Typography-baseline.scss

A good start to your SCSS typography that covers all the semantic nooks and crannies

NPM

npm install --save typography-baseline.scss

Or, if you wanted the CSS Version

npm install --save typography-baseline.css

What are some SCSS specific features?

Sassified Variables

A core feature of the typography baseline is that it used CSS variables (AKA CSS custom properties). This has all of the same variable names, but in SCSS/SASS form.

$colorNeutralDarker: rgb(55,55,55);
$colorNeutralDark: rgb(110,110,110);
$colorNeutral: rgb(165,165,165);
$colorNeutralLight: rgb(192.5,192.5,192.5);
$colorNeutralLighter: rgb(220,220,220);
$colorCool: rgb(110,165,220);
$colorCoolDarker: rgb(110,165,193);

The Typography Baseline broken into sections that can be turned off:

The baseline contains the following sections:

document : :root and html
headings : All them h
lists : ul, ol, and the too cool dl
blocks : Your hr, p, and the blockquote
contentFlow : em through u, all the way through mark and strike, too.
code : code, kbd, and our pals var, samp, and data
ruby : Destination unknown, ruby, rtc even some bdo
links : All them a and pseudo class shenanigans
table : table, caption, and some th and td

Ability to turn off custom properties

If you don't want CSS Variables, that's fine.

@include typographyBaseline($exclude: cssVariables);

Ability to output only certain sections

You can give either a specific section, or a list of sections.

This will turn off CSS variables:

@include typographyBaseline($include: (document, headings, lists, blocks))

But you can turn on specific sections with CSS variables by adding it to the list of arguments:

@include typographyBaseline($include: (document, headings, lists, cssVariables))

Mid-Readme shoutout:

This is modelled on the scss port of Normalize. Big thanks to John Albin for his work on that because that gave this project a safe, well-tested foundation to start with.

What does the typography-baseline do?

It gives you a good start

Before you start the layout of a web site or web application, and before you dive into applying to brand, you need something to which you should apply your brand. This is that thing.

The easiest place to start in a design is with the typography. This makes it easy to do that.

It covers all your semantic markup

Driven by the W3C spec this addresses almost every semantic element that will wrap text and makes sure that everything looks like something.

The test.html file uses each and every element according to its semantic definition, too. So you have a miniature guide to semantics built in.

This saves you from a scare down the road when someone wants to output the <kbd> element, use <dfn>, or try some other obscure element.

Gives you a "no-design" design

For those times where you need just a bit more than a Normalize, but way less than Bootstrap, this gets you there.

This is a fairly unopinionated approach to making sure that the text has a decent font family, decent spacing, and decent visual appeal.

Browser Support

Firefox
Chrome
Edge
IE10*
Safari
Opera

*IE10 doesn't support CSS Variables, but nothing will break in IE10 if that's the case.

Usage

While this is relatively unopinionated, there are a few "opinions" to consider:

em for for font-size
a unitless line-height
rem for left/right spacing
text-spacing based on the golden ratio (.618 / 1.618)

Fitting it into a CSS architecture

This would come after a reset / normalize and before you set baseline styles for forms or tables. If you're a fan of ITCSS, this is in the Elements layer.

Modifying without Swearing or Heavy Drinking

One of the really annoying things about other CSS frameworks (cough cough Bootstrap) is that you mostly have to write new CSS to overwrite the existing styles. Often that means raising specificity, which is really stinking annoying. This is designed to avoid that by using CSS Variables

The typography baseline sets all of the CSS variables on the :root. As CSS variables are subject to the cascade, you can override any variable at any time by changing its value on the relevant selector. You can import this into your current CSS setup, and overwrite all the variables by setting new ones on the html element.

So if you want the --baseLinkColor to be different, you can write the following in your own stylesheet:

html {
    --baseLinkColor: #c0ffee
}

No raising specificity. Just changing a variable.

If you want to theme a special area of the site, or even a particular widget, it's just:

.theme {
    --baseLinkColor: #c0ffee
}

Color Palette

Colors are derivitives of a base value of 55. All of the neutral colors are multipliers of rgb(55,55,55). Even the non-neutral colors are close-ish to that.

    --colorNeutralDarker: rgb(55,55,55);                  /* base       */
    --colorNeutralDark: rgb(110,110,110);                 /* base * 2:  */
    --colorNeutral: rgb(165,165,165);                     /* base * 3:  */
    --colorNeutralLight: rgb(192.5,192.5,192.5);          /* base * 3.5 */
    --colorNeutralLighter: rgb(220,220,220);              /* base * 4:  */

Color-naming convention follows a pattern established here. A big huge and heavy thanks to Sarah Braumiller for suggesting that convention years ago.

Colors

All of the colors variables are abstractions from the color palette. This is so you can change these colors without having to touch your neutral palette.

    --baseTextColor: var(--colorNeutralDarker);
    --baseEditorialTextColor: var(--colorNeutralDark);
    --baseLinkColor: var(--colorCool);
    --baseLinkColorHover: var(--colorCoolDarker);
    --baseInlineBorderColor: var(--colorNeutralLight);

Line Heights

The --baseLineHeight is applied to body copy, and the --smallLineHeight is used on titles:

    --baseLineHeight: 1.618;
    --smallLineHeight: 1.2;

Text Sizes

You have a minimum of 6 text sizes in two categories: --<n>TextSize and --<n>TitleSize. You have a "base" and then superlatives or diminutives to describe the deviation from that base. e.g.:

    --biggestTextSize:  1.3em;
    --biggerTextSize: 1.2em;
    --bigTextSize: 1.1em;
    --baseTextSize: 1em; /*What all ordinary body copy will be*/
    --smallTextSize: .8em;
    --smallerTextSize: .75em;
    --smallestTextSize: .618em;

For titles you have only six sizes, instead of seven. That's because each title size corresponds to an <h/> element.

You may also notice that title sizes overlap with base text sizes. This is intentional! You have the flexibility to have your smaller headings be the same as larger text, or to create new title sizes for your headings that won't overlap with the text.

    --biggestTitleSize: 2.617924em; /* (16 x 1.618) x 1.618 */
    --bigTitleSize: 1.618em;
    --baseTitleSize: 1.5em;
    --smallTitleSize: var(--biggestTextSize);
    --smallerTitleSize: var(--biggerTextSize);
    --smallestTitleSize: var(--bigTextSize);

Font families

You have three font families to choose from. --baseFontFamily is applied to the html element.

    --baseFontFamily: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;
    --titleFontFamily: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
    --codeFontFamily: monospace;

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