Sass first appeared in 2006 and has come a long way as a preprocessor scripting language that software engineers often interpret or compile into Cascading Style Sheets.
The 2019 State of CSS study shows SasS is still the leading preprocessor in interest and awareness. This article offers tips to help you get the best out of SasS.
Sass vs. SCS
Initially, SasS used a .sass extension. While it supports all similar features as .scss, the exception is where you use indentation without including semicolons. Because of SasS’s similarity to .css, the .scss version became the most widely used.
Modularize
Today, you can use nesting to modularize your CSS files. But SasS can also break CSS files down into smaller chunks and integrate these code blocks into each other.
SasS will create one CSS file from this, resulting in a single network request. This makes it easy to break down styles and easily separate components’ styles from each other.
If you want to mark SasS files as partial, you can name them with an underscore in front: _config.scss.
Use Variables
Variables can be used in SasS to create naming conventions across a site. It involves giving values names beginning with a dollar sign. This allows you to cater to IE and older browsers.
For example;
1 $color-white: #FAFAFA;
2 $color-pure-white: #FFF;
3 $color-off-white: #E8E8E8;
This way, you can conveniently define your color scheme in a single place and use variables or predefined typography values for spacing.
Use At-Rules
Sass has extra rules adding additional functionality to CSS. The @mixin and @include rules will be among your best friends, as they allow you to define styles that are re-usable throughout your stylesheets. Just define several rules with the @mixin rule and include them anywhere necessary using the @include rule.
SasS At-Rules also allows you to create more complex, variable mixins by incorporating some logic and parameters. That’s not forgetting the use of interpolation that lets you embed outcomes of a Sass expression anywhere using the #{…} syntax.
Use Built-In Modules
With SasS, you can access a handful of built-in modules that offer multiple useful functions, from doing math calculations to manipulating colors. To use these functions, you have to import the module at the top of your SasS file with @use <module-name>.
Bottom Line
The 2022 1.49.9 SasS stable release is a powerful tool to help you improve your CSS workflow.
And CSS continues to be a powerful extension because it allows you to build more manageable and scalable stylesheets. It also enforces predefined values, thus making way for more consistent designs.
Other tips like nesting selectors and using map.get a built-in function to get values from a map will also enhance your SasS experience.
