Scope in CSS with and without JavaScript

CSS is global by nature. This is a powerful feature of CSS that can allow you to create consistent styling throughout your site with small amounts of code. But increasingly there are cases where front-end developers want to instead scope their styles to a specific component and ensure that component styles don’t impact other areas of the site.

This session will provide an overview of the various approaches to scoping CSS, both when using CSS alone, and when using CSS combined with JavaScript.

Starting from the perspective of CSS only approaches we’ll look at:

A brief review of CSS Inheritance, specificity and the Cascade

Scoping with BEM and other CSS methodologies

Atomic or Functional CSS

Next we’ll examine the various scoping approaches when using CSS in JavaScript, including:

Potential advantages and disadvantages to CSS-in-JS

React CSS-in-JS libraries including Styled Components

Component styling using single file components in Vue

Scoped styles using CSS Modules

Finally, we’ll wrap up by looking at a few ways that global and scoped CSS can be used together effectively.

Approaches to using both global and scoped CSS when using CSS-in-JS

Ways to share styles between ’traditional’ styling and CSS-in-JS approaches

Web Components and the future of CSS scope

Slides and Additional Resources: https://noti.st/brianperry/KDnuEe/scope-in-css-with-and-without-javascript

Brian Perry
Lead Front End Developer @ Bounteous
Brian is a versatile developer with experience building complex, interactive web applications in support of large-scale localized sites. Recently he has focused his efforts on evolving Drupal front-end development practices, decoupled Drupal, and style guide development techniques and has spoken on the topic at various Drupal events. Brian is a Drupal 7 and Drupal 8 Acquia Certified Grand Master and loves all things Nintendo.

https://www.midcamp.org/2020/topic-proposal/scope-css-and-without-javascript

Drupal is a registered trademark of Dries Buytaert.