dh-kickstart-style v0.1.0

An design-free, modular OOCSS Sass 3.3 (.scss) architecture for modern projects. Part of my dh-kickstart project boilerplate.

As most developers I find myself constantly re-inventing this kind of stuff. However awesome other people's projects are, I keep wanting to reinvent the wheel. This is simply my opinionated CSS kickstarter for new projects. Stubborn me ;)

So anyway: this is mine. It's not finished. There will be bugs etc. etc. Take a look and feel free to re-use parts of it. Also feel free to tell me where it could be improved.

• About
• Overview
• Naming conventions
• Notes
• Install / Use
• Thanks

About

Most 'frameworks' use conventions I'm not 100% happy with and seem bloated for my use-case. So I reinvent the weel. Don't judge: it's what I like and I learn loads from it :)

• Modular: uncomment in /style.scss what you don't need (but that'd not be much…)
• Modern: Keepin' it lean: no kb's 'supporting' oldIE etc.
  • Take a look at helpers/_settings.scss though!
• Design-Free: structural styles mainly. Very little design to override.
• 'Opinionated': build on my experience in CSS Architecture. See the Notes below

Overview

• Sass 3.3 .scss
• Modular architecture based on SMACSS (and others)
  ..with only one file (style.scss) that compiles to CSS
• Collection of modular, responsive, OOCSS Components
  • Stand-alone objects e.g: /components/_media.scss
    • Easily en/disable them in /style.scss
  • Mobile-First
  • Structural Styles 'only'. Little to no 'design' to override
• Normalize.css v3.0.0
• No prefixes!
  • I use AutoPrefixer for that. So should you…
  • Ditch all these (outdated) mixins-for-prefixes
• Uses box-sizing everywhere. Yes: ancient IE got this right…
• rem() mixin with px fallback for layout
  • Don't need a px-fallback for rem? Change $rem-px in helpers/_settings.scss
    ..and update mixins/_rem.scss

Naming conventions

I try to adhere to a generic OOCSS approach. Much inspiration from (and many thanks to) SMACSS, BEM, INUIT CSS

Classnames

• Component: .component-name -› .media
• Sub-object: .component-name__sub-object -› .media__img
• Modifier: .component-name__sub-object--modifier -› .media__img--reversed
• State: .is-some-state -› .is-active, .is-hidden
• Layout helpers: .l-helper -› .l-float-left, .l-1of2

Grid- and grit units are the exception: no prefix there: .grid and .grid__unit

I'm on the fence re: Javascript selectors. I like to use data- attr. for these but one could also use .js- prefixed classnames. As long as it's consistent.

Sass Variables

Most Sass variables are prefixed so that one knows what type to expect:

• $cl-* Color value: * $cl-black, $cl-accent, $cl-link-hover
• $ff-* Font family value: * $ff-body, $ff-headings
• $fs-* Font size value: * $fs-base-px, $fs-base-pc
• $ln-* Line- value (height:unitless): * $ln-height
• $pd-* Padding value: * $pd-default
• $mg-* Margin value: * $mg-default
• $bd-* Border value: * $bd-radius
• $mq-* Media Query: * $mq-narrow, $mq-medium, $mq-wide

Colors are both named after their color ($cl-grey) and after their use ($cl-border). This allows us to do:

$cl-grey: #CCC;       // No need to remember #CCC
$cl-border: $cl-grey; // .. but using $cl-border in components

Folder Structure

dh-kickstart-style/
|- style.scss                // ONLY compiled CSS. @imports all the rest
|- helpers/
|    |- _settings.scss
|    |- _functions.scss
|    |- _mixins.scss
|    |- _utils.scss          // imported after Base
|- base/
|    |- _normalize.scss
|    |- _webfonts.scss
|    |- _doc.scss
|    |- _hyperlinks.scss
|    |- _type.scss
|    |- _lists.scss
|    |- _images.scss
|    |- _tables.scss
|    |- _forms.scss
|    |- ...
|- layout/
|    |- _grids.scss
|    |- _general.scss
|    |- ...
|- components/
|    |- _logo.scss
|    |- _nav.scss
|    |- _nav--breadcrumbs.scss
|    |- _nav--pagination.scss
|    |- _nav--tabs.scss
|    |- _nav--keywords.scss
|    |- _list-stacked.scss
|    |- _linklist.scss
|    |- _boxed.scss
|    |- _media.scss
|    |- _figure.scss
|    |- _message.scss
|    |- _btn.scss
|    |- _btn-social.scss     // Experimental: adds SVG data uri icons. Increases file-size considerably
|    |- _meta.scss
|    |- ...
|- site/
|    |- _home.scss           // Page-specific styles for <PROJECT>
|    |- ...
|- themes/
|    |- _theme-XYZ.scss      // Site-specific theme for <PROJECT>
|    |- ...
|- extra/
|    |- _XYZ.scss            // Specific styles for extra (vendor?) styles
|    |- ...
|- _mediaqueries.scss
|- (_print.scss)             // [Optional] Using @media print {...} in style.scss at the moment.

Notes

"much 'opiniated', very personal"

• IE9 is not (actively) supported but should work for 90%
• CSS Object Modifiers are added to the HTML: so no btn, btn--cta {...} and then class="btn--cta" but use both classes. Define btn {...} btn--cta { ..extra styles.. } and use as class="btn btn--cta"
  • .. but this can be changed in settings.scss with: $modifiers-extend:true!
• No prefixes! Use something like AutoPrefixer
• @extend as first rule in selector..
• Since we use the default of 100% for font-size on the html element, we do not need to redefine it on all other elements. Because of this there are little or no issues with compounding em values, etc.
  • In other words: KISS: just only define font-sizes where you explicitely need them (headings?), and if so: use em.
• padding that should be closely linked to font-size (such as padding in buttons) should be in em, otherwise rem
• margins (+grid-reset-font) however, are mostly(!) in rems (with px fallback in rem())
• vertical margins in One Direction only (thanks @csswizardry). I only use margin-bottom
• unitless line-height (line-height: 1.4;)
• layout-sizes in % (.l-col { width: 50%; } )

Not 100% my own

I've taken (inspiration/code) from lots of different places. While I adapted most code for my needs, some stuff is blatantly copied (I tried to make sure that was allowed though ;)) - See the THANKS section below.

Install / Use

You could simply download and unzip the files, clone the repository in a clean project or use it as a Git submodule

Download and unzip

Download and Unzip from: https://github.com/davidhund/dh-kickstart-style/archive/master.zip

Clone the Github repository

Given the following project structure:

| my-project/
|-- scss/
  |-- dh-kickstart-style/ # ‹- Should go here
  '-- app.scss
|-- css/
  '-- app.min.css
'-- index.html

You would like to clone the repository in a subfolder of scss/ named dh-kickstart-style so you do:

cd my-project
git clone git@github.com:davidhund/dh-kickstart-style.git scss/dh-kickstart-style

Use as a Git submodule

Given the project structure above:

cd my-project
git submodule add git@github.com:davidhund/dh-kickstart-style.git scss/dh-kickstart-style

Using the .scss files

You could simply edit all the files (although—using Git—you'd get conflicts when pulling in updates). Better is to @import "dh-kickstart-style/style"; in your app.scss or do the reverse and add all your project specific styles in the dh-kickstart-style/site/some-page.scss or dh-kickstart-style/theme/some-theme.scss.

Thanks!

Huge kudo's to the great work of:

• @csswizardry. His @inuitcss framework is hands-down the best I know of. You should probably be using it!
• @necolas. His normalize.css is the only 'reset' you should be using
• HTML5 Boilerplate. The world's best webdevelopers trying to work out the best defaults? I stole the hell out of all the goodies in there :)
• @snook. His SMACSS OOCSS approach is the one I (sorta) use, combined with a BEM classname convention.