Singularity.gs

Grids Without Limits

Singularity is a next generation grid framework built from the ground up to be responsive. What makes Singularity different? Well, a lot of things. Singularity is based on internal ratios instead of context based which allows for better gutter consistency across breakpoints. Ratio based math also allows for non-uniform grids in any unit you want to use.

CSS Grids and Singularity

Layout on the web has changed significantly since Scott's first push back on March 7, 2012. First came Flexbox, then CSS Grid. CSS Grid provides layout functionality that covers all of Singularity's usecases and then quite a few more that we were never really able to support.

With the release of Singularity 1.8, two new mixins, grid-container and css-grid-span. These two mixins are not included by default when importing Singularity, and will need to be included separately by doing @import 'singularity/css-grid' after following the install instructions.

These Mixins Are Not Meant To Be Used As A Replacement For CSS Grid

The purpose of these mixins is to provide users with a way to transition off of Singularity and start using CSS Grid directly. CSS Grid is powerful, and doesn't need a framework like Singularity, and we encourage our users to start using it directly whenever possible instead of Singularity. This also means there will be no further updates to Singularity for the forseeable future. We love all of our users, and thank you for your support over the past 5 years. Singularity will continue to work as normal, but further development will stop.

Documentation for the CSS Grid mixins can be found below;

Getting Help with Singularity

• For help with Singularity, please ask a question on Stack Overflow tagged with singularitygs.
• To file an issue with Singularity, be it a feature request or a bug report, please use our Issue Queue.

Singularity Quickstart

Full documentation is available on the Singularity Wiki

If you are upgrading to Singularity 1.2.0 or greater, please read the Changelog for important changes made to Singularity!

Installation

• Singularity should be installed and compiled through Bundler if compiling with Ruby
• Alternatively, Singularity can be installed with Bower (bower install singularity --save)
• It can even be installed as an Eyeglass module! (npm install singularitygs --save-dev)
• Singularity requires a Sass compiler with full feature parity with the Ruby Sass 3.4.23 implementation in order to work

Setting Up a Basic Grid

Grids are made of 3 parts, the Grid definition defining columns, Gutter definition defining spacing between columns, Gutter Style defining how gutters are positioned relative to a column. Singularity supports Symmetric and Asymmetric grids, as well as fluid and fixed gutters. Setting grids up this way puts them into Singularity's Global Grid Context.

// Symmetric grid with fluid gutters, 1/2 gutter on each side of a column 
@include add-grid(12);
@include add-gutter(1/3);
@include add-gutter-style('split');

// Asymmetric grid with fixed gutters, 1 full gutter after each column 
@include add-grid(1 3 5);
@include add-gutter(1em);

You can visualize your grid with a CSS Gradient. To do so, turn on debug mode and include the background-grid mixin. Be warned, CSS Gradients aren't 100% reliable visualizations, if there's a discrepancy between the visualization and the actual items on the grid, it's most likely the visualization that's wrong.

// Be sure to enable debug mode for your grid visualization so show up: 
@include sgs-change('debug', true);
 
.container {
  @include background-grid($color: blue);
}

Spanning Your Grid

Singularity doesn't provide grid classes, instead it uses mixins to attach an item to your grid. The mixin takes your grid definitions and an output style and writes the CSS for the given combination. The main mixin for this is the grid-span mixin which will work with any output style. Most output styles provide output-specific spans to make working with that specific output style easier.

The grid-span mixin takes two required arguments, how many columns you would like to span, and from what column you would like to start from. The column you would like to start from is the first column spanned.

@include add-grid(4);
 
.foo {
  // Spanning the last 2 columns 
  @include grid-span(2, 3);
}
 
.bar {
  // Spanning the 2nd column 
  @include grid-span(1, 2);
}

Responsive Grids

Singularity provides a couple of different ways to have grid-span use a different set of grid definitions at different breakpoints. The first is Singularity's Responsive Grid Context, which relies upon Breakpoint (a super powerful and flexible media query system, we recommend using it). This will allow you to use Breakpoint media queries as normal and when grid-span is called, it will know what set of grid definitions to use (although it won't automatically change existing grid-span calls to put them on a new grid, that's up to you). It does this by allowing for multiple grid definitions in the Global Grid Context.

To use, simply call add-grid multiple times, each time telling it when you would like to change. Be Aware this will only work with min-width media queries! Sass and Singularity cannot know runtime conditions and provide wiggle room between media queries with anything other than simple min-width queries. While a full Breakpoint style media query can be used in these definitions, Singularity will only look for the min-width value.

Responsive grid contexts do not output anything by themsleves. Singularity's Responsive Grids feature allows you to change the context of a called grid-span. In order for you to see the context change, you still need to call grid-span to apply your grid.

// Singularity 1.2 Syntax 
@include add-grid(3);
@include add-grid(6 at 500px);
@include add-grid(12 at 700px);
@include add-grid(2 8 2 at 900px);
@include add-grid(1 3 5 7 9 at 1100px);
 
@include add-gutter(1/3);
@include add-gutter(.25 at 900px);

The second way to provide responsive grids is with either of the use of the Context Override mixins. Singularity provides two, layout which will override context Global Grid Context for any content nested underneath it, and layout-at, which will do the same but allows you to define and use a media query at the same time. layout-at will accept any Breakpoint media query definition. Both of these options provide more fine-grain control over your Global Grid Context overrides as compared to the Responsive Grid Context, if you need that.

@include add-grid(12);
@include add-gutter(1/3);
 
.foo {
  @include layout(1 3 5, .5) {
    // Everything in here will use a `1 3 5` grid with `.5` gutter. 
    // Arguments (in order): $grid, $gutter, $output-style, $gutter-style 
  }
 
  @include layout((
    'grid': 1 3 5, 
    'gutter': .5 
  )) {
    // Everything in here will use a `1 3 5` grid with `.5` gutter 
 
    // Also available: 'gutter style' and 'output' 
  }
 
 
  @include layout-at(2 4 6, 500px) {
    // Everything in here will be wrapped in a `min-width: 500px` media query 
    //   and use a `2 4 6` grid with the Global Grid Context's `1/3` gutter 
  }
 
  @include layout-at((
    'grid': 1 3 5, 
    'gutter': .5 
  ), 700px) {
    // Everything in here will be wrapped in a `min-width: 700px` media query 
    //   and use a `1 3 5` grid with `.5` gutter 
 
    // Also available: 'gutter style' and 'output' 
  }
}

CSS Grid

Singularity 1.8 introduces the following optional mixins to use current grid definitions to provide CSS Grid layouts for browsers that support it, and fall back to Singularity layouts for browsers that do not.

@import "breakpoint";
@import "singularitygs";
@import "singularitygs/css-grids"; // Optional module, needs to be imported separately 
 
.container {
  @include grid-container; // Will write  grid-template-columns, grid-gap, and padding definitions (wrapped in @supports) based on grid definitions previously defined 
}
 
.item {
  @include css-grid-span(3) // Spans with no location only work for symmetric grids. Will write a float-based span as a fallback to grid-columns 
}
 
.item-2 {
  @include css-grid-span(2, 1) // Spans with a location will work with asymmetric grids. Will write either an isolation or calc based span as a fallback to grid-columns (depending on the defined grid) 
}
 

Contributing to Singularity

We love contributors! Yes we do! If you would like to contribute to Singularity, please follow the Contributing Guidelines

Singularity Plugins

Having been designed to be extensible, the ability to create plugins for Singularity is great and we expect to see great things. From new Output Span syntaxes to new Output Styles to new Grid Generators, we are excited to see what the community will come up with. Below are a list of Singularity Plugins available. If you would like to add your Plugin to the list, please issue a Pull Request to add it to the list!

• Singularity Extras

License

Dual license MIT/GPL-3.0