space.less — toolkit for managing negative space

npm version bower version

Designed to make margins, paddings, gutters consistent across the project.

From design point of view this is an argeement on what distance to use between objects in UI layout. From frontend perspective this is a set of classnames to rule margins and paddings on different media queries breakpoints. Together it is a part of communication language between designers and frontend developers.

Negative space (or white space). In page layout and illustration, negative space is the portion of a page left unmarked: margins, gutters, and space between columns, lines of type, graphics, figures, or objects drawn or depicted. The term white space arises from graphic design practice, where printing processes generally use white paper.

Installation

Compiled from CDN
https://unpkg.com/space.less@0.0.2/space.css (7.7KB gzip)
https://unpkg.com/space.less@0.0.2/space.min.css (7.2KB gzip)
https://unpkg.com/space.less@0.0.2/space.min.css.map

NPM
npm install space.less --save-dev

Bower
bower install space.less --save

Math

       8 =   8  — nano
 8 +   8 =  16  — micro
 8 +  16 =  24  — mili
16 +  24 =  40base
24 +  40 =  64  — kilo
40 +  64 = 104  — mega
64 + 104 = 168  — giga

As a foundation taken a set of values assigned to some aliases. The values are not random, this is a mathematical series where every next element is a sum of previous two elements; the first element is 8.

Demo

nano
8
micro
16
mili
24
base
40
kilo
64
mega
104
giga
168

Classnames

For equal spaces on every side apply classnames constructed on the following scheme:

.space -out -mili -md
-in — creates paddings
-out — creates margins
-minus — negative margins
-auto¹ — margin: auto
-zero² — set value to null
-nano — value = 8px
-micro — value = 16px
-mili — value = 24px
-base — value = 40px
-kilo — value = 64px
-mega — value = 104px
-giga — value = 168px
-xs — for all screens
-sm — min-width: 576px
-md — min-width: 768px
-lg — min-width: 992px
-xl — min-width: 1200px

Exclusions:

  1. Classes .space-auto-xs and similiar don't have 'value' part.
  2. Suffix -zero could be applied only to .space-in and .space-out classnames. It can't be used together with .space-minus or .space-auto.

For non-rectangular spacings use additional class modifier:

.space -in -tall -kilo -xs
-top — set top value
-bottom — bottom value
-left — left
-right — right
-v — top and bottom (vertical)
-h — left and right (horizontal)
-tall¹ — smaller horizontal space
-wide¹ — smaller vertical space

Exclusions:

  1. Suffixes -tall and -wide can't be used together with .space-auto.
    Suffixes -tall and -wide doesn't exist for -zero and -nano spacings.

Usage in HTML

Link compiled space.css in the head of your page. Apply classes to any HTML element to get desired margins and paddings.

Usage in LESS

Install library with npm install space.less --save-dev and include its main file inside your project less file:

@import (less) "./node_modules/space.less/space.less";

That is enough to run library with default parameters.

Default parameters

Parameters stored in mixin:

.space-settings() {

    @spaces: 0, 8px, 16px, 24px, 40px, 64px, 104px, 168px;
    @spacealias: zero, nano, micro, mili, base, kilo, mega, giga;

    // media breakpoints
    @breakpoints:
        ~"(min-width: 576px)",
        ~"(min-width: 768px)",
        ~"(min-width: 992px)",
        ~"(min-width: 1200px)";

    // names for breakpoint suffixes
    @suffixes: xs, sm, md, lg, xl;

    // IMPORTANT: suffixes count should be bigger than breakpoints count by 1
    // suffixes-count = breakpoints-count + 1
}

Redefining parameters

To change any (or every) parameter add setting mixin after import inside your .less file:

@import (less) "./node_modules/space.less/space.less";

.space-settings() {

    @spaces: 0, 5px, 10px, 25px, 50px;
    @spacealias: zero, small, normal, large, huge;

}

Only sizes and names for spacing was redefined in example above. Breakpoint parameters remains default.


Made by Paul Radzkov, GitHub, MIT License

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