Post pobrano z: “Just in Time” CSS

I believe acss.io is the first usage of “Atomic CSS” where the point of it is to be a compiler. You write CSS like this:

<div class="C(#333) P(20px)">
  text
</div>

And it will generate CSS like:

.C\(\#333\) {
  color: #333;
}
.P\(20px\) {
  padding: 20px;
}

(Or something like that.)

The point is that it only generates the CSS that you actually need, because you asked for it, and no more. The result is far less CSS than you’d see in an average stylesheet.

That compilation process is what has come to be known as “Just in Time” CSS.

The popular Tailwind framework supports it. It kind of flips the mental model of Tailwind on its head, to me. Rather than providing a huge pile of CSS utility classes to use — then “purging” what is unused — it only creates what it needs to begin with.

I’d say “Just in Time” is a concept that is catching on. I just saw Assembler CSS and it leans into it big time. Rather than classes, you do stuff like:

<div x-style="grid; gap:1rem; grid-rows:1; grid-cols:1; sm|grid-cols:3">
  <button x-style="^button:red">Submit</button>
</div>

I’m pretty torn on this stuff. Some part of me likes how you can get styling done without ever leaving your templates. And I especially like the extremely minimal CSS output since CSS is a blocking resource. Another part of me doesn’t like that it’s a limited abstraction of CSS itself, so you’re at the mercy of the tool to support things that CSS can do natively. It also makes HTML a bit harder to look at — although I certainly got over that with JSX inline event handlers and such.

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Post pobrano z: Fun Times Styling Checkbox States

We might leave a text input unstyled. We might leave a link unstyled. Even a button. But checkboxes… we don’t leave them alone. That’s why styling checkboxes never gets old.

Although designing checkboxes is not that complicated, we also don’t have to settle for simple background color changes, or adding and removing borders, to indicate state changes. We also don’t have to pull out any fancy design skills — that we don’t possess — to make this work. I’ll show you how.

Basics

In the following demos, the checkboxes pretty much have the same three-stack layout — at the bottom is a checkbox, and on top of it are two stacked elements, or pseudo-elements. The checkbox is indicated as checked or unchecked depending on which of the two is visible.

If you look at the CSS code in the pens you’ll notice all the layouts — including the one for the checkboxes — are grids. You can use other layouts that feel right for your use case (and learn more in the CSS-Tricks Grid Guide). Additional notes on code and design alternatives are at the end of the source code inside the pens.

In addition, any elements stacked on top of the checkbox have pointer-events: none so they don’t prevent users from clicking or tapping the checkbox.

Let’s now get to the first method.

Idea 1: Blended backgrounds as a state

Blending in CSS is a versatile technique. Manipulating colors relative to two or more elements or backgrounds can be handy in contexts you might not have thought of.

One such instance is the checkbox.

<input id="un" type="checkbox"> <label for="un">un</label>
<!-- more checkboxes --> 

input[type=checkbox]::before,
input[type=checkbox]::after {
  mix-blend-mode: hard-light;
  pointer-events: none;
  /* more style */
}
input[type=checkbox]::before {
  background: green;
  content: '✓';
  color: white;
  /* more style */
}
input[type=checkbox]::after {
  background: blue;
  content: '⨯';
  /* more style */
}
input[type=checkbox]:checked::after {
  mix-blend-mode: unset;
  color: transparent;
}

In this demo, I’ve styled the checkbox’s pseudo-elements green and blue, stacked them up, and gave them each a mix-blend-mode value. This means the background of each element blends with its backdrop.

I used the hard-light value, which emulates the result of either multiply or screen depending on if the top color is darker or lighter. You can learn in depth about different blend modes over at MDN.

When the box is checked, the ::after pseudo-element’s mix blend mode value is unset, resulting in a different visual.

Idea 2: Make a 3D animation

Animating a block of color is fun. Make them seem 3D and it’s even better. CSS has the means to render elements along an emulated 3D space. So using that, we make a 3D box and rotate it to indicate the checkbox state change.

<div class="c-checkbox">
  <input type="checkbox" id="un">
  <!-- cube design -->
  <div><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i></div>
</div>
<label for="un">un</label>
<!-- more checkboxes -->

.c-checkbox > div {
  transition: transform .6s cubic-bezier(.8, .5, .2, 1.4);
  transform-style: preserve-3d;
  pointer-events: none;
  /* more style */
}
/* front face */
.c-checkbox > div > i:first-child {
  background: #ddd;
  transform:  translateZ( -10px );
}
/* back face */
.c-checkbox > div > i:last-child {
  background: blue;
  transform:  translateZ( 10px );
}
/* side faces */
.c-checkbox > div > i:nth-of-type(2),
.c-checkbox > div > i:nth-of-type(3) {
  transform: rotateX(90deg)rotateY(90deg);
  position: relative;
  height: 20px;
  top: 10px;
}
.c-checkbox > div > i:nth-of-type(2) {
  background: navy;
  right: 20px;
}
.c-checkbox > div > i:nth-of-type(3) {
  background: darkslategray;
  left: 20px;
}

The <div> after the checkbox becomes a container of a 3D space — its child elements can be placed along the x, y and z axes — after it’s given transform-style: preserve-3d;.

Using the transform property, we place two <i> elements (grey and blue colored) with some distance between them across the z-axis. Two more are wedged between them, covering their left and right sides. It’s like a cardboard box that’s covered except at the top and bottom.

When the checkbox is checked, this grey and blue box is rotated sideways to face the other side. Since I’ve already added a transition to the <div>, its rotation is animated.

input:checked + div { 
  transform: rotateY( 180deg ); 
}

Idea 3: Playing with border radius

Changing a checked box’s border radius? Not that fun. Changing also the border radius of other boxes near it? Now we have something.

<input type="checkbox" id="un"> <label for="un">un</label>
<!-- more rows of checkboxes -->

input {
  background: #ddd;
  border-radius: 20px;
  /* more style */
}
input:not(:first-of-type)::before {
  content: '';    
  transform: translateY(-60px); /* move up a row */
  pointer-events: none;
}
input:checked + * + input::before,
input:last-of-type:checked {
  border-radius: 20px;
  background: blue;
}
input:checked + * + input:checked + * + input::before {
  border-top-left-radius: unset !important;
  border-top-right-radius: unset !important;
}
input:checked::before {
  border-bottom-left-radius: unset !important;
  border-bottom-right-radius: unset !important;
}
/* between the second-last and last boxes */ 
input:nth-of-type(4):checked + * + input:checked {
  border-top-left-radius: unset;
  border-top-right-radius: unset;
}

If you’d just interacted with the demo before, you’ll notice that when you click or tap a checkbox, it not only can change its own borders but also the borders of the boxes after and before it.

Now, we don’t have selectors that can select elements prior, only the ones after. So what we did to control the appearance of a preceding box is use the pseudo-element of a checkbox to style the box before it. With exception of the first box, every other box gets a pseudo-element that’s moved to the top of the box before it.

Let’s say boxes A, B and C are one after another. If I click B, I can change the appearance of A by styling B’s pseudo-element, B by styling C’s pseudo-element, and C by styling D’s pseudo-element.

From B, the pseudo-elements of B, C and D are accessible — as long as the next element selector can be used between them in the layout.

The four corners of each checkbox are initially rounded when checked and unchecked. But if a box is checked, the following box’s top corners and preceding box’s bottom corners are straightened (by overriding and removing their border radii).

Idea 4: Using a CSS mask

Toggles, switches… they are also checkboxes as far as the code goes. So we can style the boxes as toggles for this one, and it’s done with a CSS mask, which Chris has written about before. But in a nutshell, it’s a technique where we use an image to filter out portions of its backdrop.

<input type="checkbox">
<div class="skin one"></div>
<div class="skin two"></div>

.one.skin {
  background: no-repeat center -40px url('photo-1584107662774-8d575e8f3550?w=350&q=100');
}
.two.skin {
  background: no-repeat center -110px url('photo-1531430550463-9658d67c492d?w=350&q=100');
  --mask: radial-gradient(circle at 45px 45px , rgba(0,0,0,0) 40px, rgba(0,0,0,1) 40px);
  mask-image: var(--mask); -webkit-mask-image: var(--mask);
}

Two skins (displaying landscape photos) are on top of a checkbox. The topmost one gets a mask-image that’s in the shape of a typical toggle switch — a transparent circle at the left, and the rest is a fully opaque color. Through the transparent circle we see the photo below while the rest of the mask image shows the photo at the top.

When a checkbox is clicked, the transparent circle is moved to the right, so we see the image at the top through the circle while the rest shows the photo at the bottom.

input:checked ~ .two.skin {
  --mask: radial-gradient(circle at 305px 45px, rgba(0,0,0,1) 40px, rgba(0,0,0,0) 40px);
  mask-image: var(--mask); -webkit-mask-image: var(--mask);
}

Idea 5: Using box shadow

Let’s end with the simplest — but what I consider to be the most effective — method of them all: an animated inset box-shadow.

<input id="un" type="checkbox"> <label for="un">un</label>

input {
  transition: box-shadow .3s;
  background: lightgrey;
  /* more style */
}
input:checked { 
  box-shadow: inset 0 0 0 20px blue;
}

There are some CSS properties that can be animated by default and one of them is box-shadow. This type of subtle animation goes well with a minimalist theme.

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That’s it! I hope this sparks some inspiration the next time you find yourself working with checkboxes. CSS gives us so many possibilities to indicate state changes, so have a little fun and please share if you have any interesting ideas.

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Post pobrano z: Grainy Gradients

Browse through Dribbble or Behance, and you’ll find designers using a simple technique to add texture to an image: noise. Adding noise makes otherwise solid colors or smooth gradients, such as shadows, more realistic. But despite designers’ affinity for texture, noise is rarely used in web design.

In this article, we’ll generate colorful noise to add texture to a gradient with only a small amount of CSS and SVG. Alright, let’s make some noise!

Interactive playground

Check it out here. The quickest way to understand what’s happening is to play with the parameters that make up the layers.

The trick: SVG noise and CSS gradients

The core technique in this article is built on top of a Stack Overflow answer by Chris Pachl to the question: Can you add noise to a CSS gradient?

The trick is to use an SVG filter to create the noise, then apply that noise as a background. Layer it underneath a gradient, boost the brightness and contrast, and that’s it — you have gradient that gradually dithers away.

The key ingredients

Here’s what we’re working with under the hood:

• SVG turbulence: This is our noise filter.
• Background with gradient and SVG: Next, we drop that filter into CSS as a background image that combines the filter with a CSS gradient.
• Boost brightness and contrast: Then we turn to CSS filter to increase the brightness and contrast of the noise.
• Blend gradients: Finally, we optionally use mix-blend-mode to further filter out colors and blend gradients together.

Let’s go into detail on each of these parts.

Using SVG turbulence

Within the realm of SVG, we can define filters, and one such filter lets us create Perlin noise. It’s called <feTurbulence> and we can define attributes, such as whether it is “turbulence” or “noise” and how fine or coarse it is. Bence Szabó explains it in much more detail as he demonstrates how it can be used to create patterns.

<svg viewBox="0 0 200 200" xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'>
  <filter id='noiseFilter'>
    <feTurbulence 
      type='fractalNoise' 
      baseFrequency='0.65' 
      numOctaves='3' 
      stitchTiles='stitch' />
  </filter>

  <rect width='100%' height='100%' filter='url(#noiseFilter)' />
</svg>

This SVG example creates a filter and renders a <rect> element that we can use for our grainy gradients. Notice that the SVG <filter> is defined separately from the <rect>, and the <rect> simply references it.

Play around with changing some of the properties of <feTurbulence>

We’re going to save this SVG as a separate file. We reference an external link to grab the SVG in the demos throughout in this article. In practice, though, you would reference a local file or your own CDN. It doesn’t work to reference the SVG by its id in CSS, for some quirky reason, but you can inline the SVG, as we show in the playground demo. We don’t do this in the demos for legibility reasons.

Creating a CSS background with SVG and a gradient

After we have the SVG file stored somewhere we can reference it by a URL or path, we can now use it in a CSS background, combined with a gradient.

.noise {
  /* ... */
  background:
    linear-gradient(to right, blue, transparent),
    url(https://grainy-gradients.vercel.app/noise.svg);
}

Order matters here. In this particular example, we want a solid color (i.e. no noise) to transition into noise and then into another color. We also want one end of the gradient to be transparent so that the noise shows through.

Like this:

However, this isn’t particularly nice because the noise is too muddled. We need to fray it and make it grainier. We can do that by…

Boosting the brightness and contrast

Adding a CSS filter makes the noise more stark, pushing the most faded colors towards white or black. The filter applies to the entire <div>, so the leftmost blue is a different blue than the pure blue we started with.

.noise {
  /* ... */
  background: 
    linear-gradient(to right, blue, transparent), 
    url(https://grainy-gradients.vercel.app/noise.svg);
  filter: contrast(170%) brightness(1000%);  
}

You can play around with how contrast and brightness affect the gradient. Boosting the brightness and contrast pushes out the muddled grays in the follow demo.

The noise is not uniform in color

If you zoom in, you’ll notice that the noise is made up of many colors. The SVG filter was colorful to begin with, and increasing the brightness and contrast emphasized certain colors. Although hardly noticeable, if this confetti is unwelcome, we can continue to filter out colors with CSS blending (i.e. mix-blend-mode and background-blend-mode ).

CSS blending

Let’s make a grainy gradient that transitions between two colors. CSS blending allows us to stack layers of color. In the next example, we’re adding another <div> to the markup, positioning it over the original gradient, then applying mix-blend-mode: multiply; to smooth things out.

<section>
  <div class="isolate">
    <div class="noise"></div>
    <div class="overlay"></div>
  </div>
</section>

.noise {
  /* ... */
  background: 
    linear-gradient(20deg, rebeccapurple, transparent), 
    url(https://grainy-gradients.vercel.app/noise.svg); 
  contrast(170%) brightness(1000%);
}
.overlay {
  /* ... */
  background: moccasin;
  mix-blend-mode: multiply;
}

We can use the CSS isolation property to create a new stacking context and choose what gets blended. If we were to leave out isolation in the next example, the gradient and overlay would blend with the background color. Try it in the Pen and comment out that line!

/* Same as before */

.isolate {
  isolation: isolate;
  /* ... */
}

Some use cases

We’ve looked at a pretty simple example of how to make a noisy gradient, but where might you use one? Let’s consider several use cases.

Light and shadows, with grain

Where do gradients naturally occur? Light and shadows, for one. We can take advantage of the CSS property mix-blend-mode to smoothly blend gradients and selectively filter the colors we want to see in the noise.

In the “shadow” example, we create a dark gradient, and invert it to create the effect in the “light” example. In both cases, mix-blend-mode allows us to blend it with other gradients.

Holographic foil

The drastic brightness and contrast boost creates a rainbow effect that’s reminiscent of holographic foil.

Taking things further

Try the playground and mess around with the different parameters to see how they affect the texture.

Beyond that, here are some ways to continue fiddling with this technique:

• Use a different SVG: All of the gradients in this article use the same SVG, but you can toy with the parameters that generates the noise to adjust the coarseness as well as the look and feel in the playground.
• Try different gradients: Besides linear-gradient, CSS offers four more types of gradients. Can you name them? (Here’s one.)
• Add more layers: With CSS blending, you can stack as many any layers as you’d like and blend them down.
• Apply different SVG filters: There are all kinds of filters, including Gaussian blur and different types of lighting. Plus, they can be referenced in a CSS filter and applied to any element in addition to SVG.

What else can you think of? Please let us know what you discover in the comments.

Browser support

We can’t escape talking about browser support here. The core of this technique is supported by all modern browsers. As you might expect, it does not work in Internet Explorer. That said, Internet Explorer does support SVG as a background in CSS (just not with the actual CSS filter property).

SVG as a CSS background image

CSS filter effects

I’ve also noticed that Blink-based browsers (e.g. Safari) and WebKit-based one (e.g. Chrome) implement mix-blend-mode slightly differently, so please be sure to test across browsers if using CSS blending. In my own projects, I’ve used browser-specific media queries to manually reconcile the visual differences with small tweaks to CSS.

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That’s it! Now that you have a grasp of SVG filters and how to combine them with CSS filters as a background, you have yet another neat visual effect to add depth and texture to a design.

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Post pobrano z: Social Image Generator + Jetpack

I feel like my quest to make sure this site had pretty sweet (and automatically-generated) social media images (e.g. Open Graph) came to a close once I found Social Image Generator.

The trajectory there was that I ended up talking about it far too much on ShopTalk, to the point it became a common topic in our Discord (join via Patreon), Andy Bell pointed me at Daniel Post’s Social Image Generator and I immediately bought and installed it. I heard from Daniel over Twitter, and we ended up having long conversations about the plugin and my desires for it. Ultimately, Daniel helped me code up some custom designs and write logic to create different social media image designs depending on the information it had (for example, if we provide quote text, it uses a special design for that).

As you likely know, Automattic has been an awesome and long time sponsor for this site, and we often promote Jetpack as a part of that (as I’m a heavy user of it, it’s easy to talk about). One of Jetpack’s many features is helping out with social media. (I did a video on how we do it.) So, it occurred to me… maybe this would be a sweet feature for Jetpack. I mentioned it to the Automattic team and they were into the idea of talking to Daniel. I introduced them back in May, and now it’s September and… Jetpack Acquires WordPress Plugin Social Image Generator

“When I initially saw Social Image Generator, the functionality looked like a ideal fit with our existing social media tools,’ said James Grierson, General Manager of Jetpack. ‘I look forward to the future functionality and user experience improvements that will come out of this acquisition. The goal of our social product is to help content creators expand their audience through increased distribution and engagement. Social Image Generator will be a key component of helping us deliver this to our customers.”

Daniel will also be joining Jetpack to continue developing Social Image Generator and integrating it with Jetpack’s social media features.

Rob Pugh

Heck yeah, congrats Daniel. My dream for this thing is that, eventually, we could start building social media images via regular WordPress PHP templates. The trick is that you need something to screenshot them, like Puppeteer or Playwright. An average WordPress install doesn’t have that available, but because Jetpack is fundamentally a service that leverages the great WordPress cloud to do above-and-beyond things, this is in the realm of possibility.

WP Tavern also covered the news:

Automattic is always on the prowl for companies that are doing something interesting in the WordPress ecosystem. The Social Image Generator plugin expertly captured a new niche with an interface that feels like a natural part of WordPress and impressed our chief plugin critic, Justin Tadlock, in a recent review.

“Automattic approached me and let me know they were fans of my plugin,” Post said. “And then we started talking to see what it would be like to work together. We were actually introduced by Chris Coyier from CSS-Tricks, who uses both our products.”

Sarah Gooding

Just had to double-toot my own horn there, you understand.

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