check-if-CSS-is-disabled

Frontend JavaScript module that can determine if CSS is disabled or if it failed to load, then take action to stop JS enhancements from applying if the CSS isn't working first.

If your CSS fails to load but your JS does load, that can lead to mangled-looking user interfaces. But if you build your website using a progressive enhancement technique, this module will also let you do graceful degradation elegantly by making it easy for you to revert to the non-CSS and non-JS experience if your CSS fails but your JS doesn't.

As such, if no CSS or JS loads but you built your site using semantic HTML, it should still look reasonably good with the default styles applied and function reasonably well so long as no JS is mucking with the DOM.

This module was built and is maintained by the Roosevelt web framework team, but it can be used independently of Roosevelt as well.

Install

npm install check-if-css-is-disabled

The package is distributed with the following builds available:

• dist/check-if-css-is-disabled.cjs: CommonJS bundle: const cssIsDisabled = require('check-if-css-is-disabled')
• dist/check-if-css-is-disabled.js: Standalone bundle that can be included via <script> tags. Declares a global variable called: checkIfCssIsDisabled
• dist/check-if-css-is-disabled.min.js: Minified standalone bundle that can be included via <script> tags. Declares a global variable called: checkIfCssIsDisabled
• dist/check-if-css-is-disabled.mjs: ES module: import cssIsDisabled from 'check-if-css-is-disabled'
• dist/check-if-css-is-disabled.min.mjs: Minified ES module: import cssIsDisabled from 'check-if-css-is-disabled/min'

Usage

Place this <script> tag with a small amount of inline JS above any <link> tags in your HTML:

<script>window.addEventListener('error', (event) => { if (event?.target?.tagName?.toLowerCase() === 'link') { window.linkTagError = true } }, true)</script>

That will make it possible for this library to listen for any CSS files that fail to load.

It's important for that script to be inlined before any <link> tags so that if any <link> tag fails to load, this module will be made aware of that even if this module is initialized after the CSS files are loaded or fail to load.

Then in your JavaScript, include this module before any other JS executes. Here's an example using the CommonJS version:

require('check-if-css-is-disabled')()

Another way to use it:

const checkIfCssIsDisabled = require('check-if-css-is-disabled')
const cssIsDisabled = checkIfCssIsDisabled(params)
if (cssIsDisabled) {
  // do things if CSS is disabled
}

The constructor will return true if CSS is disabled and false if it is not. All params are optional.

By default, this module will also take the following actions in response to CSS being disabled or any <link> tag failing to load:

• If CSS is disabled at the browser level, this module will throw a JS error to prevent any further JS from executing.
• If a CSS file fails to load at any time during your application's execution, this module will remove all <link> tags and <style> tags from the DOM and emit the cssDisabled event so that you can undo any DOM manipulations and then stop any further JS from executing yourself.
  • You can exempt certain <link> or <style> tags from being removed by supplying a list of IDs to params, e.g. { exemptedIds: ['someTagToKeepById', 'someOtherTagToKeepById', 'etc'] } where an example tag to not remove would be <style id="someTagToKeep">...</style>.

You can prevent any of the above actions from being taken by supplying a justCheck flag to params e.g. { justCheck: true }, after which you can handle responding to CSS being disabled or a <link> tag not loading entirely yourself.

To listen for the cssDisabled event, do this:

window.addEventListener('cssDisabled', (event) => {
  // the contents of `event.detail.message` will tell you how CSS was disabled
  // undo any DOM manipulations or perform other actions
})

(The cssDisabled event will be emitted regardless of whether the justCheck flag is set to true or not.)