postcss-rtl-logical-properties

This plugin is a PostCSS plugin that replaces supported horizontal direction properties (LTR/RTL) with logical CSS properties (start/end) to add RTL support.

Supported properties:

The following properties are supported by this plugin:

Padding
PaddingLeft
PaddingRight
Margin
MarginLeft
MarginRight
BorderRight
BorderLeft
BorderLeftWidth
BorderLeftColor
BorderRightWidth
BorderRightColor
BorderLeftStyle
BorderRightStyle
BorderBottomLeftRadius
BorderBottomRightRadius
BorderTopLeftRadius
BorderTopRightRadius
Left
Right
Float
Clear
TextAlight

How it works

This plugin doesn't replace other plugins such as postcss-rtl, this plugin doesn't cover properties that require physical modification for example transform, background and etc. so both plugins can be used at the same time (see example below). By replacing direction properties with logical properties, this plugin helps to reduce the final weight of the CSS file and cover almost 80% of the standard properties.

Usage

To use this plugin, you will need to have PostCSS installed. Then, you can install postcss-rtl-logical-properties via npm:

npm install postcss-rtl-logical-properties

Then, you can use it in your PostCSS configuration file:

const postcssRtlLogicalProperties = require('postcss-rtl-logical-properties');

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    postcssRtlLogicalProperties()
  ]
}

Usage with RTLCSS

Only for one-way direction support

const postcssRtlLogicalProperties = require('postcss-rtl-logical-properties');
var rtlcss = require('rtlcss');
const postcss = require('postcss');

const result = postcss([
    postcssRtlLogicalProperties(),
    rtlcss(),
]).process(`
    .test {
        padding-left: 10px;
        border-right: 20px;
        margin: 10px 1px 10px 29px;
        transform: translateX(50%)
    }
`);

console.log(result.css);
/* 
.test {
    padding-inline-start: 10px;
    border-inline-end: 20px;
    margin-block: 10px;
    margin-inline: 29px 1px;
    transform: translateX(-50%)
}
*/

Usage with POSTCSS-RTL

For multi-direction support (LTR + RTL) relative to [dir] attribute, use with postcss-rtl

const postcssRtlLogicalProperties = require('postcss-rtl-logical-properties');
const postcssRTL = require('postcss-rtl');

const result = postcss([
    postcssRtlLogicalProperties(),
    postcssRTL({
      blacklist: postcssRtlLogicalProperties.ignoreDeclarationList
    })
]).process(`
    .test {
        padding-left: 10px;
        border-right: 20px;
        margin: 10px 1px 10px 29px;
        transform: translateX(50%)
    }
`);

console.log(result.css);
/* 
.test {
    padding-inline-start: 10px;
    border-inline-end: 20px;
    margin-block: 10px;
    margin-inline: 29px 1px
  }
  [dir=ltr] .test {
    transform: translateX(50%)
  }
  [dir=rtl] .test {
    transform: translateX(-50%)
  }
*/

Usage with Angular

To use postcss plugins you need to implement a postcss-loader for .css/.sass files and configure the postcss.config.js file.

How to add a postcss-loader to angular?

• First, configure the ngx-build-plus package to add the ability to edit the webpack configuration
• install the angular-webpack-transformer package - this is a ngx-build-plus plugin which helps to inject transformers of webpack configuration asynchronously
• install postcss and postcss-loader in your angular project npm i postcss postcss-loader
• configurate webpack.transformer.js to add postcss-loader see documentation
• configurate postcss.config.js to add this plugin

// postcss.config.js
const autoprefixer = require('autoprefixer');
const postcssRtlLogicalProperties = require('postcss-rtl-logical-properties');
const postcssRTL = require('postcss-rtl');


module.exports = () => {
    return {
        plugins: [
            postcssRtlLogicalProperties(),
            autoprefixer(),
            postcssRTL({
                blacklist: postcssRtlLogicalProperties.ignoreDeclarationList,
                addPrefixToSelector: (selector, prefix) => {
                    return `${prefix} ${selector}`;
                }
            })
        ]
    }
}

Plugin options

hDirection: This option allows you to change the standard direction from LTR to RTL (default: HorizontalDirection.LeftToRight) vDirection: This option allows you to change the direction from TopToBottom to BottomToTop (default: VerticalDirection.TopToBottom)

Browser support

This plugin has good browser support and is worth using. According to Can I Use, global support is at 89.12%.

Note that this plugin does not support complex properties like transform or background-position, border-radius and others, for this you will still use rtlcss.

Why is this needed?

As you know, plugins such as postcss-rtlcss process all the properties that are responsible for the direction and generate their own selectors for different versions of LTR and RTL with the addition of the [DIR] attribute before the selector, why is that bad? - This generates duplicates and ultimately affects the size of the file.

This plugin fully implements rtl support?

• No, you can see the list of properties that are already supported, this plugin implements this support, but only towards the horizontal writing mode.

Conclusion

postcss-rtl-logical-properties - is a useful plugin for adding RTL support to your CSS, reducing the final file size and covering a majority of standard properties.