Why SASS?

SASS is an improvement on CSS in that there are methods of abstraction. It is a stylesheet language that is compiled into CSS, which means that Sass will translate the Sass code you wrote into CSS, which is what your web browser can read.

SASS vs SCSS

As you learn about Sass, you might notice something called Scss. They are basically the same thing except that Scss uses curly braces and semicolons to distinguish between lines. Sass uses indentation and newlines instead.

We will be teaching the Scss syntax because it is more commonly used.

Getting started

A easy way to write SASS and have it preprocessed into CSS is by using a Jekyll powered website, such as GitHub pages or Fastpages.

The first step is to clone a GitHub pages repo, such as this one.

Within the repository, head over to assets/css/, and open style.scss.

This is where you can create your SASS code.

To see your CSS-translated SASS code, head over to _site/assets/css/style.css

Note: You will need to run bundle exec jekyll serve before the _site directory appears.

The first few hundred lines are used to style Github's theme. Make sure to scroll to the very bottom to see the SASS code that you wrote, which is in the form of CSS.

Nesting

In the context of SASS (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets), nesting refers to the practice of nesting CSS rules within other CSS rules, which allows for more organized and hierarchical styling of HTML elements. Nesting is one of the features of SASS that makes it a powerful and efficient CSS preprocessor. SASS allows you to write CSS rules in a nested structure, where child selectors are written inside their parent selectors. This creates a visual hierarchy that is easier to read and understand, and also helps to avoid repetitive code.

Mini-hack

Write out the SASS equivalent for the following CSS code:

.a .b {
    color: green;
}

.a .c {
    color: blue;
}

Extend/Inheritance

What are some similarities that the buttons share? What are the differences?

The buttons are all the same width and height, but they are different colors and one of them is a radial gradient.

Using classes, we essentially reference multiple elements at a time and apply similar properties among them.

Mixin

Mixin is a similar method to what classes do, which is reference multiple elements at a time to apply similar properties among them.

Mini-hack

Write out a mixin in SASS that takes in a color and a font size as the parameter. Within the mixin, set the background color and font color to the color parameter, and set the font size to the font size parameter. Then create a selector that calls the mixin, and pass in a color and font size of your choice as the arguments.

Function

Functions are a basic part of any programming language. They are in SASS, too.

Import

Take notes here

SASS Hacks

  1. Take notes and complete the mini-hacks. (0.9)

  2. Complete the quiz questions and provide your answers in this notebook. (0.9)

  3. Use SASS to create something that uses either extend or mixin. (0.9)

  4. Extra credit: Research other SASS features and blog about what you learned or add to your SASS project with any extra features not covered in this lesson. More points will be given if both are done.