Customization

mini.css is built in such a way that customizing it is really simple. You can try out one of the pre-defined flavors, if you want to start learning and build something quickly. We strongly suggest, however, that you customize an existing flavor or build your own, by tweaking variables and using mixins, in order to create your own, unique style. In this page, we will try to give you some guidelines and tips on how to do so and explain a few more things about the inner workings of mini.css.

Introduction & basics

mini.css is written using Sass, a very popular CSS preprocessor. We use Sass to do four things:

Make the code modular
Create variables that can be changed on the fly
Optimize the code
Create reusable mixins

Modules & file structure

At the heart of mini.css are modules - groups of classes and styles that aim to solve one set of needs. There are 10 modules in mini.css, which have been already written for you. All of the modules are built using partial files, named _module_name.scss and placed in the src/mini folder. You can edit any of the modules' code and/or add your own modules, following the same structure. The only thing you need to remember to do, in order to add your module to your flavor, is to add an @import statement after all the required variable declarations towards the bottom of your flavor file and it will be compiled along with the rest of mini.css. Similarly, to disable a module, just comment out its @import statement from the flavor file.

Variables

Everything in mini.css is based on Sass variables. We try to make our variable names as descriptive as possible, usually using names like $block-element-property-name, but some things might vary a little bit. Changing the values of variables should be reasonably easy, simply navigate to the src/flavors/flavor-name.scss file for a pre-defined flavor and you will see a list of variables that you can tweak. Change the values as you see fit and your finalized stylesheet will reflect the changes you have made. We did our best to make everything as customizable as possible, so that different people can build entirely different flavors using the same building blocks.

Code optimization

Building mini.css was no small task. Making it lightweight and customizable made things even harder, because these two things don't go well together most of the time. What we did was put more of the load on the preprocessor, instead of the final file. In order to accomplish this, we optimized as much of the code as possible, using conditions, flags and other tricks, so that compiling a flavor file might take one second longer, but loading won't. If you add any code to a flavor yourself, remember not only to make it customizable, but also to optimize it as best as possible.

Mixins

A lot of elements and components can be styled in many ways and most of the time we want a few styles to be available, without having to rewrite everything. We utilized the @mixin directive of Sass wherever we could to make it possible for you to easily create styles for pre-existing components and elements without having to tweak the base code for said elements or components. To use a mixin, simply @include it, passing values to at least its mandatory parameters. We recommend you write mixins wherever possible, if you create any new modules for mini.css.

Building a flavor

Creating your own flavor can be as easy or as complicated as your needs. Adding and removing modules is as simple as adding an @import statement or commenting it out, after declaring all the required variables. In this section, we will briefly walk you through most of the variables usually present in a flavor, along with some flags and mixins. This section serves as a complementary documentation to the comment column present in our pre-defined flavors, instead of a replacement and should be always viewed alongside it.

Core

The core module uses a lot of variables, most of which are pretty straightforward. Some of the most important ones are as follows:

$fore-color - base text color
$back-color - base background color or image
$base-font-family - font stack
$base-root-font-size - font size of the page's root element, must be specified in px units
$base-line-height - base line height for the page's text
$body-margin - margin of the <body> element

Apart from the above variables, you should take note of the boolean $apply-defaults-to-all, which will reset font styling for all elements, utilizing the value of $base-font-size in the process. Certain elements like headings, horizontal rules and code blocks have some opinionated "modern" styles which can be turned on or off, using the boolean variables $make-heading-smalltext-block, $horizontal-rule-fancy-style and $add-pre-element-sidebar. The $style-samp-element and $include-dfn-fix boolean variables will either add styling for the elements they affect or completely omit it. This is part of the code optimization process, as most websites rarely use these elements. Finally, there are two boolean variables for link styling, $apply-link-underline and $apply-link-hover-fade.

Grid

The grid module contains two important variables, the boolean $use-four-step-grid which determines if the grid has 3 or 4 breakpoints and the $grid-column-count which determines the amount of vertical columns used for the grid's layout. Apart from those, there are a few variables that set the names for the grid system's classes, prefixes and suffixes and the grid's screen size breakpoint definitions.

Navigation

The navigation module contains a plethora of variables used in the styling of the navigational elements. Most of them concern colors, spacing and sizing or similar things. Bear in mind that the presentation of buttons inside the <header> element will be affected by the styling of all button elements, as defined in the input_control module. The variable that stands out in this module is $nav-sublink-depth which determines how deep a navigational hierarchy tree can be.

Input Control

The input_control module is one of the larger modules, containg a lot of variables to style a multitude of elements. Forms and textual <input> elements utilize variables that concern color, spacing, sizing etc. Button variables are more interesting, especially the ones concerning the opacity of button elements ($button-back-opacity and $button-hover-back-opacity). The $hide-file-inputs boolean variable determines how <input type="file"> elements will be handled. Checkboxes and radio buttons also use a few variables concerning basic styling, but special attention needs to be paid to the $checkbox-size variable, as it determines a few attributes of both elements.

There are two mixins in the input_control module, specifically:

make-button-alt-color - button color variants
make-button-alt-style - button size and spacing variants

Table

The table module's variables deal mostly with basic table styling. The $table-mobile-breakpoint is very important as it determines the breakpoint for responsive tables' mobile view, along with $table-mobile-card-label which determines the attribute that will be used to display the table headings on mobile devices.

Card

The card modules' variables mostly deal with things like class names, spacing, sizing and colors. Cards offer a handful of mixins, specifically:

make-card-alt-size - card size variants
make-card-alt-color - card color variants
make-card-section-alt-color - card section color variants
make-card-section-alt-style - card section size and spacing variants

Tab

The tab module utilizes a few naming and color variables, along with some sizing and spacing variables to deal with presentation and functionality. Many of the sizing variables are very dependent on each other's values. The $tab-stacked-breakpoint variable is especially important, as it determines the mobile view breakpoint for the tabs component.

Contextual

The contextual module features, apart from basic naming and styling variables, a few things of note. The boolean variable $alert-include-animated determines if animated alerts will be inluded or not. There is also a handful of mixins, which are the most important part of the contextual module as they are what makes it useful:

make-mark-alt-color - mark color variants
make-mark-alt-style - mark size and spacing variants
make-alert-alt-color - alert color variants
make-alert-alt-style - alert size and spacing variants

Progress

The progress module contains lots of variables that affect basic styling, but it also features a few interesting mixins:

make-progress-inline - inline progress variant
make-progress-alt-color - progress color variants
make-progress-alt-style - progress size and spacing variants
make-spinner-donut-alt-color - spinner donut color variants
make-spinner-donut-alt-style - spinner donut size and spacing variants

Utility

The utility module contains a few variables dealing with naming and basic styling, but its most important feature is its mixins:

make-border-generic - generic border
make-border-radial-style - border radius variants
make-box-shadow-generic - generic shadow variants
make-margin-responsive - responsive margins
make-padding-responsive - responsive paddings
make-floats - quick floats

If you would rather use one of the pre-defined flavors, check out our flavors page for a list of all flavors currently available.