Singularity responsive gutter widths - singularitygs

I use Singluritygs and Breakpoints (with the included respond-to) and I want my global gutter width to change according to those breakpoints.
I thought this would work, but it doesn't:
$breakpoints: add-breakpoint('small', 768px);
#include add-grid(12);
#include add-gutter(1);
#include respond-to('small') {
#include add-gutter(1/2);
}
Am I approaching this the wrong way?
Note that adding a grid does work using this technique:
#include respond-to('small') {
#include grid-span(9, 4);
}

Problem and solution
Singularity is not compatible with Respond-To. Or, to be more precise, Respond-To does not provide functionality required by Singularity.
The correct way of defining responsive gutters is described here and looks like this:
#include add-gutter(.25 at 900px);.
Responsive grids and gutters should be defined on top of your Sass, alongside mobile-first grids and gutters.
Example:
$bp-small: 768px;
#include add-grid(12);
#include add-gutter(1);
#include add-gutter(1/2 at $bp-small);
.foo {
#include float-span(1);
#include breakpoint($bp-small) {
#include float-span(1);
}
}
Demo:
http://sassmeister.com/gist/b49bd305f029afe9cd68
Update 1
davidpauljunior
I thought Singlurity was compatible with respond-to, I'm using it to successfully add new grids - see my added note in the question. The docs say that for reponsive grids use Breakpoint, and Breakpoint includes Repond-to in it (github.com/Team-Sass/breakpoint/wiki/Respond-To).
You were doing it wrong.
Singularity maintains a list of grid definitions for various breakpoints (and another list for gutter definitions). When spanning, Singularity asks Breakpoint for the context (current breakpoint) and retrieves corresponding grid and gutter definitions from lists.
When used with Respond-To, Singularity is unable to retrieve the context and considers that it spans item in the mobile-first context.
Instead populating the grid/gutter definition lists with defintions for each breakpoint, you had only one entry in the list -- the mobile first one.
By reapplying add-gutter() inside a media query, you thought that you were setting the gutter definition for that media query. But instead you were overwriting the mobile-first grid definition globally. And due to Respond-To not reporting context to Singularity, it was using the mobile first definition inside the media query.
This is a valid approach per se. In fact, i've being actively using it with Singularity 1.0. But it has an obvious downside: due to the fact that grid/gutter definitions are overridden globally, you end up needing to reapply add-grid() and add-gutter() before every usage of spanning mixins, otherwise there's a change that Singularity will be using definitions that you don't expect. This is especially the case if you organize your Sass code in a large number of small files.
I suggest that you investigate two extensions that i wrote:
Breakpoint Slicer -- a very quick and efficient syntax for Breakpoint. It's better than Respond-To, and has full support for Singularity.
Singularity Quick Spanner -- a tool with a number of shortcut mixins for Singularity. One of them is designed to ease the approach of reapplying grid/gutter definitions every time.
Update 2
davidpauljunior
I still don't see why if grids can be redefined globally within Respond-to media queries, why gutters can't. Also, you said I only have 1 entry 'the mobile first one', but that entry was the screen size after mobile first (768px).
You have to understand that #include add-gutter(1/2); overwrites the mobile-first gutter definition regardless of whether you execute it inside a media query or not.
Above i have already explained (and provided a link to documentation) how media query-aware grids and gutters should be defined. Repeating:
lolmaus
The correct way of defining responsive gutters is described here and looks like this:
`#include add-gutter(.25 at 900px);`.
This is how your initial attempt actually works: http://sassmeister.com/gist/c530dfe7c249fad254e9 Please study this example and its output, i hope you will understand now.
davidpauljunior
The idea was that for no media query (mobile first) it would take the global gutter, for my first media query (768 and up) I would reset the global gutter and so on. I've set them all using variables now. Perhaps I'm just missing something about Respond-To.
Again, i have already said that this is a valid approach. My last SassMeister link proves that it is already working for your initial attempt.
And Respond-To is suitable for this situation: it doesn't report the media query context to Singularity, but you're not having Singularity take the media query context into account, you're having it use only the mobile-first definition all the time.
Just don't forget to reapply grids and gutters every time you span a new element, just to make sure that you're doing it in the desired context.
You can make the job of resetting the grid/gutter definitions easier with my reset-grid() helper.

Related

Multiple grid definitions with Singularity

I've looked at the documentation for Singularity and it seems the recommended way of having multiple grids is to use the layout mixin, but I have been doing it differently.
when I say multiple grids I'm referring to a page that has different number of columns for different page sections, withing the same media query.
My question is, I have been reusing #include add-grid() in my containers to use multiple grids, is that an acceptable way to use sngularitygs? I have found no examples of using it this way, but it seems to work quite well.
.container {
#include add-grid(16);
}
I'm only seeing the add-grid used to set the global grid, is it unwise to use it for adding another grid inside a container as above?
also I have turning on the bg grid in containers to visualize the nested grids.
.container {
#include sgs-change('debug', true);
#include add-grid(16);
#include background-grid();
}
It seems to work great for visualizing the grid in containers, but I see no usage of these mixins in this way in the docs, any reason this is wrong or is there a better way?
thanks.
Singularity stores grid properties in some internal variable.
Whenever you use add-grid(), this variable is updated with new grid properties.
If you use add-grid() once, all Singularity spanning mixins called below will use that definition.
What happens when you use add-grid() again? It will not affect the code above. But the code below will use the new definition of the grid.
Thus, there are two strategies of using add-grid():
Use it once to set one definition all the time.
If you need different grids, use add-grid() every time before calling a Singularity spanning mixin. This will ensure that each mixin uses an appropriate grid definition.
The latter is probably not an intended way of doing things, but if you've got multiple grids to work with, you've got no other option.
I'm using this approach extensively on the good old Singularity 1.1. But it's much simpler there: the variable that stores grid properties is exposed and can be easily and transparently overridden. I'm not sure about the drawbacks of this with the modern version of Singularity. Grid definitions for specific media-queries may stay unresetted and cause trouble. Gotta dig deeper.
UPD1 2014-06-18
Okay, i seem to have figured it out.
How Singularity stores its settings
Singularity 1.2 stores its settings in the $singularity map. It uses the sgs-get() and sgs-set() functions to access those settings. The funny thing with functions is that you can't use them withough assigning a value somewhere, so you can't do:
sgs-set('foo', 'bar')
You have to assign the result of the function to a dummy variable, even if you're not going to reuse that anywhere:
$dummy: sgs-set('foo', 'bar')
How to manually reassign grid definitions
Grids and gutters are stored under 'grids' and 'gutters' keys of the $singularity map. So in order to mix multiple grids on the same page you have to reset those.
Luckily, there is sgs-reset() that exists both in function and mixin forms.
So before declaring a different grid, you have to reset existing grid:
+sgs-reset(grids)
+sgs-reset(gutters)
+add-grid(2 4 2)
+add-gutter(0.2)
A custom mixin to quickly reassign grids
That is a fair amount of work. You can make it easier with a custom mixin:
=reset-grid($grid: 2, $gutter: 0.1)
+sgs-reset(grids)
+sgs-reset(gutters)
+add-grid($grid)
+add-gutter($gutter)
Here's a usage example:
.container-1
+reset-grid()
#foo
+grid-span(1,1)
#bar
+grid-span(1,2)
.container-2
+reset-grid(1 3 2, 0.2)
#baz
+grid-span(1,1)
#quux
+grid-span(2,2)
Resulting CSS: http://sassmeister.com/gist/21249a9dabf745f892cb
Note that if you use the approach of resetting your grids once in your project, you HAVE to use it everywhere in your project. If you don't apply reset prior to every spanning, you might have unpredictable results.
That's because you no longer have a standard site-wide grid and you have to tell Singularity which grid you mean to use every time you ask Singularity to span anything.
Manually using that mixin inside media queries instead of maintaining a complex grid definition
On the other hand, once you're resetting your grids all the time, you no longer need to define media query-aware grids. I find this to be a relief. Managing the consitency of a complex grids hierarchy can be a nuisance.
.container-1
+reset-grid()
#foo
+grid-span(1,1)
#bar
+grid-span(1,2)
+breakpoint(700px)
+reset-grid(3, 0.2)
#foo
+grid-span(2,1)
#bar
+grid-span(1,2)
Resulting CSS: http://sassmeister.com/gist/19f8ad9dab904cfcabba
A custom mixin to quickly span a thumbnail grid
You can save yourself even more time if you're doing a lot of thumbnail grids, as opposed to page layouts. Here's a mixin that generates a thumbnail grid for a given number of columns (works with symmetrical grids only):
=quick-span($cols, $guts: 0.1, $pseudoclass: child, $center-last-row: 20, $proportional-margins: true)
+reset-grid($cols, $guts)
#for $i from 1 through $cols
&:nth-#{$pseudoclass}(#{$cols}n+#{$i})
+float-span(1, $i)
#if $i == 1
clear: both
#if $proportional-margins
&:nth-last-#{$pseudoclass}(#{$i})
margin-bottom: 0
#if $proportional-margins
margin-bottom: $guts / ( $cols + ($cols - 1) * $guts) * 100%
// Centering the last row
#if $center-last-row and $cols < $center-last-row
#for $i from 1 through $center-last-row
$remainder: $i % $cols
&:nth-#{$pseudoclass}(#{$i - $remainder + 1}):nth-last-child(#{$remainder})
margin-left: grid-span(1, 1) * ($cols - $remainder) / 2
Demo: http://sassmeister.com/gist/62f44e02a2fbb3bd4296
A custom mixin to set up a responsive thumbnail grid with a snap of fingers
Finally, you can put this looping mixin in a one more loop to generate responsive thumbnail grids. Here's an example leveraging Breakpoint Slicer, a syntactic sugar for Breakpoint:
=responsive-span($start-cols: 1, $start-slice: 1, $guts: 0.1)
#for $i from 1 through (total-slices() - $start-slice + 1)
$slice: $start-slice + $i - 1
$cols: $start-cols + $i - 1
+at($slice)
+quick-span($cols, $guts)
A single call of this mixin results in a full-fledged responsive thumbnail grid!
.column
+responsive-span
Demo: http://sassmeister.com/gist/acef490deb922535ef19

mixing float-span() and grid-span() in same context?

ahoy all,
i have a simple example that mixes float-span and grid-span mixins within the same grid context (i.e. the same number of columns in the same row)
http://sassbin.com/gist/7812502/
as you can see, i have 3 items that i want to space out evenly in a row. i use float-span with first and last options on items 1 and 3 to make them sit at the beginning and end of the row respectively, and this works as expected. for the middle item, which i want centered, i assumed i could use grid-span with the correct location to have the 2nd item in the middle. however, what is happening is that the counting of location for grid-span is started after the column taken up by the first floated item. is this expected behavior? in other words, is it allowable to mix float-span and grid-span in the same grid context/row? and if not, what is the preferred way in Singularity for accomplishing the same thing?
i have been searching the documentation wiki, in particular the section on spanning the grid, but have found no statements either way. and the demos do not seem to be using float-span and grid-span together.
thanks as usual for Singularity and for any help.
peace
PS. i have already tried using the isolation-span mixin in place of grid-span with the same results.
It is not advisable to mix output styles like float and isolation in the same grid. You should pick either isolation or floats and stick with it.
Here is your sassbin tweaked a bit: http://sassbin.com/gist/7815953/

Adjusting Susy $grid-padding at breakpoints

I’ve hacked around this before by writing my own mixins, but I get a feeling there must be an inbuilt method in Susy to get around this problem.
I have a mobile-first grid which uses my default $grid-padding, say 1.5em, but once I hit my first breakpoint I switch to a wider $grid-padding-tablet, perhaps 3em, and so on through other breakpoints.
In addition, some elements also use the bleed mixin to give the visual impressions of infinite width.
Is there an easy way, just using something like #include container rather than building my own media queries and mixins to accomplish this?
The built-in technique for this is the with-grid-settings mixin (documentation):
#include at-breakpoint($tablet) {
#include with-grid-settings($padding: $grid-padding-tablet) {
// your tablet code here
}
}

Block elements overlapping with singularitygs

I'm doing my first project with singularity grid system and I'm loving it so far. However, I'm having a strange problem in a section where I have an <h2> and <h3> elements overlapping... really having an hard time figuring what's the problem.
My project in development is available at:
http://senseslabv3.brunomonteiro.mixture.io/
First <section> with class=intro.
Does anyone have a clue about it's going on?
Thanks for your time.
As the others have said, you need to clear your floats. By default, Singularity's output style is "Isolation" which requires a knowledge of how floats should get cleared (clear: left, clear: right, clear: both, clear: none). Singularity assumes no clear (clear: none) which means that grid items may overlap if not properly cleared. It does this to adhere to the most common mental model for the Isolation output method, specifically placing blocks at a discrete point on the grid. Clearing your floats will clear them to an item's margin edge, most visibly by creating new rows. See the Mozilla Developer Network article on Clear.
Note, clearing your floats and clearfixing as proposed by lolmaus actually do different things. Clearing your float will clear items to margin edges, whereas clearfixing an item will ensure that all of its floated children are properly contained.
The Float output adheres to a different mental model, one of walking across a row of your grid, and therefore automatically clears your floats for you. If you'd prefer to use the Float output style as your default, simply add $output: 'float' to your Sass file before calling your grid. This will change your global output style context. Alternatively, you can use float-span to use the Float output style mental model and output on-demand instead of grid-span, or pass $output-style: 'float' as an option to grid-span.
Take a look at the documentation for Output Styles, Output Span, Float Span, and Context Overrides in grid-span for a deeper dive into the different output styles and options available in Singularity.
Clear both needs to be declared somewhere below your grid-span mixin .tag h3 {clear: both;}
instead of the ugly <div style="clear: both;"></div> consider this:
.intro h2 {
#include pie-clearfix; }
Or, if you use toolkit:
.intro h2 {
#extend %clearfix-micro; }
We might better address your problem if you share your SASS code.
This is an old question but I just ran into the problem. Snugug's answer worked perfect but I wanted to show the code that worked for me. (Couldn't put code in a comment)
//Main content container
.l-main {
#include breakpoint(80em) {
#include grid-span(16, 3, 20);
}
}
// A full width banner inside content container. I needed this to clear because there are several other smaller columns/grids above and below the banner.
.b-banner {
#include breakpoint(80em) {
#include float-span(16, 1, last);
}
}

What's the best way to build a multicolumn grid with minimal markup with Singularity

Let's say i have a grid of articles (2 columns), inside another column.
What's the best way to achieve this without having to explicitly tell singularity on which column should the article be.
Is it the only option to declare it with pseudo classes?
article:nth-child(1n){
#include grid-span(1,1);
}
article:nth-child(2n){
#include grid-span(1,2);
}
Thanks.
There is an even shorter way than Scott aka user2242314 has suggested above::
$grids: 12;
$gutters: 1/3;
.column {
#include float-span(1);
&:last-child {
#include float-span(1, 'last'); }}
Unfortunately, there's a bug in Singularity that prevents from using this short method, even though it's suggested by Singularity documentation.
I've fixed the bug and submitted a pull request. Wait for Scott or Sam aka Snugug to accept it and release an updated gem (of version 1.0.7 or later). Then run gem update or bundle update and you're able to use the cleanest solution.
You can use the float output style but you are still going to have to deal with the extra padding on your right column.
http://sassmeister.com/gist/5256403 - you may have to select singularity from the drop-down menu to make this link work.
With floats, writing “last” in the location column is equivalent to “omega” in Susy. Dealing with that extra padding is still going to be tricky but at least your columns are floating next to each other without nth.
If you are still unsatisfied, you can write your own output style. Not sure what CSS will do the trick but at any rate, the CSS Singularity generates is completely customizable. I have yet to fully document but you can add your own output styles: https://github.com/Team-Sass/Singularity/tree/1.x.x/stylesheets/singularitygs/api

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