suitcss-utils

SUIT CSS utilities

The full collection of SUIT CSS utility classes. Requires suitcss-preprocessor or similar in your build process, if you choose to use the packages directly.

Read more about SUIT CSS's design principles.

Installation

• npm: npm install suitcss-utils
• Download (compiled)

…is a convenient way to install all the SUIT utility packages:

• utils-align: Vertical alignment
• utils-display: Display types
• utils-layout: Clearfix, floats, and new block formatting contexts
• utils-link: Link things
• utils-offset: The before and after packages
• utils-position: Positioning utilities
• utils-size: Percentage sizing utilities
• utils-text: Text truncation, breaking, and alignment
• utils-flex: Align elements with Flexbox

Usage

Utilities are low-level. They have a very narrow scope and may end up being used frequently, due to their separation from the semantics of the document and the theming of a component. As a result, once a class is in significant use great care should be taken when introducing any modifications to it.

Utilities make use of !important to ensure that their styles always apply ahead of those defined in a component's dedicated CSS.

Templating

Each utility class modifies a single trait (a small collection of similar styles).

To apply a trait, or a combination of traits to an element, add the corresponding class directly to the HTML.

Together, they can form a wide variety of UI patterns from simple principles. Although you won't always want to use combinations of utilities to generate more complicated patterns, the option is there. Refactoring a component's HTML to move particular utility traits into the component's own styles is a relatively simple task.

The following contrived example would be a structural template for a simple Tweet-like component. You would then create a new CSS file for the component to contain any additional, specific styles (often a "skin" or "theme") needed to fully realise the component.

<article class="Tweet">
  <a class="u-floatRight" href="{{permalinkUrl}}">
    {{time}}
  </a>
  <a class="u-floatLeft" href="{{userUrl}}">
    <img src="{{userAvatar}}" alt="{{username}}'s avatar">
  </a>
  <div class="u-sizeFill">
    <a class="u-linkComplex" href="{{userUrl}}">
      <span class="u-linkComplexTarget">{{fullname}}</span>
      <span>@{{username}}</span>
    </a>
 
    <p class="u-textBreak">{{text}}</p>
 
    <div>
      <a class="u-linkComplex" href="#" role="button">
        <span class="Icon Icon--reply"></span>
        <span class="u-linkComplexTarget">Reply</span>
      </a>
      <a href="#" role="button">
        <span class="Icon Icon--favorite"></span>
        <span class="u-hiddenVisually">Favorite</span>
      </a>
      ...
    </div>
  </div>
</article>

Building

Install Node (comes with npm).

npm install

To generate a build:

npm run build

Browser support

• Google Chrome (latest)
• Opera (latest)
• Firefox 4+ (28+ for flex)
• Safari 5+ (6.1+ for flex)
• Internet Explorer 9+ (10+ for flex)