Customizing PurgeCSS for Project Needs

1. Introduction

In this tutorial, we'll delve into how you can customize your PurgeCSS configuration to better fit your project. You'll learn how to set up PurgeCSS to optimize your CSS, improving the performance of your web projects.

By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to:

1. Understand what PurgeCSS is and why it is essential.
2. Customize PurgeCSS to meet your project's needs.
3. Implement practical examples of PurgeCSS configuration.

Prerequisites

• Basic knowledge of CSS and JavaScript.
• Node.js installed on your machine.

2. Step-by-Step Guide

PurgeCSS is a tool to remove unused CSS. It can be used as part of your development workflow. PurgeCSS comes with a JavaScript API, a CLI, and plugins for popular build tools.

Here are the steps to customize PurgeCSS for your project:

1. Install PurgeCSS: You can install it using npm:

   npm npm install --save-dev purgecss

2. Configure PurgeCSS: Create a purgecss.config.js file in your project root.

3. Define your configuration: The configuration file should export an object with your desired configuration.

Here is a basic example of what a PurgeCSS configuration might look like:

module.exports = {
  content: ['./src/**/*.html'],
  css: ['./src/**/*.css']
}

In this configuration, PurgeCSS will scan all HTML files in your src directory for classes. It will then match these classes with the ones in your CSS files.

3. Code Examples

Let's look at some practical examples.

Example 1: Basic Configuration

module.exports = {
  content: ['./src/**/*.html'],
  css: ['./src/**/*.css']
}

This configuration will remove unused CSS from all CSS files in your project.

Example 2: Using Whitelist

Sometimes you might want to ensure certain CSS classes are never purged, you can do this with whitelisting:

module.exports = {
  content: ['./src/**/*.html'],
  css: ['./src/**/*.css'],
  whitelist: ['important-class']
}

In this example, important-class will never be removed, even if PurgeCSS can't find it in your content files.

4. Summary

In this tutorial, we learned how to install and configure PurgeCSS for your project. We also learned about whitelisting CSS classes to prevent them from being removed.

For further learning, you can explore other options available in PurgeCSS, like using regular expressions for the whitelist, or defining a whitelist pattern.

5. Practice Exercises

1. Exercise 1 - Set up a basic PurgeCSS configuration for a small project with HTML and CSS files.

   Solution:

   javascript module.exports = { content: ['./src/**/*.html'], css: ['./src/**/*.css'] }

2. Exercise 2 - Add a class to the whitelist and ensure it doesn't get removed during the purge.

   Solution:

   javascript module.exports = { content: ['./src/**/*.html'], css: ['./src/**/*.css'], whitelist: ['my-class'] }

Remember, practice is key to mastering any tool. Keep trying different configurations and options in PurgeCSS to better understand how it works.