After studying Louis Lazaris’ insightful article “These HTML Attributes You By no means Use”, I’ve requested myself (and the neighborhood) which properties and selectors are lesser-known or ought to be used extra typically. Some solutions from the neighborhood stunned me, as they’ve included some very helpful and often-requested CSS options which have been made accessible prior to now 12 months or two.
The next record is created with neighborhood requests and my private picks. So, let’s get began!
all Property
It is a shorthand property which is usually used for resetting all properties to their respective preliminary worth by successfully stopping inheritance, or to implement inheritance for all properties.
preliminary
Units all properties to their respective preliminary values.
inherit
Units all properties to their inherited values.
unset
Modifications all values to their respective default worth which is both inherit or preliminary.
revert
Ensuing values depend upon the stylesheet origin the place this property is situated.
revert-layer
Ensuing values will match a earlier cascade layer or the following matching rule.
aspect-ratio for Sizing Management
When aspect-ratio was initially launched, I believed I gained’t use it outdoors picture and video parts and in very slender use-cases. I used to be stunned to search out myself utilizing it in an analogous method I might use currentColor — to keep away from unnecessarily setting a number of properties with the identical worth.
With aspect-ratio, we are able to simply management dimension of a component. For instance, equal width and top buttons could have a facet ratio of 1. That method, we are able to simply create buttons that adapt to their content material and ranging icon sizes, whereas sustaining the required form.
I assumed that this situation can’t be fastened, and I moved on. One of many tweets from the neighborhood ballot urged that I ought to look into font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums, and I used to be stunned to discover a plethora of choices that have an effect on font rendering.
For instance, tabular-nums fastened the aforementioned situation by setting the equal width for all numeric characters.
Render Efficiency Optimization
In the case of rendering efficiency, it’s very uncommon to run into these points when engaged on common tasks. Nonetheless, within the case of enormous DOM bushes with a number of hundreds of parts or different related edge instances, we are able to run into some efficiency points associated to CSS and rendering. Fortunately, we’ve got a direct method of coping with these efficiency points that trigger lag, unresponsiveness to consumer inputs, low FPS, and so on.
That is the place include property is available in. It tells the browser what gained’t change within the render cycle, so the browser can safely skip it. This will have penalties on the structure and magnificence, so make certain to check if this property doesn’t introduce any visible bugs.
/* youngster parts will not show outdoors of this container so solely the contents of this container ought to be rendered*/
include: paint;
{
This property is sort of advanced, and Rachel Andrew has coated it in nice element in her article. This property is considerably troublesome to reveal, as it’s most helpful in these very particular edge instances. For instance, Johan Isaksson coated a type of examples in his article, the place he seen a significant scroll lag on Google Search Console. It was attributable to having over 38 000 parts on a web page and was fastened by containing property!
As you’ll be able to see, include depends on the developer understanding precisely which properties gained’t change and understanding how you can keep away from potential regressions. So, it’s a bit troublesome to make use of this property safely.
Nonetheless, there may be an choice the place we are able to sign the browser to use the required include worth mechanically. We will use the content-visibility property. With this property, we are able to defer the rendering of off-screen and below-the-fold content material. Some even check with this as “lazy-rendering”.
Una Kravets and Vladimir Levin coated this property of their journey weblog instance. They apply the next class identify to the below-the-fold weblog sections.
content-visibility: auto; /* Behaves like overflow: hidden; */
contain-intrinsic-size: 100px 1000px;
}
With contain-intrinsic-size, we are able to estimate the dimensions of the part that’s going to be rendered. With out this property, the dimensions of the content material could be 0, and web page dimensions would hold growing, as content material is loaded.
Going again to Una Kravets and Vladimir Levin’s journey weblog instance. Discover how the scrollbar jumps round, as you scroll or drag it. That is due to the distinction between the placeholder (estimated) dimension set with contain-intrinsic-size and the precise render dimension. If we omit this property, the scroll jumps could be much more jarring.
See the Pen Content material-visibility Demo: Base (With Content material Visibility) by Vladimir Levin.
Thijs Terluin covers a number of methods of calculating this worth together with PHP and JavaScript. Server-side calculation utilizing PHP is particularly spectacular, as it might probably automate the worth estimation on bigger set of assorted pages and make it extra correct for a subset of display screen sizes.
Take into account that these properties ought to be used to repair points as soon as they occur, so it’s protected to omit them till you encounter render efficiency points.
Conclusion
CSS evolves consistently, with extra options being added annually. It’s vital to maintain up with the newest options and finest practices, but additionally hold an eye fixed out on browser help and use progressive enhancement.
I’m certain there are extra CSS properties and selectors that aren’t included right here. Be at liberty to tell us within the feedback which properties or selectors are much less identified or ought to be used extra typically, however could also be a bit convoluted or there may be not sufficient buzz round them.
Additional Studying on Smashing Journal
CSS Customized Properties In The Cascade
Simplifying Type Kinds With accent-color
Understanding CSS Grid: Creating A Grid Container
HTML5 SVG Fill Animation With CSS3 And Vanilla JavaScript
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