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Prettify with Tailwind CSS

Page 9 out of 10

Make a beautiful UI by adding Tailwind CSS to your User Interface.

Clarice Bouwer

Software Engineering Team Lead and Director of Cloudsure

Sunday, 23 October 2022 · Estimated 11 minute read
Modified on Tuesday, 1 November 2022

Tailwind CSS provides a gazillion-ish utility and helper classes that you can choose from to build your UI without having to write much CSS.

When you build your app, post CSS will scan your files for class names and then generate a new static stylesheet with only the used class names. The claim to fame is that it is fast, flexible, and reliable with zero-runtime.

Install

Install Tailwind CSS using PostCSS because you are using Webpack in our CRA app. You will need to install tailwindcss and its peer dependencies as dev dependencies via npm. It will automatically create a tailwind.config.js file for you.

There are many guides to help you install the dependency. Follow the guide that matches the type of project you created.

bash
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npm install -D tailwindcss postcss autoprefixer
npx tailwindcss init

You will need to restart the server because you have installed new dependencies.

Configure PostCSS

Add tailwindcss and autoprefixer to your postcss.config.js file.

bash
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touch postcss.config.js
./postcss.config.js
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module.exports = {
  plugins: {
    tailwindcss: {},
    autoprefixer: {},
  }
}

Configure template paths

Add the paths to all of your template files in your tailwind.config.js file. This path will provide the list of files that need to be scanned for the great Tailwind purge of unused classes.

./tailwind.config.js
Copy 
/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
module.exports = {
  content: ["./src/**/*.{html,js}"],
  theme: {
    extend: {},
  },
  plugins: [],
}

Configure style sheet

Add the @tailwind directives for each of Tailwind’s layers to your main CSS file.

bash
Copy 
touch ./src/styles.css
./src/styles.css
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@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;

Now that you have styles, you need to reference them in our HTML file.

./src/App.js
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import './styles.css';

Optimize for production

You would want to get the most performance out of your project by optimizing for production. Tailwind recommends minifying your CSS with a tool like cssnano, and compressing your CSS with Brotli for the smallest possible production build.

If you’re using Tailwind CLI, you can minify your CSS by adding the --minify flag:

bash
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npx tailwindcss -o build.css --minify

If you’ve installed Tailwind as a PostCSS plugin, add cssnano to the end of your plugin list:

./postcss.config.js
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module.exports = {
  plugins: {
    tailwindcss: {},
    autoprefixer: {},
    ...(process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' ? { cssnano: {} } : {})
  }
}

Stuck?

Setting up Tailwind with PostCSS can be a tricky across different build tools. Check out their framework guides to see if they have more specific instructions for your particular setup.

Prettify the app

You are going to start using Tailwind's utility classes to make things pretty. Reconstruct the ./src/App.js component by applying the following styling:

  • The container div will have a background color, some padding and grow to the full height of the screen.
  • A flex form lets you make the textbox a width of 100% with w-full and put the Add button next to it.
  • Use truncate to truncate overflowing text with an ellipsis (…) if needed.
./src/App.js
Copy 
<div className="bg-slate-900 min-h-screen p-5">
  <form onSubmit={(e) => e.preventDefault()} className="flex">
    <input
      ref={textbox}
      type="text"
      placeholder="Enter something to do."
      className="rounded w-full px-4 py-4 bg-slate-700 text-white truncate"
    />
    <button onClick={add} className="rounded ml-1 px-20 py-4 bg-green-700 text-white">
      Add
    </button>
  </form>
  {/* The rest of the components go here */}
</div>

Time to spruce up the errors below the flex box. If there are errors a div with some color, padding, center aligned and bottom margin is rendered with a bold strong tag.

./src/App.js
Copy 
{error && (
  <div className="rounded my-1 bg-red-700 text-red-300 px-4 py-2">
    <strong className="font-bold">Something went wrong!</strong> {error}
  </div>
)}

Fancy up the display that indicates that there are no todo tasks available at this time.

./src/App.js
Copy 
{todos?.length === 0 && (
  <div className="rounded my-1 bg-blue-700 text-blue-300 px-4 py-2">
    There is nothing to do.
  </div>
)}

Give each todo task in the collection some eye-candy TLC.

./src/App.js
Copy 
{todos?.map((todo) => {
  return (
    <div
      key={todo.id}
      className="flex items-center justify-between py-2 px-5 border border-slate-800 my-1 rounded text-gray-300 hover:bg-slate-800"
    >
      <span>
        <button
          onClick={() => remove(todo.id)}
          className="mr-2 text-red-500 text-3xl"
        >
          &times;
        </button>
        <input
          type="checkbox"
          checked={todo.completed}
          onClick={() => toggle(todo)}
        />
        {/* Strike through text when the todo task is flagged as completed. */}
        <span
          className="px-2 text-3xl"
          style={{
            textDecoration: todo.completed ? 'line-through' : '',
          }}
        >
          {todo.text}
        </span>
      </span>
      <div className="text-right">
        <div>{todo.created}</div>
        <div className="text-xs text-gray-500">{todo.id}</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
})}

Checkboxes

To make the checkboxes funky, install and import the @tailwindcss/forms plugin.

bash
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npm install -D @tailwindcss/forms
./tailwind.config.js
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/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
module.exports = {
  content: ['./src/**/*.{html,js}'],
  theme: {
    extend: {},
  },
  plugins: [
    require('@tailwindcss/forms') // <------
  ],
};

Style each checkbox.

./src/App.js
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<input
  type="checkbox"
  checked={todo.completed}
  onClick={() => toggle(todo)}
  className="w-8 h-8 mr-2 text-green-500 focus:ring-green-400 focus:ring-opacity-25 border border-gray-300 rounded cursor-pointer"
/>

Style the container with flex items-center to vertically align the items in the middle.

./src/App.js
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<span className="flex items-center">
  <button
    onClick={() => remove(todo.id)}
    className="mr-2 text-red-500 text-3xl"
  >
    &times;
  </button>
  <input
    type="checkbox"
    checked={todo.completed}
    onClick={() => toggle(todo)}
    className="w-8 h-8 mr-2 text-green-500 focus:ring-green-400 focus:ring-opacity-25 border border-gray-300 rounded cursor-pointer"
  />
  <span
    className="px-2 text-3xl"
    style={{
      textDecoration: todo.completed ? 'line-through' : '',
    }}
  >
    {todo.text}
  </span>
</span>

Heading

Now squash the form, put it in the center of the page and give it a heading.

./src/App.js
Copy 
<div className="mx-auto py-8 max-w-4xl">
  <h1 className="uppercase font-bold text-slate-300 mb-1">
    ✅ My awesome task list
  </h1>
  <!-- The rest of components here -->
</div>

🖖 You are now fully equipped to build kick-ass front ends using Tailwind CSS. 👩‍🎤

Date

Show a formatted date using plain old JavaScript. Create the following function.

./src/App.js
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const formatDate = (date) => {
  const dtFormat = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en', {
    timeZone: 'UTC',
    weekday: 'short',
    year: '2-digit',
    month: 'short',
    day: '2-digit',
    hour: '2-digit',
    minute: '2-digit',
  });
  // Example: Mon, Oct 24, 22, 06:08 AM
  return dtFormat.format(new Date(date));
};

Update the created date display by passing it into the newly created function.

./src/App.js
Copy 
<div>{formatDate(todo.created)}</div>

Progress indicators

Show your users when processes have kicked off and things are working.

Create a spinner component. For simplistic purposes, keep it in App.js for now.

./src/App.js
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const Spinner = ({ text }) => {
  return (
    <span role="status">
      <svg
        className="inline mr-2 w-8 h-8 text-gray-200 animate-spin dark:text-gray-600 fill-green-500"
        viewBox="0 0 100 101"
        fill="none"
        xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
      >
        <path
          d="M100 50.5908C100 78.2051 77.6142 100.591 50 100.591C22.3858 100.591 0 78.2051 0 50.5908C0 22.9766 22.3858 0.59082 50 0.59082C77.6142 0.59082 100 22.9766 100 50.5908ZM9.08144 50.5908C9.08144 73.1895 27.4013 91.5094 50 91.5094C72.5987 91.5094 90.9186 73.1895 90.9186 50.5908C90.9186 27.9921 72.5987 9.67226 50 9.67226C27.4013 9.67226 9.08144 27.9921 9.08144 50.5908Z"
          fill="currentColor"
        />
        <path
          d="M93.9676 39.0409C96.393 38.4038 97.8624 35.9116 97.0079 33.5539C95.2932 28.8227 92.871 24.3692 89.8167 20.348C85.8452 15.1192 80.8826 10.7238 75.2124 7.41289C69.5422 4.10194 63.2754 1.94025 56.7698 1.05124C51.7666 0.367541 46.6976 0.446843 41.7345 1.27873C39.2613 1.69328 37.813 4.19778 38.4501 6.62326C39.0873 9.04874 41.5694 10.4717 44.0505 10.1071C47.8511 9.54855 51.7191 9.52689 55.5402 10.0491C60.8642 10.7766 65.9928 12.5457 70.6331 15.2552C75.2735 17.9648 79.3347 21.5619 82.5849 25.841C84.9175 28.9121 86.7997 32.2913 88.1811 35.8758C89.083 38.2158 91.5421 39.6781 93.9676 39.0409Z"
          fill="currentFill"
        />
      </svg>
      <span className="sr-only">{text}...</span>
    </span>
  );
};

Display the spinner in the User Interface

You can just replace the existing file using the code below.

./src/App.js
Copy 
import React, { useEffect, useRef, useState } from 'react';
import api from './api';
import './styles.css';

const formatDate = (date) => {
  const dtFormat = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en', {
    timeZone: 'UTC',
    weekday: 'short',
    year: '2-digit',
    month: 'short',
    day: '2-digit',
    hour: '2-digit',
    minute: '2-digit',
  });
  return dtFormat.format(new Date(date));
};

const Spinner = ({ text }) => {
  return (
    <span role="status">
      <svg
        className="inline mr-2 w-8 h-8 text-gray-200 animate-spin dark:text-gray-600 fill-green-500"
        viewBox="0 0 100 101"
        fill="none"
        xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
      >
        <path
          d="M100 50.5908C100 78.2051 77.6142 100.591 50 100.591C22.3858 100.591 0 78.2051 0 50.5908C0 22.9766 22.3858 0.59082 50 0.59082C77.6142 0.59082 100 22.9766 100 50.5908ZM9.08144 50.5908C9.08144 73.1895 27.4013 91.5094 50 91.5094C72.5987 91.5094 90.9186 73.1895 90.9186 50.5908C90.9186 27.9921 72.5987 9.67226 50 9.67226C27.4013 9.67226 9.08144 27.9921 9.08144 50.5908Z"
          fill="currentColor"
        />
        <path
          d="M93.9676 39.0409C96.393 38.4038 97.8624 35.9116 97.0079 33.5539C95.2932 28.8227 92.871 24.3692 89.8167 20.348C85.8452 15.1192 80.8826 10.7238 75.2124 7.41289C69.5422 4.10194 63.2754 1.94025 56.7698 1.05124C51.7666 0.367541 46.6976 0.446843 41.7345 1.27873C39.2613 1.69328 37.813 4.19778 38.4501 6.62326C39.0873 9.04874 41.5694 10.4717 44.0505 10.1071C47.8511 9.54855 51.7191 9.52689 55.5402 10.0491C60.8642 10.7766 65.9928 12.5457 70.6331 15.2552C75.2735 17.9648 79.3347 21.5619 82.5849 25.841C84.9175 28.9121 86.7997 32.2913 88.1811 35.8758C89.083 38.2158 91.5421 39.6781 93.9676 39.0409Z"
          fill="currentFill"
        />
      </svg>
      <span className="sr-only">{text}...</span>
    </span>
  );
};

const App = () => {
  const [todos, setTodos] = useState([]);
  const [error, setError] = useState();

  // In this implementation there are two places where the spinners will display.
  // One boolean global spinner to indicate when items are being fetched as to not
  // show any todo tasks or text saying that tasks cannot be found.
  const [showGlobalSpinner, toggleGlobalSpinner] = useState(false);

  // The other object task spinner to indicate when items are being interacted on
  // via the API by executing specific actions. This one is more complicated
  // because based on the ID and action, it can display the spinner in different
  // locations. Example: display the spinner over the checkbox when
  // a user clicks on the toggle completion checkbox.
  const [taskSpinner, toggleTaskSpinner] = useState();

  const textbox = useRef();

  const setAndSortTodos = (items) => {
    setTodos(items.sort((x, y) => y.created - x.created));
  };

  const tryInteractWithApi = (interaction, errorMessage) => {
    try {
      return interaction();
    } catch (e) {
      setError(errorMessage);
      console.error(errorMessage, e);
    }
  };

  useEffect(() => {
    const loadTodos = async () => {
      // Tell the User Interface to start indicating the fetch has started.
      toggleGlobalSpinner(true);
      const result = await tryInteractWithApi(
        api.getTodos,
        'We could not get your tasks at this time.',
      );
      setAndSortTodos(result);
      // Indicate that the fetch is complete.
      toggleGlobalSpinner(false);
    };
    loadTodos();
  }, []);

  const add = async () => {
    const task = textbox.current.value;
    if (task) {
      toggleTaskSpinner({ action: 'create' });
      const result = await tryInteractWithApi(
        () => api.createTodo(task),
        `We could not add your task: ${task}.`,
      );
      if (result) {
        setAndSortTodos([...todos, result]);
        textbox.current.value = '';
      }
      toggleTaskSpinner();
    }
  };

  const remove = async (id) => {
    toggleTaskSpinner({ id, action: 'delete' });
    const result = await tryInteractWithApi(
      () => api.deleteTodo(id),
      `We could not delete your task ${id}.`,
    );
    if (result) {
      setAndSortTodos(todos.filter((t) => t.id !== id));
    }
    toggleTaskSpinner();
  };

  const toggle = async (todo) => {
    const updatedTodo = {
      ...todo,
      completed: !todo.completed,
    };
    toggleTaskSpinner({ id: todo.id, action: 'toggle' });
    const result = await tryInteractWithApi(
      () => api.updateTodo(updatedTodo),
      `We could not toggle your task ${todo.id}`,
      toggleTaskSpinner,
    );
    if (result) {
      setAndSortTodos(todos.map((t) => (t.id === todo.id ? updatedTodo : t)));
    }
    toggleTaskSpinner();
  };

  return (
    <div className="bg-slate-900 min-h-screen p-5">
      <div className="mx-auto py-8 max-w-4xl">
        <h1 className="uppercase font-bold text-slate-300 mb-1">
          ✅ My awesome task list
        </h1>
        <form onSubmit={(e) => e.preventDefault()} className="flex">
          <input
            ref={textbox}
            type="text"
            placeholder="Enter something to do."
            className="rounded w-full px-4 py-4 bg-slate-700 text-white truncate"
          />
          <button
            onClick={add}
            className="rounded ml-1 px-20 py-4 bg-green-700 text-white"
          >
            Add
          </button>
        </form>
        {showGlobalSpinner && (
          <div className="my-5 px-4 py-2 text-center">
            <Spinner text="Loading" />
          </div>
        )}
        {taskSpinner?.action === 'create' && (
          <div className="my-5 px-4 py-2 text-center">
            <Spinner text="Adding" />
          </div>
        )}
        {error && (
          <div className="rounded my-1 bg-red-700 text-red-300 px-4 py-2">
            <strong className="font-bold">Something went wrong!</strong> {error}
          </div>
        )}
        {!showGlobalSpinner && todos?.length === 0 && (
          <div className="rounded my-1 bg-blue-700 text-blue-300 px-4 py-2">
            There is nothing to do.
          </div>
        )}
        {!showGlobalSpinner &&
          todos?.map((todo) => {
            return (
              <div
                key={todo.id}
                className="flex items-center justify-between py-2 px-3 border border-slate-800 my-1 rounded text-gray-300 hover:bg-slate-800"
              >
                <span className="flex items-center">
                  {taskSpinner?.id === todo.id &&
                    taskSpinner?.action === 'delete' && (
                      <Spinner text="Deleting task" />
                    )}
                  {taskSpinner?.id !== todo.id &&
                    taskSpinner?.action !== 'delete' && (
                      <button
                        onClick={() => remove(todo.id)}
                        className="mr-2 text-red-500 text-3xl"
                      >
                        &times;
                      </button>
                    )}
                  {taskSpinner?.id === todo.id &&
                    taskSpinner?.action === 'toggle' && (
                      <Spinner text="Toggling task" />
                    )}
                  {taskSpinner?.id !== todo.id && (
                    <input
                      type="checkbox"
                      defaultChecked={todo.completed}
                      onClick={() => toggle(todo)}
                      className="w-8 h-8 mr-2 text-green-500 focus:ring-green-400 focus:ring-opacity-25 border border-gray-300 rounded cursor-pointer"
                    />
                  )}
                  <span
                    className="px-2 text-3xl truncate"
                    style={{
                      textDecoration: todo.completed ? 'line-through' : '',
                    }}
                  >
                    {todo.text}
                  </span>
                </span>
                <div className="text-right">
                  <div>{formatDate(todo.created)}</div>
                  <div className="text-xs text-gray-500">{todo.id}</div>
                </div>
              </div>
            );
          })}
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

export default App;

References

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