Spritz CSS

A light CSS framework that wants to make your life more fun.

What is Spritz

Spritz is a a cocktail of different ideas in how to create sharp user interfaces for websites and applications. Here’s are some decisions that set it apart.

Spritz uses the excellent ideas in Every Layout to let you describe your interface using declarative classes like row, stack, or item-grid. These classes describe layout regardless of viewport sizes, removing the need for finnicky, viewport-based setups.
On top of that, Spritz sprinkles atomic classes like you would find in Tailwind CSS. You have classes like gap-2, pad-4, or aspect-square.
Unlike Tailwind, there is no predefined list of sizes that you have to fight against. Sometimes a design looks best with a gap of 52px, so you can have your lucky gap-13. Your 10 pixel padding is as easy as pad-2.5
Spritz also supports Tailwind-style prefixes like sm: or hover:, but is not opinionated about how these work. Go mobile-first or desktop-first. Mix and match. You can finally have your below-sm:hidden.
There’s a nifty feature called semantic classes. Define a class like pad--button and Spritz will set the padding to var(--pad--button). Spritz isn’t here to tell you never to write CSS again, but we’ll try to make it easier for you.
Speaking of which, Spritz doesn’t have a custom configuration format for colors, sizes, or any theme properties. You’re reponsible for setting all of those up using CSS variables. That lets you reuse them in your own CSS.
Spritz also chooses not to include a lot of things in its box.
- It avoids margins and favors paddings, gaps and nesting elements to control spacing.
- It does not have atomic classes for typographic attributes like font sizes or line heights. Instead, it encourages you to create cohesive typographic styles.
- It does not come with a lot of Tailwind bells and whistles like group:, pad-[23px] . Use CSS when you need something fancy.

Installation

Coming soon.

Organization

Spritz splits its functionality into five parts, each of which relies on utility classes that you add to your elements.

Layouts. These are utility classes that define how an element’s children should be laid out; this also includes utility classes for gaps and padding
Position. Relative or static positioning; reordering items; position on the z axis.
Dimensions. Width, height, aspect ratios, growing and shrinking
Boxes. Setting borders, colors, padding(?)
Typography. Use this for your own typographic classes and to customize those as needed.

Writing clean classes

To make things easier for your readers it is recommended (but not required) that you use vertical bars to separate classes based on the five parts above. Any of your own classes (we call them selectors) should go first.

<div
  class="notice | row gap-8 | fixed block-start-4 inline-end-4 | min-block-100 | bg-white border-gray-300 shadow--sm | type-notice"
>
  ...
</div>

If lines get too long, you can also split classes up on different lines:

<div
  class="
	notice
	row gap-8
	fixed block-start-4 inline-end-4
	min-block-100
	bg-white border-gray-300 shadow--sm
	type-notice"
>
  ...
</div>

Again, none of this is required to use Spritz, it’s just a suggestion to make your code easier to read.

Media query modifiers

Out of the box, Spritz lets you write classes like print:hidden which tell it to generate CSS like this:

@media print {
  .print\:hidden {
    display: none;
  }
}

The following media query prefixes are supported out of the box:

print wraps classes in @media print
light wraps them in @media (prefers-color-scheme: light)
dark wraps them in @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark)

The powerful part though, is being able to write your own media queries. In your uno.config.js you can set it up like this.

import { defineConfig } from "unocss";
import presetSpritz from "@spritz-css/uno-preset";

export default defineConfig({
  theme: {
    mediaQueries: {
      sm: "(min-width: 480px)",
    },
  },
});

This is similar to what you can do with Tailwind, but with Spritz media queries you have a lot more power.

A common thing to do is writing media queries that target viewports smaller than a certain size:

"below-sm": "(max-width: 480px)",

With this you can switch from Tailwilnd code like <div class="hidden sm:block" /> to <div class="below-sm:hidden">.

Postfix modifiers

You can write classes like hover:weight-700 which Spritz convert into this:

.hover\:weight-700:hover {
  font-weight: 700;
}

The following modifiers are supported:

hover will add :hover to the class
focus will add :focus-visible which, unlike :focus, is what you want for customizing appearance
active will add :active
odd will add :nth-of-type(odd) which is more robust than :nth-child.
even will add :nth-of-type(even)
first will add :first-of-type
last will add :last-of-type
not-first will add :not(:first-of-type)
not-last will add :not(:last-of-type)

Support for adding custom modifiers will be added in a future release.

Utility classes

Like Tailwind, Spritz lets you write utility classes with numbers describing sizes. For instance, you can write pad-4 and Spritz will generate a class with padding: 16px. But unlike Tailwind there is no predetermined catalogue of values. You can write pad-23 and Spritz will happily generate a class with padding: 92px. It’s your party!

You can also use media query prefixes to tweak sizes based on the browser’s viewport like pad-4 lg:pad-6. This is great for prototyping and is good enough for 95% of all your designs.

But every now and then you end up with classes like pad-4 sm:pad-6 md:pad-8 lg:pad-10 getting repeated in five different and unrelated components.`

Spritz lets you write a class like pad--box which will generate padding: var(--pad--box); (notice the two dashes which are there to avoid naming collisions with your existing CSS code). Now all that’s left to do is define that CSS variable somewhere.

Even better, due to the magic of CSS variables, you can override what --pad--box means inside one individual element by changing that variable only within that one element.

Inline and block

Spritz doesn’t use terms like top or bottom, left or right, x or y, column or row. Instead it relies on the words inline and block as used in CSS logical properties. If you’re trying to remember which is which, a good rule of thumb is to think of how spans flow using display: inline and divs flow using display: block.

Spritz also doesn’t have numeric utility classes for individual directions. There’s nothing that will set padding-inline-start or padding-left. Instead we rely on pad-inline- classes to set inline padding in both directions.

In the 1% of cases where this doesn’t work for you, you can use logical properties instead. Add a class like pad-inline--custom and set --pad-inline--custom: 16px 0 which is equivalent to setting pad-inline-start.

No margins for spacing.

Spritz does not have classes like mt-4 ml-2 or mx-8 which are used heavily in Tailwind to control spacing between elements. Instead, we rely on Flexbox and CSS grid and use gaps. When we find ourselves needing to customize the spacing between two elements, we wrap them.

This can make sense because needing to customize the spacing can be a sign that there is a certain relationship between these two elements, that they “belong together” somehow.

Layouts

Layouts describe how an element’s children should be displayed on the page.

They describe how children should be laid out across all viewport sizes. They are based on the book Every Layout by Heydon Pickering and Andy Bell. Unless otherwise stated, they’re implemented using Flexbox.

The following layouts are supported (visual examples to be added soon)

stack will stack children on the block axis regardless of screen size. By default children are justified to the start and do not stretch to fill the stack’s width.
- adding a split-first class to a stack that has, say, a minimum height of 100vh will leave split off the first element from all the others.
- adding a split-last class to a stack will split off the last element.
row will place children in a single row which will not wrap. By default children are center aligned.
- rows also support the split-first and split-last classes; they work the same but on the other axis.
center-contents will place children in the vertical and horizontal center of the current element. It’s implemented using Flexbox.
cluster will place things in a row but wrap to multiple rows if they don’t all fit.
with-sidebar is useful for creating layouts where one element is a fixed size and the other one grows to take up all remaining space. It its child has a class of sidebar it will be fixed in width, otherwise it grow.
switcher will put things on a row when the parent element is wider than a certain size. You specify the threshold below which children should stack using a threshold- class. For example, adding switcher threshold-120 to the classes will stack children when the element is narrower than 480px and put them in a row otherwise.
cover stacks three children such that the first and last one take up a fixed width and the center one expands to fit the available vertical space. It’s implemented using CSS grid to ensure equal sizes of the first and last children.
item-grid will place children in a grid of equally sized boxes which wrap. It is implemented using CSS Grid. That means that unlike row, there is no risk that an orphaned element will take up an entire row. You control the size of the children with an item-width- class like item-grid item-width-40 which would create a grid of items 160 pixels wide.
frame is a parent for images or videos. When smaller, they will be centered within the frame but they will never exceed its bounds. By default frames have an aspect ratio of 16/9 but you can customize this with aspect-- classes.
superimpose puts a child with the superimposed class on top of all other children, in the center of the parent. This can be useful for certain kinds of modals, log in prompts for paywalls and other questionable activities.
with-icon TODO ensure this is implemented correctly and document it.
divider can be used to set up a visual line between elements in a stack or row. TODO make this consistent and document it better.
boundary indicates that children using the bound class will be positioned relative to this parent using classes like block-start-0 inline-start-0. These are semantic names for position: relative and position: absolute
visually-hidden hides items but allows screen readers to read them. The except-on-focus will show the item when the user has navigated inside it using the keyboard which is handy for skip navigation links.

One thing to note about these layout classes is they do not work with prefixes. That’s because they are meant to work on all viewport sizes. However, you can always hide them like this:

<div class="row below-sm:hidden" />

Layout options

Separate from the layout classes themselves, there’s a set of attributes that let you tweak the layouts to fit your needs.

Gap classes let you specify gaps between the children of a class:

Numeric classes like gap-4 or semantic ones like gap--section let you specify gaps in both block and inline directions.
Classes like gap-inline-4 or gap-inline--section specify gaps in the inline direction only.
Classes like gap-block-4 or gap-block--section specify gaps in the block direction only.

Padding also supports both numeric and semantic clases. For example:

pad-8 would set padding: 32px
pad-inline-8 would set padding-inline: 32px
pad-block-8 would set padding-block: 32px
pad--button would set padding: var(--pad--button)
pad-inline--button would set padding-inline: var(--pad-inline--button)
pad-block--button would set padding-block: var(--pad-block--button)

Alignment classes specify how items are laid out on the block axis. It works by setting the align-items property.

align-start aligns all children to the start of the block
align-end aligns all children to the end of the block
align-center aligns all children to the center of the block
align-stretch stretches all children so they take up the entire block
align-baseline aligns all children to the text baseline.

Justify classes specify how items are laid out on the inline axis. It works by setting the justify-content property.

justify-start justifies all children to the inline start of the element
justify-end justifies all children to the inline end
justify-center justifies all children to the inline center.
justify-between sets the space-between value which means there’s equal spacing between children but they sit flush with the edges.
justify-around sets the space-around value which means there’s equal spacing between children and half of that spacing is used at the edges.
justify-evenly sets the space-evenly value which means that there’s equal spacing between the elements and the same spacing is used at the edges.

Hiding is acomplished with the hidden class which sets display: none.

Isolation with the isolate class creates a context in which all children’s z-index properties are evaluated against each other. If, like most of us human beings, you are confused by how z-index works, this article by Josh Comeau is a great resource.

Overflow classes control what happens when an element’s children don’t all fit within the element.

overflow-visible lets the children break outside the bounds
overflow-hidden hides the parts outside the bounds
overflow-scroll always creates scrollbars for the element
overflow-auto only creates scrollbars when the content overflows.

Dimensions

Dimension classes refer to the size of an element, either on its own or in relation to its siblings.

Inline size classes refer to the inline size of an element. They support both numeric and semantic classes.

Classes like min-inline-4 or min-inline--button control the minimum inline size of an element.
Classes like max-inline-200 or max-inline--main control the maximum inline size of an element
Classes like inline-100 or inline--illustration control the size of the element without letting it grow beyond that point.

One thing to note is numeric classes will constrain the size of an element so that it can’t be wider than the parent element. That is, a class like min-inline-40 will generate min-inline-size: min(160px, 100%)

This prevents creating components that cause your page to scroll horizontally on mobile devices.

Block size classes refer to the inline size of an element. They support both numeric and semantic classes.

Classes like min-block-4 or min-block--button control the minimum block size of an element.
Classes like max-block-200 or max-block--main control the maximum block size of an element
Classes like block-100 or block--illustration control the size of the element without letting it grow beyond that point.

Aspect ratios can be set using predefined and semantic classes:

aspect-square sets a square aspect ratio
aspect-video sets a 16:9 aspect ratio
aspect--portrait would set `aspect-ratio: var(--aspect--portrait);

Since a lot of layout classes use Flexbox under the hood, Spritz defines some classes to help with Flexbox-based layouts. For example:

basis-10 would set flex-basis: 40px
grow-5 would set flex-grow: 5
grow-max would set flex-grow: 9999
shrink-0 would set flex-shrink: 0

You can also control the way the dimensions of a box are calculated based on the selected box model:

box-content will set box-sizing: content-box
box-border will set box-sizing: border-box

Position

The following classes describe how an element should be positioned:

bound means the element will be positioned relative to a parent boundary – it’s a semantic class that sets position: absolute
static is the default static positioning
relative sets position: relative placing an element relative to where it would have normally been placed
fixed sets position: fixed
sticky sets position: sticky

These must be used together with classes which describe the actual coordinates. Spritz doesn’t use classes like top, bottom, left or right. It opts for logical properties instead. For example:

block-start-2 would set inset-block-start: 8px
block-end-2 would set inset-block-end: 8px
inline-start-2 would set inset-inline-start: 8px
inline-end-2 would set inset-inline-end: 8px
block-start--tooltip would set inset-block-start: var(--block-start--tooltip)
block-end--tooltip would set inset-block-end: var(--block-end--tooltip)
inline-start--tooltip would set inset-inline-start: var(--inline-start--tooltip)
inline-end--tooltip would set inset-inline-end: var(--inline-end--tooltip)

Z-index is set with z- classes. For example z-10 will set z-index: 10

Order classes determine how elements will be visually ordered:

order-2 will set order: 2
order-first will make the element first by setting order: -999; you should only use this once within a set of siblings
order-last will make the element last by setting order: 999; you should only use this once within a set of siblings

Boxes

Box classes define the visual boxes in which content is displayed. This can apply to buttons, cards, modals or anything with a visible background or borders.

Foreground and background colors are always semantic but they rely on a --color- prefix. For example:

fg-gray-500 will set color: var(--color-gray-500)
bg-gray-500 will set background-color: var(--color-gray-500)

Opacity is set numerically, as a percentage value. So opacity-99 would set opacity: 0.99

Blur can be set with to pixel value. The greater the value, the blurrier the result. So blur-1 will set backdrop-filter: blur(4px).

Borders are set with the same color semantic classes used for foreground and background colors. But they can then be customized:

border-gray-500 will set border: solid 1px var(--color-gray-500)
border-2.5 will set border-width: 2.5px (this works for anything purely numerical with no letters after border-)
border-none will hide the border
border-solid will set a solid border
border-dotted will set a dotted border
border-dashed will set a dashed border
border-transparent will set a transparent border (this can be handy when borders are shown on hover)

The same options are available for outlines by changing border- with outline-

Shadows are set in a similar way to color. Adding a class of shadow--sm will set box-shadow: var(--shadow--sm)

Typography

Spritz does not include a lot of the classes you will find in Tailwind. This is because those classes encouraging thinking of typography in ways that lead to unsatisfying designs. Rather than attempt to poke at pre-determined size and line height classes until something “looks right” you should create your type classes that semantically describe how type should be used. For example:

.type-examples-caption {
  font-weight: 430;
  font-size: 0.875rem;
  line-height: 1.375rem;
  font-feature-settings: "ss02" on, "ss03" on;

  @media (min-width: 30rem) {
    font-size: 1rem;
    line-height: 1.375rem;
  }

  @media (min-width: 60rem) {
    font-weight: 450;
    font-size: 1.125rem;
    line-height: 1.3125rem;
  }
}

Notice how in this example:

Sizes are set in rem units as you should
The font weight is slightly adjusted based on the viewport size. for a variable font in this case
OpenType font features are set.

By doing all of this in one go, users of this class don’t have to worry about getting 10 things right in tandem.

That said, there are a few knobs you can tweak on the go.

weight-700 will set font-weight: 700 ; useful for the occasional active link or hover variant
italic will set the font style to italic
non-italic will set the font style to normal
underline will decorate the text with an underline
line-through will strike the text through
no-line will not decorate with any line
decoration-1.5 will set a 1.5px line
decoration-from-font will use font data to decide how thick the line should be

There are a few helpers related to wrapping and truncation:

no-wrap will force text not to wrap (should be avoided, but handy when Flexbox is wrapping something against your will)
truncate will truncate text so it doesn’t wrap; best avoided if you can
line-clamp-2 will only display the first two lines of your text, truncating afterwards

You can also control the justification of the text:

text-start will justify to the start (which means left for LTR languages and vice-versa)
text-end will justify to the end
text-center will center the text
text-justify will justify along both edges

There are a few options for controlling how list decorations are displayed:

list-inside will set list-style-position: inside
list-inside will set list-style-position: outside
list-none will set list-style-type: none
list-disc will set list-style-type: disc
more to come soon

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