Grunt task that generates a sprite from images referenced in a stylesheet and then updates the references with the new sprite image and positions

If you spot any problems or have questions, then please open a new issue :)

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt 0.4 and PhantomJS

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-sprite-css-replace --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-sprite-css-replace');

Usage

The "spriteGenerator" task

Overview

In your project's Gruntfile, add a section named spriteGenerator to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig().

grunt.initConfig({
  spriteGenerator: {
    options: {
      // Task-specific options go here.
    },
    your_target: {
      // Target-specific file lists and/or options go here.
    }
  }
})

Options

options.algorithm

Type: String
Default : binary-tree

A string value that is used to define the packing algorithm. The available options are: top-down, diagonal, alt-diagonal, binary-tree.

options.padding

Type: Number
Default value: 2

The padding used between images

options.overwrite

Type:boolean
Default value : true

This option if provided with value true will make task write change to source files, otherwise files will be written at <source>-sprited.css This is done to preserve the original files with references to original images which you will need in case you need to regenerate the sprite image for addition or removal of images.

Usage Examples

Default Options

In this example, the default options are used to do something with whatever. So if the testing file has the content Testing and the 123 file had the content 1 2 3, the generated result would be Testing, 1 2 3.

grunt.initConfig({
  spriteGenerator: {
    options: {},
    files: {
      'dest/default_options.png': ['src/default_options.css']
    }
  }
})

Some notes about the CSS replacements

1. "background-image" must be set as separate rule and not as part of "background".
2. Background repeat doesnt work good with sprites. You need to skip them from getting into sprite. If you need to add "background-repeat" of image dimensions, use it with background property than background image . This will skip the css from getting it into sprite..

Contributing

In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint and test your code using Grunt.

Release History

(Nothing yet)