@mapbox/assembly
v1.8.4
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A CSS framework
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Assembly
A CSS framework that makes the hard parts of building anything on the web easy. We define the hard parts as: managing class specificity, designing cross-browser form components that work well with each other, creating a harmonious typographic scale, maintaining a baseline grid, and keeping responsive designs simple.
For usage guidelines and documentation, check out https://labs.mapbox.com/assembly/.
Browser support
Assembly targets modern versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge on desktop; Safari on iOS; and Chrome on Android.
Usage
See https://labs.mapbox.com/assembly/ for usage guidelines.
Migration
See our Migration guides
to understand what changes you might need to make when upgrading Assembly in your project.
Custom Builds
Assembly exposes a JS module for creating custom builds. Why might you want to create a custom build?
- You want to customize variables (like colors and font stacks) or media queries.
- You want to append extra stylesheets that also use Assembly's variables and media queries.
- You want to reduce file-size by picking and choosing the color variants you need.
buildUserAssets(outdir[, options])
Returns a Promise that resolves when all assets have been written to outdir
.
const Assembly = require('assembly');
Assembly.buildUserAssets('path/to/my/outdir', myOptions)
.then(() => /* something */)
.catch((err) => /* handle error */);
Options, all of which are optional:
files
: An array of file paths to stylesheets you would like to append toassembly.css
. These will be processed through Assembly's PostCSS pipeline.variables
: An object whose properties will override and add tosrc/variables.json
. Use this option to change or add variables. These variables are accessible in any stylesheets you append via the CSS custom properties syntax, e.g.var(--property-name)
.mediaQueries
: An object whose properties will override and add tosrc/mediaQueries.json
. Use this option to change or add media queries. These media queries are accessible in any stylesheets you append via the CSS custom media query syntax, e.g.@media --media-query-name
.colorVariants
: An object or array specifying the color variants you would like added toassembly.css
. This is documented in detail below.icons
: An array of icons names to include in Assembly. Names correspond to file names insrc/svgs/
. Use this option to decrease the size of assembly.js by only including the icons you need.browsersList
: A Browserslist array to be used by Autoprefixer. Default:[ 'last 4 Chrome versions', 'last 4 Firefox versions', 'last 4 Safari versions', 'last 2 Edge versions', 'last 2 iOS versions', 'last 2 Android versions', 'not IE 11', 'not dead' ]
quiet
: Suppress logs.
colorVariants
option
If the colorVariants
value is an array, it must be an array of color names corresponding to variables. All components will have color variants generated for all colors in the array.
The following configuration specifies an array of default colors. All components will have these (and only these) color variants.
["red", "green-light"]
If the colorVariants
value is an object, each property value must be an array of color names corresponding to variables. The property names designate which component each color array applies to:
default
: These colors apply to all components that are not otherwise specified.buttonFill
:*-dark
colors will not be used.buttonStroke
:*-dark
colors will not be used.inputTextarea
:*-dark
colors will not be used.selectFill
:*-dark
colors will not be used.selectStroke
:*-dark
colors will not be used.checkbox
:*-dark
colors will not be used.radio
:*-dark
colors will not be used.switch
:*-dark
colors will not be used.toggle
:*-dark
colors will not be used.range
:*-dark
colors will not be used.color
background
link
:*-dark
colors will not be used.border
hoverShadow
: Onlylighten*
anddarken*
colors will be used.hoverBackground
hoverColor
hoverBorder
The following configuration specifies colors for individual components. In this configuration, every component not specified will have the default
color variants; specified components will have their specified color variants; and switch
and range
components will have no color variants (only the default will be available).
{
"default": ["lighten50", "lighten25", "gray"],
"buttonFill": ["green", "purple"],
"selectFill": ["green"],
"background": ["orange", "yellow", "pink"],
"link": ["orange"],
"hoverShadow": ["lighten50"],
"switch": [],
"range": []
}
Development principles
Writing rules
Assembly strives for flat, single rule declarations and avoids overrides whenever possible. Declarations are marked as !important
for classes whose names directly correspond with what they do — e.g. bg-blue
, px12
. This way they cannot be overridden and so are guaranteed to actually do what they say they do.
Naming classes
- Keep names as short as reasonable.
- Use real number values in utility class names to describe the value the utility class applies in cases where the number of utility classes describing a particular property could be unlimited. For example,
.pt6
forpadding-top: 6px
instead an abstract scale like.pt-small
or.pt-1
. - If the number of utility classes describing a property is limited and the variants are about size, Assembly classes use the suffixes
xl
,l
,m
,s
,sm
. - Assembly provides a reset that will affect the entire page, but other than that reset none of its rules should affect the styling of elements that don't bear Assembly classes.
Media query class variants
Media query class variants (e.g. block-mm
as a variant of block
) are automatically generated and added to the CSS build with scripts/build-media-variants.js
. If you want to generate media variants for a new class, or change which classes get media variants, you'll need to modify the lists in that file.
Development
Tools
- PostCSS for processing CSS. PostCSS parses CSS and runs it through plugins, and these are the plugins we're using:
- Autoprefixer automatically adds vendor prefixes.
- postcss-custom-properties allows us to use variables for values, with the CSS custom properties syntax.
- postcss-custom-media allows us to use variables for media queries, with the CSS custom media queries syntax.
- concat-with-sourcemaps allows us to split our CSS into multiple stylesheets.
- stylelint lints our CSS.
- SVGs
- svgstore compiles our SVGs into a SVG "sprite" of sorts, allowing us to use the latest and greatest SVG-based icon system.
- Documentation
- documentation-css parses annotation comments in the CSS, outputting objects that can be used to build documentation.
- Batfish powers the website.
Install and start
npm ci # Installs your `node_modules`
npm start # Builds everything, starts a dev server, rebuilds & reloads on changes
npm run build:js # Build SVGs and other JS
For other scripts, look in package.json
.
Releasing
Development is done in the publisher-staging
branch, but releases are made from the publisher-production
branch. Here's how you cut a release:
- From
publisher-staging
:- Document changes in the
CHANGELOG
. - Increment the version key in
package.json
andpackage-lock.json
. - Make sure all this is committed, typically with a commit message like
Prepare 0.8.0
. - Merge these changes into the
publisher-production
branch. Conduct the following steps frompublisher-production
.
- Document changes in the
- From
publisher-production
:- Create a tag. No message is necessary, since the changelog includes explanations of changes. For example:
git tag -a 0.8.0 -m ""
. - Push the tag:
git push --tags
. - Publish the new version on npm:
mbx npm publish
- Deploy the changes. Talk to @mapbox/frontend-platform if you need help.
- Create a tag. No message is necessary, since the changelog includes explanations of changes. For example: