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Sass:Compile Sass Files using install sass

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There are several GUI and command line solutions for compiling SASS. My preference is for the command line tool. The command line tool is easy enough to use both directly and to integrate into other build tools.  Installation using the Node Package Manager works on Windows, Linux, and macOS (though for me it does not work with the Windows Power Shell while it works fine in the command terminal).

npm install sass -g

If you would like to check if a system has sass installed and the version number type the following.

sass --version

Much like TypeScript, think of SASS as a super set of CSS. This is not 100% the case, but it is a good starting point for understanding. SASS styles might be distributed among several files, but when compiled the output will be in a single files.  SASS files will typically have the extension *.scss.  As an initial test I have created two files in a folder. One is named first.scss and the other is named second.scss. The following is the contents of first.sass:

@import 'second';
first {
font-family: Arial;
}

And of second.sass:

second{
font-family: Arial;
}

Since first.sass is my main file of this set to compile these files I am selecting first.sass as the input to the pre-processor. When the pre-processor encounters the @import keyword it will replace that line with the contents of the files whose name is specified there. Note that I did not need to include the extension to the file name here.  To compile these files I use the following command:

sass first.sass output.css

After running the command there is a new file named output.css.

second {
font-family: Arial;
}

first {
font-family: Arial;
}

Chances are that you are not going to want to issue a command at the command prompt every time you make a change to one of the SASS files.  To avoid this you can add the parameter –watch to the command line and allow it to continue to run. Every time you modify a SASS file the compiler will regenerate output.css.

sass --watch first.scss output.css

Variables

One of the first constructs that you will use in SASS is variables. Variables are recognizable from the $ prefix that they have. A variable can hold a Boolean, color, numeric, or string values. It is easy to undervalue variables at first; CSS already provide variables. Why are SASS variables needed? SASS variables are usable in places and ways in which CSS variables are not.  Some of the ways that variables can be used to create a style sheet will come up in some of the following sections. Let us look at a typical scenario first.

$primaryColor : #FF0000;
$secondaryColor: #FFFFD0;
 
This creates two variables that hold colors. These colors can be used within the SASS  in place of an actual color code.
 
body {
   color:$primaryColor;
   background-color: $secondaryColor;
}

.container > div {
   margin:1px;
   color:$secondaryColor;
   background-color: $primaryColor;
}
 

Variables have a scope. If a variable is declared outside of brackets it is globally accessible. If it is declared within the SASS block enveloped by brackets it is only visible to the SASS code within that block. In the following the second instance of $borderColor will cause an error from a variable not being defined. The variable of the same name declared in the first block is not within scope.

body {
   $borderColor: #0000FF;
   color:$primaryColor;
   background-color: $secondaryColor;
}

.container > div {
   margin:1px;
   color:$secondaryColor;
   background-color: $primaryColor;
   border: 1px solid $borderColor;
}

Default Values for Variables

You may make a SASS and want to allow a user to customize it through defining values for some variables. But you might not want to obligate the user to define values for all of the variables that your SASS uses. For this scenario there are default values.  To assign a variable a default values append the assignment with !default.
 
$primaryColor: #FF0000 !default;
The assignment occurs only if the variable is undefined or has a null values.  If there are any SASS definitions that use the variable before it is assigned a values other than its default those blocks that occur before the new assignment will not have the new values. The default would need to be overridden before it was used.  This could mean defining a variable before including the library that will be used. But there is another way that I think is cleaner.
 
With the @use directive a SASS library can be included and the variables to be assigned new values can be specified using the keyword “with” and a list of the variable assignments.
 
@use  'second' with (
   $primaryColor: #FF00FF
)

Nesting Selectors

The ability to nest selectors is a feature that in my opinion allows for much neater style sheets. It is common within CSS to have selectors based on some parent/child relationship. Here is a simple example.

.demoView {
   width:1080px;
   height:1920px;
}

.demoView .left {
   background-color: red;
}

.demoView .middle {
   background-color: green;
}

.demoView .right {
   background-color: blue;
}
 
While these style selectors are all related they are each in their own  own declaration independent of each other. Under SASS they could be grouped together. Each selector is referring to elements that are children of an element of the demoView class. A single demoView declaration is made in my SASS file. For selectors that are targeting children of demoView within SASS they are declared within  the demoView class selector.
 
.demoView {
   width:1080px;
   height:1920px;

   .left {
      background-color: red;
   }
   .middle {
      background-color: green;
   }
   .right {
      background-color: blue;
   }
}
I personally find this pleasing since the SASS’s layout is now closer to the arrangement of the elements within the HTML.
 

Parent Selector

The ampersand (&) character is used as a parent selector operator.  The & is replaced with what ever the parent selector is.
 
a {
   text-decoration: none;;
   &:hover {
      color:red;
   }
}
Here the potential use of the operator might not be entirely obvious. Think of it as performing a string replacement.
 
.icon {
   &-left {
      color:red;
   }
   &-right {
      color:yellow;
   }
}
This expands to the following.
.icon {
   &-left {
      color:red;
   }
   &-right {
      color:yellow;
   }
}
 
Not that this is the only way that a string substitution can occur. There is also the string interpolation operation.
 

String Interpolation

String interpolation substitutes the values of a variable into a string. String interpolation operations use #{}  with a variable name inserted between the brackets. String interpolation can be used in a selector, attribute name, or values.
$index:4;
item-#{$index} {
   color:red;
}
 
expands to
item-4 {
color: red;
}
The potential for this operation becomes more powerful once used within other constructs such as loops. Control structures will be the topic of the second half of this post, but I will show a brief example here.
 
@for $i from 1 to 4 {
   item-#{$i} {
      animation-delay: #{$i}s;
   }
}
 
item-1 {
   animation-delay: 1s;
}

item-2 {
   animation-delay: 2s;
}

item-3 {
   animation-delay: 3s;
}
 

Placeholder Selectors and @extend

Placeholder selectors look like class selectors. But they are proceeded with a % instead of a period. The first thing to note about placeholder selectors is that they do not generate any CSS output. Any selector that contains a place holder selector will not be rendered to the CSS output. At first, placeholders appear useless. The placeholder selectors are made to be used with @extend. Use @extend to import the attributes from a place holder selector into another selector.
 
 
 
%blockElement {
   display:block;
   width:100px;
   height:100px;
}

.redBlock {
   @extend %blockElement;
   background-color: red;
}

.greenBlock {
   @extend %blockElement;
   background-color: green;
}
 
This is the CSS produced by the above.
.greenBlock, .redBlock {
display: block;
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
}

.redBlock {
background-color: red;
}

.greenBlock {
background-color: green;
}
 
Nothing in what I have shown thus far is complex and I think it is easy to to understand the individual elements. But for a deeper understanding I think it best to start putting this information to use. Exercise one’s understanding through some simple projects to strengthen that understanding.  When the next portion of this post is published  will dive straight into control structures and functions. With those the potential to generate complex CSS from much simpler SASS increases significantly.