is a scripting language that extends CSS by allowing developers to write code in one language and then compile it into CSS. Some examples of CSS pre-processors include: Sass, Less and Stylus.

What is SCSS? Is it the same as SASS?

When Sass first came out, the main syntax was noticeably different from CSS. It used indentation instead of braces, didn't require semi-colons and had shorthand operators.

Some folks didn't like the variation in syntax. So, SCSS came into sight which has a CSS like syntax.

The difference can be summarised as:

1. SCSS (Sassy CSS): Uses the .scss file extension and is fully compliant with CSS syntax
2. Indented (simply called 'Sass'): Uses .sass file extension and indentation rather than brackets; it is not fully compliant with CSS syntax, but it's quicker to write I'll be writing in SCSS syntax, because that is what I prefer.

Installation

All the installation instructions are clearly written here.
I'll be using Koala (see inside the Applications tab), since I want to keep this tutorial focused on learning SASS/SCSS and not on their installation.

Without any further ado, lets get our hands dirty.

 

SASS/SCSS guide

Variables

Yup, variables. SCSS brings variables to CSS.

Acceptable values for variables include numbers, strings, colors, null, lists and maps.

Variables are defined using the $ symbol.

$primaryColor: blue;

Please Note: All the respective codes are placed in the respective files. For instance: the code that relates to variables is put inside styles/variables/variables.scss.

Scope of variables

Now, just like variables defined in any other language, Sass variables also have scope. This means if you declare a variable within a selector, it is then scoped within that selector.

Check this one out:

$primaryColor: blue;

body {
	$primaryColor: green;
	background-color: $primaryColor;
}

p {
	color: $primaryColor;
}

Compile this and check the color property of p selector.

!global flag

But wait!
What if we want to set a variable global from within a declaration. In that case, we have to use !global flag.

$secondaryColor: green;

div {
	$secondaryColor: blue !global;
	background-color: $primaryColor;
}

span {
	color: $primaryColor;
}

!default flag

This flag is used for providing a default value for a variable. If a value is provided, it is overwritten:

$firstValue: 62.5%;

$firstValue: 24px !default;

body {
	font-size: $firstValue;
}

// body font size = 62.5%

Math

Sass allows us to use mathematical expressions. This can be super useful in case of assigning dimensions to selectors that are dependent on dimensions used by other selectors.

Supported operators include:

"+" Addition
"-" Subtraction
"/" Division
"*" Multiplication
"%" Modulo
"==" Equality
"!=" Inequality

There are 2 cases which you have to keep in mind before using Math expressions in your Sass files. These are:

• First, because the **/** symbol is used in shorthand CSS font properties like font: 14px/16px, if you want to use the division operator on non-variable values (Variable values are values which involve variables. For instance: $fontDiff = $font/15px), you need to wrap them in parentheses like:

  $fontDiff: (14px/16px);
  

• Second, you can't mix value units:

  $container-width: 100% - 20px; //error
  

The above example won't work. Instead, for this particular example you could use the css calc function, as it needs to be interpereted at render time.

$container-width: 100%;

.container {
  width: $container-width;
}

.col-4 {
  width: $container-width / 4;
}

Functions

The coolest part about Sass is its built-in functions. The full list can be explored here -> Functions in Sass/Scss

Nesting

Now, Sass also provides us with the feature of nesting declarations. What that means is that now we can have a declaration inside of another declaration.

Makes sense?
Let's switch back to code!

In CSS, we can perform nesting like this:

.container {
    width: 100%;
}

.container h1 {
    color: red;
}

But in Sass/Scss we can get the same result by writing:

.container {
    width: 100%;
    h1 {
        color: red;
    }
}

Which one sounds more intuitionistic? You got the answer!

Reference the Parent (& operator)

Sass also gives us a way to reference the parent in case of nesting.

a.myAnchor {
    color: blue;
    &:hover {
        text-decoration: underline;
    }
    &:visited {
        color: purple;
    }
}

De-nesting (@at-root directive)

Sass also helps us in de-nesting if we want to. So, if we have written something like this:

.first-component {
    .text { font-size: 1.4rem; }
    .button { font-size: 1.7rem; }
    .second-component {
        .text { font-size: 1.2rem; }
        .button { font-size: 1.4rem; }
    }
}

After sometime, if we want to de-nest .second-component, we can use @at-root:

.first-component {
    .text { font-size: 1.4rem; }
    .button { font-size: 1.7rem; }
    @at-root .second-component {
        .text { font-size: 1.2rem; }
        .button { font-size: 1.4rem; }
    }
}   


/*

generated CSS looks like this

.first-component .text {
  font-size: 1.4rem;
}
.first-component .button {
  font-size: 1.7rem;
}
.second-component .text {
  font-size: 1.2rem;
}
.second-component .button {
  font-size: 1.4rem;
}

*/

Some more info on Nesting

Already loving it? Well, nests are a really great way to save some time and make your styles readable but over-nesting can cause problems with overselection and filesize.

So, the rule of thumb is to:

Always look at what your Sass/Scss compiles to and try to follow the "inception rule"

Inception Rule

Don’t go more than four levels deep.

Imports

Imports allow you to break your styles into separate files and import them into one another.

We can import a .scss file using the @import directive:

@import "grids.scss";

In fact, you don't even really need the extension:

@import "grids";

Partials

Sass also include a concept called partials. If you prefix a .sass or .scss file with an underscore, it will not get compiled to CSS. This is helpful if your file only exists to get imported into a master style.scss and not explicitly compiled.

For Example:

_variable.scss

$primary: #000;

  _header.scss

header {
	color:$primary;
}

  _footer.scss

footer {
	background:$primary;
}

  custom.scss:

@import "_variable.scss";
@import "_header.scss";
@import "_footer.scss";

  custom.css

header {
  color: #000; 
}

footer {
  background: #000; 
}

 

Extends

In Sass, the @extend directive is an outstanding way to inherit already existing styles.

extends.scss

.input {
  border-radius: 3px;
  border: 4px solid #ddd;
  color: #555;
  font-size: 17px;
  padding: 10px 20px;
  display: inline-block;
  outline: 0;
}

.error-input {
  @extend .input;
  border:4px solid #e74c3c;
}

extends.css

.input, .error-input {
	border-radius: 3px;
	border: 4px solid #ddd;
	color: #555;
	font-size: 17px;
	padding: 10px 20px;
	display: inline-block;
	outline: 0; 
}

.error-input {
	border: 4px solid #e74c3c; 
}

Placeholders

The @extend directive allows us to easily share styles between selectors. This is best illustrated with an example:

.scss

.icon {
  transition: background-color ease .2s;
  margin: 0 .5em;
}

.error-icon {
  @extend .icon;
  /* error specific styles... */
}

.info-icon {
  @extend .icon;
  /* info specific styles... */
}

.css (generated css file)

.icon, .error-icon, .info-icon {
  transition: background-color ease .2s;
  margin: 0 .5em;
}

.error-icon {
  /* error specific styles... */
}

.info-icon {
  /* info specific styles... */
}	

Now here comes the interesting part. What if we never use the icon class in our markup and its only purpose is to be there to extend?

The resulting CSS will be slightly larger than it really needs to be because we'll have a style that will never be used. We can get around this with placeholder selectors.

Placeholder selectors

They are very similar to class selectors, but instead of using a period (.) at the start, the percent character (%) is used.

Placeholder selectors have the additional property that they will not show up in the generated CSS, only the selectors that extend them will be included in the output.

.scss

%icon {
  transition: background-color ease .2s;
  margin: 0 .5em;
}

.error-icon {
  @extend %icon;
  /* error specific styles... */
}

.info-icon {
  @extend %icon;
  /* info specific styles... */
}

.css (generated css file)

.error-icon, .info-icon {
  transition: background-color ease .2s;
  margin: 0 .5em;
}

.error-icon {
  /* error specific styles... */
}

.info-icon {
  /* info specific styles... */
}

Mixins

Without question, one of the most powerful and valuable features of Sass is the ability to package up existing code into reusable chunks of code called mixins.

Mixins are like Macros

Mixins are the Sass equivalent of macros in other programming languages.
If you've programmed before you could think of them as functions, procedures, or methods, but they aren't technically any of these concepts because their function is to generate code at compile time not execute code at run time.

  The macros are the ones which generate code at compile time!

This was all for theory. Let's now switch to code!

Implementation

We'll now write a border-radius mixin and use it in our code. Follow along!

.scss

@mixin border-radius($radius) {
  -moz-border-radius: $radius;
  -webkit-border-radius: $radius;
  -ms-border-radius: $radius;
  border-radius: $radius;
}

.css

a.button {
  background: black;
  color: white;
  padding: 10px 20px;
  @include border-radius(5px);
}

/*
generated output

a.button {
  background: black;
  color: white;
  padding: 10px 20px;
  -moz-border-radius: 5px;
  -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
  -ms-border-radius: 5px;
  -o-border-radius: 5px;
  -khtml-border-radius: 5px;
  border-radius: 5px;
}

*/	

Explaining the implementation

• The declaration begins with the directive @mixin and is followed by the name of the mixin. In this case border-radius.
• The name of the mixin can contain any combination of alpha and numeric characters without spaces.
• Then comes the list of arguments that the mixin accepts enclosed in parentheses ( ... ).
• Next comes the definition of the mixin enclosed in braces { ... }. The definition of the mixin can contain any combination of CSS attributes. You can even declare additional rules (with selectors) that will be mixed into your CSS along with the attributes.
• Lastly, the mixins are used with the @include directive followed by the name of the mixin with respective arguments. In this case that was @include border-radius(5px).

Compass-Project Intro

This example lets us use border-radius across all browsers. There is a project dedicated to providing mixins just like that and much more. The name of the project is: Compass-Project and it is thought of as the standard library for Sass.

Default arguments

You can also add default values to the arguments that you pass into your mixin.

.scss

@mixin border-radius($radius: 5px) {
  ...
}

This makes the $radius argument optional. So you can call the mixin without it like this:

@include border-radius;

Which would use the default value i.e. 5px for $radius.

Another way to provide a default value is to declare a variable beforehand and use that as the default value for the mixin:

$default-border-radius: 5px !default;
@mixin border-radius($radius: $default-border-radius) {
 ...
}	

Keyword arguments

Keyword arguments are especially useful when a mixin accepts multiple arguments. If the arguments are defaulted, you can use the name of the argument to set the specific value for an argument, without passing the values of the other arguments.

@mixin border-radius($radius: 5px, $moz: true, $webkit: true, $ms: true) {
	@if $moz    { -moz-border-radius:    $radius; }
	@if $webkit { -webkit-border-radius: $radius; }
	@if $ms     { -ms-border-radius:     $radius; }
	border-radius: $radius;
}

Since all of the arguments have default values, you could turn off support for just Internet Explorer by calling the mixin like this:

@include border-radius($ms: false);

This is much simpler than calling the mixin with each of the arguments without names:

@include border-radius(5px, true, true, true);

With keyword arguments, you don't even have to call out to the mixin with the arguments in the same order that they were declared:

@include border-radius($ms: false, $radius: 10px);	

Another Example of mixins

@mixin media($queryString){
    @media #{$queryString} {
      @content;
    }
}

Please Note: The Sass interpolation syntax, #{}. When you put a variable in between the braces, it is printed rather than evaluated.

Another Note: Another piece of our puzzle is the @content directive. When you wrap a mixin around content using braces, the wrapped content becomes available via the @content directive.

The above point can be illustrated by the following example:

.container {
    width: 900px;
    @include media("(max-width: 767px)"){
    	/*
    	to use the styles inside this block, we have to use @content
		otherwise the following error will pop up:
		   Mixin "media" does not accept a content block.
		*/
    	
  	     width: 100%;
    }
}

/*

generated output

.container {
  width: 900px;
}
@media (max-width: 767px) {
  .container {
    width: 100%;
  }
}

*/

Function Directives

They are similar to mixins except they return values instead of returning markups.

Let's understand this by code:

@function getColumnWidth($width, $columns, $margin){
    @return ($width / $columns) - ($margin * 2);
}

Now, this can be used by:

$container-width: 100%;
$column-count: 4;
$margin: 1%;

.container {
  width: $container-width;
}

.column {
  background: #1abc9c;
  height: 200px;
  display: block;
  float: left;
  width: getColumnWidth($container-width,$column-count,$margin);
  margin: 0 $margin;
}

Resources

1. scotch.io
2. The Sass Way

Bugs and Issues

Have a bug or an issue? Open a new issue here on GitHub.

Author

Nikhil Arora

Find me at:

1. https://twitter.com/iamoperand
2. https://github.com/iamoperand