Drupal & Compass

Relax. Don’t fret over taking notes.

Download the presentation slides here:

http://j.mp/drupal-compass

Note: It’s okay if you read ahead. We don’t mind. :)

Design & User Experience

Using Sass & Compassin Drupal Theming

Nathan Smith & Matt Farina

Hello :)We like Drupal, Sass & Compass.We hope you do too, or will soon.

Let us introduce ourselves...

Nathan Smith isa UX designer at

Matt Farina is aweb developer atHP Cloud Services

http://projekt202.com

http://hpcloud.com

yay,  books!

Note: We co-authored these books, respectively. We’re not taking all the credit.

Sass & Compass are made possible by...

http://hamptoncatlin.com

He is no longer activein working on Sass.

http://nex-3.com

Still works on Sass,in his “20% time.”

http://chriseppstein.github.com

Also, member ofSass core team.

Nathan WeizenbaumGoogle Chrome (Dart)

Hampton Catlincreated Haml & Sass

Chris Eppsteincreated Compass

...and other community contributors.

Part 1:Why Sass?

“The backdrop to this debate is that CSS is absolutely the worst, least productive part of the web platform. Apps teams at Google are fond of citing the meme that ‘CSS is good for documents, but not for apps.’I push back on this, noting the myriad of ways in which CSS is abysmal for documents [as well].”

On -webkit vendor prefix drama

http://infrequently.org/2012/02/misdirection

Alex Russell @slightlylateGoogle Chrome team / Dojo Toolkit co-creator

So what’s to be done about CSS?

The answer has actually been staring us in the face for awhile now, but it’s only been in recent years that CSS has become a first-class citizen. CSS is now being approached with an architectural mindset.

PHP is a (recursive) acronym for “PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.” So, preprocessing is a considered a Good Thing™ for HTML. How does it work for CSS?

http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/post/9494864300/submission-the-compulsively-tidy-ursus-wehrli

CSS served to browserNeatly organized *.sass

“Years ago, we wrote static HTML. Now, we almost never do. Our HTML is virtually always preprocessed, be it by PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, .NET, Java, or something else. Today, we almost never write and serve straight HTML.”

Jeff Croft @jcroftChief “Designerd” at nGen Works

http://jeffcroft.com/blog/2012/jan/31/on-css-preprocessors

Noteworthy CSS preprocessors

• LESShttp://lesscss.org

• Sass & Compasshttp://sass-lang.comhttp://compass-style.org

• Stylus & Nibhttp://learnboost.github.com/stylushttp://visionmedia.github.com/nib

Note: Obviously, today we will only be covering Sass and Compass.

CSS Sass Compasshttp://sonspring.com/journal/sass-for-designers

Compass extends the functionality of Sass by offering a plugin architecture. It also handles vendor prefixes like a champ. Today, when you hear us say “Sass,” we may blur the lines between Compass and Sass. Hope that’s okay.

Compass is essentially Sass’extra-awesome secret-sauce.

Oversimplification, FTW!

Compass is to Sassas

jQuery is to JavaScript

Sass & SCSS are functionally equivalent

We prefer using Sass instead of SCSS because hey, less typing!

Anti-pattern of nested selectors in Sass

Compass makes vendor prefixes easy...

Compass brings sanity to gradients...

Text editors and IDE’s that support Sass/SCSS syntax

Aptanahttp://aptana.org

BBEdithttp://barebones.com/bbedit

Chocolathttp://chocolatapp.com

Codahttp://panic.com/coda

E Text Editorhttp://e-texteditor.com

Eclipsehttp://eclipse.org

Emacshttp://gnu.org/software/emacs

Espressohttp://macrabbit.com/espresso

GEdithttp://projects.gnome.org/gedit

Komodohttp://activestate.com/komodo-ide

Netbeanshttp://netbeans.org

PhpStormhttp://jetbrains.com/phpstorm

PyCharmhttp://jetbrains.com/pycharm

RubyMinehttp://jetbrains.com/ruby

SubEthaEdithttp://codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit

Sublime Texthttp://sublimetext.com/dev

TextMatehttp://macromates.com

Vimhttp://vim.org

Visual Studiohttp://microsoft.com/visualstudio

http://sass-lang.com/editors.html

^We  recommend

GUI to compile Sass & Compass

• Compass.apphttp://compass.handlino.com

• Scouthttp://mhs.github.com/scout-app

• CodeKithttp://incident57.com/codekit

Note: Personally, we prefer to run command-line “compass watch”

Impression of Sass...

Great for CSS, in Ruby on Rails projects.

Great for CSS, in Ruby on Rails projects.

Great for CSS, in Ruby projects.

Impression of Sass...

Great for CSS, in Ruby on Rails projects.

Great for CSS, in Ruby projects.

Great for CSS, in any project!

Impression of Sass...

What if I want to use Sass for somethingthat wasn’t written in Ruby... impossible?

But, wait...

When I think about not having Sass...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Hulk_(TV_series)

Yes, but the amount of Ruby knowledge it takes to use Sass is basically zero.

Nathan is not a hardcore programmer, but he manages to use Sass just fine.

Matt explained to Nathan how to use *.sass files in Drupal. Matt is the man.

So, does Sass require Ruby?

Part 2:Whither amodule?

Why use a Drupal Module?

Possibly  Bad  Reasons...— You don’t want to install Sass/Compass gems.— You want Drupal to do everything, end-to-end.

Possibly  Good  Reasons...— To use base-theme mixins/variables in sub-theme.— So that modules can supply mixins/variables.

Sass/SCSS modulehttp://drupal.org/project/sass

• Depends on “phamlp”http://code.google.com/p/phamlpLast updated in September 2010.

• PHP needs code write access to themeThis can lead to bad security practices.

• Despite the name, only handles SCSS files#sadpanda

Compass stylesheet tool modulehttp://drupal.org/project/compass

• Ruby (Compass) does the heavy liftingThis means you need Ruby and PHP on your server.

• Can compile CSS using devel or cronThis is similar to “compass compile” but using Drupal.

• Compass location across environmentsCompass location set it config. Needs to be managed.

• Version and permissions can be an issue

• Module admin page is hidden (a bug)

Sassy modulehttp://drupal.org/project/sassy

• Several dependencies http://github.com/richthegeek/phpsass — and three other modules.

• Hooks for namespaces/implementationsIncomplete (PHP) implementation of Compass, Bootstrap, Foundation.

• Sass & SCSS files in .info file styles[]

• Stores generated files in public files

Jeff Croft, quoted previously, programs in Python and uses Django. He also makes use of Sass, via Ruby.

We advocate trying to move beyond a “not invented here” mindset, and adopting a more hybrid workflow.

Just as it wouldn’t make much sense to port Drupal out of PHP, we think it’s most logical to use first-party releases of Sass and Compass directly, if possible.

TL;DR — Stick “close to the metal” if you want to stay on the cutting-edge.

“Best tool for the job”

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!Presuppositions Challenged

Note: I don’t think this photo is necessarily relevant, but I think we can all agree that raw electricity looks awesome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige_(film)

Part 3:How to use

For the sake of brevity, we are going to assume in this talk that your environment already has Ruby set up. If not, then follow the instructions here...

http://sonspring.com/journal/sass-for-designers

Prerequisite: Ruby

Setting up Compass & Sass

gem install compass

From the command-line (Terminal.app, iTerm, etc)...

This will also automatically download the Sass gem, a dependency of Compass. There’s no need to install separately. They’re typically used in tandem anyway.

Take a hybrid PHP + Ruby approach

Add config.rb to your theme directory

“cd” to your theme directory,then run “compass watch”

If you just want to flush cache and compile, run“compass clean && compass compile”

application.css is compiledand (optionally) minifiedvia “compass watch”

Serving as a aggregate,application.sass is builtfrom “_file.sass” partials.

I bring over what I do likefrom default Drupal CSSas SCSS files, to import:

_search.scss_system.base.scss_system.theme.scss

Compass outputs theresulting compiled fileas “application.css”

Sass partials begin with anunderscore, aren’t compiledto *.css files individually.

Theme *.info file – before Sassstylesheets[all][] = assets/css/reset.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/override/system.base.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/override/system.theme.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/override/search.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/960_12_col.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/text.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/formalize.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/site.css

; KILL THESE DEFAULT STYLESHEETS:

stylesheets[all][] = ctools.css

stylesheets[all][] = field.css

stylesheets[all][] = node.css

stylesheets[all][] = system.messages.css

stylesheets[all][] = system.menus.css

stylesheets[all][] = user.css

stylesheets[all][] = views.css

For  brevity,  only  CSS  files  shown

Files  in  orange  are  listed  to  prevent  Drupal  from  adding  ‘em  automatically.

Theme *.info file – before Sass

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/reset.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/override/system.base.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/override/system.theme.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/override/search.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/960_12_col.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/text.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/formalize.css

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/site.css

For  brevity,  only  CSS  files  shown

Minus the nonexistent files, to ward off Drupal defaults...

This compresses down to a single CSS file,in the Performance cache setting in Drupal.

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/application.css

; KILL THESE DEFAULT STYLESHEETS:

stylesheets[all][] = ctools.css

stylesheets[all][] = field.css

stylesheets[all][] = node.css

stylesheets[all][] = search.css

stylesheets[all][] = system.base.css

stylesheets[all][] = system.theme.css

stylesheets[all][] = system.menus.css

stylesheets[all][] = system.messages.css

stylesheets[all][] = user.css

stylesheets[all][] = views.css

Theme *.info file – after Sass

For  brevity,  only  CSS  files  shown

Files  in  orange  are  listed  to  prevent  Drupal  from  adding  ‘em  automatically.

stylesheets[all][] = assets/css/application.css

Theme *.info file – after Sass

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKEDOnly one CSS HTTP request!

With (or without) cached CSScompression in Performance.

Minus the nonexistent files, to ward off Drupal defaults...

This is still worthdoing. I’ll explainwhy in a second.

Even if using “compass watch” with:

output_style = :compressed

You should still use Drupal’s CSS compression under Performance.

Why? Well, let’s flip to the next slide...

Benefits of using Drupal’s CSS compression, not just Compass:

1. Cache-busting. File name is changed to... “css_VvtjvgJd9tI4sfrbHdy7Yvyc5fm9jVFoHRnrEBsJlQs.css”

2. <link /> instead of <style>@import</style> (older IE versions are slower at the latter)

3. Drupal replaces url(../images/file.png) with url(/full/path/to/images/file.png) — Useful if you have assets on a CDN or subdomain.

Compass output, before Drupal compression

Compass output, after Drupal compression

Achievement Unlocked!You have now attained CSS bliss.

Don’t forget to rate this as the besttalk you’ve ever heard in your life.

Or, maybe we forgot something...

Stop the presses!What  about  debugging?

How do I see what stylesare coming from which

*_file.sass partial?

Part 4:Debugging& Demos

Cryptic errormessages arenever helpful.

^ I believe debugging this way stinks.

When things don’t go as planned...

http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/porsche-stuck-wet-cement-proves-karma-exists-210302568.html

Just a one-line change in config.rb

Emits *.sass “stack trace” for each style

A quick tip on source control

While you can track your *.css files viasource control, the ones you really careabout are your *.sass files, which are thecanonical “source of truth.” Educate peerdevelopers not to edit *.css, but insteadtweak *.sass files when making changes.

Now time for somedemonstrations :)Note: If you’re viewing these slides, but missed oursession, we showed “compass watch” in action.

“Luck, be a lady...” (live demo = dice roll)

http://kloucksphoto.blogspot.com/2011/06/guys-and-dolls-witty-wry-wonderful.html

If you want to tinker with Haml & Sass...

“We keep thinking we can write better CSS if we just try harder, that the next site will be clean and stay that way. [Her] presentation shows that in fact, messy CSS is the direct result of our worst best-practices. We need to re-examine those assumptions with an eye to practicality and scalability — as well as accessibility, standards, and fabulous design.”

Nicole Sullivan @stubbornellaCSS Ninja & Front-end Performance Engineer

http://stubbornella.org/content/2011/04/28/our-best-practices-are-killing-us

(Nicole helped make Yahoo & Facebook more efficient)

Feel free to say hi on Twitter, and/or check out our personal sites for more of our work.

http://twitter.com/NathanSmithPersonal site — http://sonspring.com

http://twitter.com/MattFarinaPersonal site — http://mattfarina.com

Thanks for coming. Keep in touch!

Questions? We (might) have answers.

Feel free to share the link with friends, enemies, etc.

Download the presentation slides here:

http://j.mp/drupal-compass

What did you think?Locate this session on theDrupalCon Denver website

http://denver2012.drupal.org/program

Click the “Take the Survey” link.

Thank You!