Palette plugin using CSS variables for TailwindCSS

Adds a color palette (from 100 to 900) for each color of your tailwind configuration while using CSS variable for each.

This package has been designed to create library components where the theme (colors) are easily modifiable in the application, using CSS variables.

Installation

Using yarn :

yarn add -D tailwindcss-css-variables-palette-plugin

Using npm :

npm install --save-dev tailwindcss-css-variables-palette-plugin

Then set up your tailwind.config.js this way :

const THEME_COLORS = {
  primary: '#264653',
  secondary: '#2A9D8F'
};

module.exports = {
  /...
  theme: {
    colors: THEME_COLORS,
    extend: {},
  },
  plugins: [
    require('tailwindcss-css-variables-palette-plugin')({
      colors: THEME_COLORS,
    }),
    /...
  ],
};

The plugin then create the following configuration for you :

{
  primary: {
    '100': 'var(--color-primary-100, #e9edee)',
    '200': 'var(--color-primary-200, #c9d1d4)',
    '300': 'var(--color-primary-300, #a8b5ba)',
    '400': 'var(--color-primary-400, #677e87)',
    '500': 'var(--color-primary-500, #264653)',
    '600': 'var(--color-primary-600, #223f4b)',
    '700': 'var(--color-primary-700, #1d353e)',
    '800': 'var(--color-primary-800, #172a32)',
    '900': 'var(--color-primary-900, #132229)',
    DEFAULT: 'var(--color-primary, #264653)'
  },
  secondary: {
    '100': 'var(--color-secondary-100, #eaf5f4)',
    '200': 'var(--color-secondary-200, #cae7e3)',
    '300': 'var(--color-secondary-300, #aad8d2)',
    '400': 'var(--color-secondary-400, #6abab1)',
    '500': 'var(--color-secondary-500, #2A9D8F)',
    '600': 'var(--color-secondary-600, #268d81)',
    '700': 'var(--color-secondary-700, #20766b)',
    '800': 'var(--color-secondary-800, #195e56)',
    '900': 'var(--color-secondary-900, #154d46)',
    DEFAULT: 'var(--color-secondary, #2A9D8F)'
  },
}

The plugin is also adding the always needed following classes by default (same naming as default TailwindCSS properties) :

{
  inherit: 'inherit',
  current: 'currentColor',
  transparent: 'transparent',
  black: '#000',
  white: '#fff',
}

Simple Usage

Now in your application, you can use classes like bg-primary-500 or bg-primary-800 as usual.

DEFAULT is the variable used to generate bg-primary without suffix.

<span class="bg-primary text-secondary-400">
    Hello !
</span>

NOTE : primary and primary-500 have the same color attributed. It's a better idea to use it without suffix in your code (ex: bg-primary) if the goal is to replace the color globally using its CSS variable.

CSS Variables usage

Addition in the DOM

This plugin uses the addBase utility from tailwindcss/plugin package.

So in your DOM, under the :root attribute, you can now find all the css variables generated by the plugin :

See more at : https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:root

Change scoped color in your component

Now, if you need to modify one of the color of a property, you can do it globally or component scoped, using the default Css Variables API.

:root {
  --color-primary: #D36060;
}

.my-custom-card {
  --color-primary-300: #C2714F;
  --color-secondary: #E0607E;
}

Documentation : https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Using_CSS_custom_properties

Compatibility

This plugin is based on CSS Custom Properties, which are not compatible with IE11. You can have partial support for the browsers that do not support them by using a PostCSS plugin that add a fallback for CSS variables, such as postcss-css-variables or postcss-custom-properties.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.