CoffeeStylesheets

What if you could write CoffeeScript like:

body ->
  background 'black'
  color 'red'
  p ->
    font_size '12px'
    border_radius px 5

and get back a CSS3 stylesheet, like:

body {
  background: black;
  color: red;
}
body p {
  font-size: 12px;
  -moz-border-radius: 5px; /* Firefox */
  -webkit-border-radius: 5px; /* Safari, Chrome */
  border-radius: 5px; /* CSS3 */
}

Now, you can!

Just wrap it in this:

engine = new CoffeeStylesheets
 format: true # optional 
 globals: # optional 
   px: (i) -> i + 'px' # a silly example of custom helpers 
   # the cross-browser version of border_radius() is provided by the CoffeeStylesheetsCompassFramework plugin  
engine.render stylesheet, (err, css) ->
  console.log css

Why this monstrosity?

• stand-alone; NO dependencies
• eliminates double-trees server/client-side in terms of both a) templating engines, and b) template files
• yet to be benchmarked, but likely 90% faster compilation than tokenizers (stylus, less, sass)
• only one language to write; one language to teach/master; one language to rule them all!
• common functions provided by js libs available and executed in same scope as stylesheet e.g., require()
• helps eliminate intermediary steps between the initial precompilation syntax sugar and the end result

FAQ

• Do I have to use CoffeeScript? While composing in CoffeeScript is obviously the point, you could store the compiled javascript version of the template, and after that no coffee-script dependency is required. There is a pure javascript version of the engine provided, as well.

• Does it only work in Node.js or client-side/in-browser as well? It is designed to be used on either side. This is why it is lightweight, with no dependencies.

See also

• Works well with CoffeeTemplates
• Has a plugin called CoffeeSprites
• Has a plugin called CoffeeStylesheetsCompassFramework
• Thanks to Nino Paolo for beginning work on a SASS to CoffeeStylesheets Converter