10 CSS functions every front-end developer should know

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a style sheet language used to describe the appearance and formatting of documents written in HTML. It is an important part of web development because it allows developers to control the appearance of their websites and applications.

In this article, we will discuss some of the most useful CSS functions that every front-end developer should be familiar with. These functions can be used to add style and formatting to your website or application and can greatly improve the user experience.

Like other programming languages, functions in CSS simplify tasks by providing one-line solutions. But unlike other programming languages, the result of a function in CSS does not actually affect any logic on the website, it is only used to affect the visual elements present in the website.

Listed below are the many different types of functions available in CSS:

• Function of custom attributes

• Color function

• Pseudo class selector function

• Animation function

• Filter function

• Dimension and scaling functions

• Comparison function

• Logical function

There are many other types of functions available in CSS. But this article only discusses 10 of them for our use.

var() function

The only custom property function available in CSS is the var function. Whenever we need to use a custom property in CSS, we use the var function to reference it

Example

An example of using the var function to reference a custom property is given below -

html {
   --background-color: teal;
}
div {
   background-color: var(--background-color);
}

calc() function

The most common function used for mathematical/arithmetic calculations in CSS is the calc function. It is widely used to dynamically calculate property values ​​along with the var function we discussed above.

Example

p {
   height: calc(100px – 80px);
}

We can also use calc with other formal units, such as em, rem, etc.

url() function

The resources you need to add to your website are often located in several different locations. So at this time, we need a function that can be used to load these resources into CSS files. The url function does just that, it links and loads a resource from a source location to a target location, which is a CSS file. You can link all types of resources such as images, svgs, fonts, stylesheets, etc

Example

body{
   background-image: url(/fonts/myFont);
}

rgb() function

When designing a website, we often need to use color. CSS provides many ways to use colors, such as hexadecimal codes, color names, etc. One way to represent colors is by using their RGB values, and the rgb() function allows us to convert these hex codes to RGB and use them in stylesheets.

Example

html{
   color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
}

We can use another function rgba, which can be used to control the opacity of the defined color.

hsl() function

Another function that can be used to represent colors is the hsl function. It defines color as hue, saturation, and values. Some developers prefer to use it instead of RGB.

Example

html{
   color: hsl(100, 50%, 80%);
}

Just like rgb, hsl also has an altered version hsla which also controls the opacity of the defined color.

blur() function

In order to distinguish elements, we use fuzzy functions.

Example

.someClass{
   filter: blur(67%);
}

Opacity (opacity()) function

The opacity of an element is the visibility of the corresponding element. It specifies how much of the background is visible through this background.

Example

.someClass{
   filter: opacity(0.75);
}

The Chinese translation of

The nth-child() function

is:

nth-child() function

When we have to select a specific child element of a parent element, we can use the nth-child function. It's a pseudo-class selector function with some changes to target different elements based on your needs.

Example

.someClass:nth-child(3){
   Color: black;
}

Some of its variations are nth-last-child, nth-of-type, nth-last-of-type, etc.

scale() function

This function allows you to control the size of an element and its children. We can also define the axis on which we want this change to occur.

Example

.someClass{
   transform: scale(100%);
}

translate() function

This function allows you to change the position of an element. We can even specify the axis the element needs to change to.

Example

.someClass{
   transform: translate(30%);
}

in conclusion

In this article, we discussed functions, their purpose in CSS, how they differ from functions and other programming languages. We also learned about the different types of functions available in CSS. Finally we looked at the 10 most commonly used functions in CSS that every front-end developer needs to know. These are just some of the most popular features, but there's always more to learn.

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