React Native Style Tachyons
Overview
React Native Style Tachyons brings functional styling to react-native. It is inspired by Tachyons and uses it's scales and naming convention. More about the advantages of this approach.
Let's see how tachyons compares to traditional styling:
react-native
style:
1. Traditional import {StyleSheet} from "react-native";
const s = StyleSheet.create({
view: {
borderWidth: 1,
justifyContent: "flex-start",
padding: MAGIC_PIXEL_VALUE
},
text: {
color: "white",
textAlign: "center"
}
})
<View style={[s.view]}
<Text style={[s.text]}>Something</Text>
</View>
react-native-style-tachyons
:
2. Improved with import {styles as s} from "react-native-style-tachyons";
<View style={[s.ba, s.jcfs, s.pa2]}> /* 'ba' means border-all */
<Text style={[s.white, s.tc]}>
Something
</Text>
</View>
3. or even simpler:
<View cls="ba jcfs pa2"> /* string is checked for validity */
<Text cls="white tc">
Something
</Text>
</View>
Of course you can use your old styles along tachyons' classes.
Advantages
- Less code
- No need to maintain a separate stylesheet
- No need to find a proper name for every component you want to style
- Looking at a component tells you exactly how it looks, it's all in one place.
Tachyons' scale
-
Dimensions and typography build on a proven scale, which is relative to
rem
, the root font-size. Instead of having to find proper values for padding (or margin, width or height), you use a simple 7-step scale.pa2
gets youpadding
of0.5rem
. -
The scale progresses with powers of two, so each step is twice as big as the last. This means everything will always line up, no more "off-by-one-pixel"-problems.
-
You can scale the entire design just by setting a different
rem
. This is a great advantage when building a responsive app.
Usage
react-native-style-tachyons
needs to know your rem
upon start:
-
In the entry point of your app include:
import NativeTachyons from 'react-native-style-tachyons'; import { StyleSheet } from 'react-native'; NativeTachyons.build({ /* REM parameter is optional, default is 16 */ rem: screenWidth > 340 ? 18 : 16 }, StyleSheet);
-
To use the styles
import { styles as s } from "react-native-style-tachyons";
To support javascript property syntax, all style names with hyphens have an equivalent with an underscore, e.g.
s.bg_black
instead ofs["bg-black"]
. -
To use the
cls=''
syntax, you have to wrap your component:import NativeTachyons from "react-native-style-tachyons"; NativeTachyons.wrap( class MyComponent extends React.Component { ... })
-
To use custom style definitions:
import NativeTachyons from 'react-native-style-tachyons'; import { StyleSheet, Dimensions } from 'react-native'; const { screenWidth, screenHeight } = Dimensions.get('window') const rem = screenWidth > 340 ? 18: 16 const myStyles = { bhair: { borderWidth: StyleSheet.hairlineWidth }, card: { flex: 1, padding: 2*rem, borderWidth: 0.5*rem, borderColor: 'lightgrey' }, /* custom styles take precedence and overwrite builtin styles ! */ b: { fontWeight: 'bold', color: 'red' } } NativeTachyons.build({ rem: rem, custom: myStyles }, StyleSheet);
Reference / Supported Properties
FlexBox
absolute position: "absolute" /* default: "relative" */
flx-i flex: 1
flx-row flexDirection: "row" /* default: "column" */
flx-row-reverse flexDirection: "row-reverse"
flx-col-reverse flexDirection: "column-reverse"
flx-wrap flexWrap: "wrap" /* default: "nowrap" */
aifs alignItems: "flex-start" /* default: "stretch" */
aic alignItems: "center"
aife alignItems: "flex-end"
jcc justifyContent: "center" /* default: "flex-start" */
jcfe justifyContent: "flex-end"
jcsb justifyContent: "space-between"
jcsa justifyContent: "space-around"
asfs alignSelf: "flex-start"
asfe alignSelf: "flex-end"
asc alignSelf: "center"
ass alignSelf: "stretch"
(Scale)
Margins & Paddingsma0 ... ma8 margin: 0|0.25|0.5|1|2|4|8|16|32 rem
ml|mr|mb|mt [0-8] marginLeft, marginRight, marginBottom, marginTop
mh [0-8] marginHorizontal
mv [0-8] marginVertical
/* Same with p for padding */
Heights & Widths
h1 ... h6 height: 1|2|4|8|16|32 rem
w1 ... w6 width: 1|2|4|8|16|32 rem
min-h1 ... min-h6 minHeight: 1|2|4|8|16|32 rem
max-h1 ... max-h6 maxHeight: 1|2|4|8|16|32 rem
/* Same with w for width */
absolute-fill position: absolute, top/left/right/bottom: 0
Borders
ba borderWidth: 1
bl|br|bt|bb borderLeftWidth: 1 | borderRightWidth: 1...
br0 ... br5 borderRadius: 0|0.125|0.25|0.5|1]2 rem
br--bottom bottom radius only
br--top top radius only
br--right right radius only
br--left left radius only
(Scale)
Text & Fontsf5 fontSize: 1 rem
f1 ... f6 fontSize: 3|2.25|1.5|1.25|1|0.875 rem
f-headline fontSize: 6 rem
f-subheadline fontSize: 5 rem
normal fontWeight: normal
b fontWeight: bold
fw1 ... fw900 fontWeight: 100 ... fontWeight: 900
i fontStyle: italic
tl|tc|tr|tj textAlign: left|right|center|justify
Specify the font-families you need in the configuration to use them:
ff-iowan fontFamily: "Iowan Old Style"
/* setup: */
NativeTachyons.build({
fonts: {
iowan: 'Iowan Old Style'
}
}, StyleSheet);
Images
rm-contain resizeMode: "contain"
rm-cover resizeMode: "cover"
rm-stretch resizeMode: "stretch"
Opacity
o-10|20|...|100 opacity: 0.1|0.2|...|1
o-05 opacity: 0.05
o-025 opacity: 0.025
Colors
-
When using the
cls=''
syntax, colors can be specified directly in the string. Every Color supported by react-native works. If the color is prefixed withbg-
thebackgroundColor
will be set. A prefix ofb--
sets theborderColor
.
bg-green green background #232323 text color of #232323 b--rgba(255,255,255,0.5) border set to rgba(255,255,255,0.5)
* You can also specify a palette in the options and Tachyons will generate styles for you. It will also generate variants with different opacities.
```javascript
NativeTachyons.build({
colors: {
palette: {
green: "#00FF00",
}
}
}, StyleSheet);
The same syntax with bg-
for background and b--
for borderColor applies.
bg-green green background
b--green green border // Note: double hyphens signify a class that needs
green green text // another class to work in this case a border-setting
/* alpha variants (same for bg- and b--) */
green-10, green-20 ... green-90 green text with 10%, 20%, ... , 90% alpha
Raw Values
To access the actual computed sizes:
import { sizes } from "react-native-style-tachyons"
const s = sizes.ma2 /* sizes.w4, ... */
Changes
See the ChangeLog