Bitters

Scaffold styles, variables and structure for Bourbon projects.

Bitters helps designers start projects faster by defining a basic set of Sass variables, default element style and project structure. It’s been specifically designed for use within web applications. Bitters should live in your project’s root Sass directory and we encourage you to modify and extend it to meet your design and brand requirements.

Bitters is made to work alongside a CSS reset and not replace it. Our suggested reset is Normalize.

Requirements

Sass 3.0+
Bourbon 2.0+
Ruby 1.9.3+ (required to install Bitters from the command line)

Installation

Bitters uses the RubyGems package manager to easily generate a base directory with all of the necessary files.

For command line help, use bitters help or visit the Command Line Interface Wiki.

Install the Bitters gem:

  gem install bitters

If you use rbenv, be sure to run rbenv rehash without any errors.

Install Bourbon (required) and Neat (optional).
Install the Bitters library into the current directory:

  bitters install

A base directory will be generated which contains all of the Bitters files.

Import Bitters after Bourbon in your application.css.scss or main manifest file. All additional stylesheets should be imported below Bitters.

  @import "bourbon";
  @import "base/base";

When using Neat, uncomment the following line in _base.scss:

  @import "grid-settings";

And import Neat after Bitters:

  @import "bourbon";
  @import "base/base";
  @import "neat";

  // All other imports

If you want to use Neat functions in Bitters, you can @import "grid-settings"; before Neat, remove @import "grid-settings"; from _base.scss and import the rest of bitters after. For example:

  @import "bourbon";
  @import "base/grid-settings";
  @import "neat";
  @import "base/base";

  // All other imports

Using Bitters

Sass structure & default style

The Bitters directory should contain styles for all the basic elements used throughout the project. It also contains directories for custom mixins and extends for your site as well. Add code to the existing files or add new files to the directories. Customize Bitters for your site as you see fit.

Variables

This houses all variables that are used, or will be used, in more than one file in your site. Variable names in Bitters that are used outside of the variables file start with $base to indicate that they are the most basic variables.

Grid settings

Variables specifically created for Neat resets and breakpoints. To be used, these need to be imported separately from the rest of your base file above Neat in your main stylesheet. Otherwise just remove the file.

Typography

All type is based on $base-font-size which is set to 1em (16px) by default. The spacing around type is based on $base-line-height so as to keep a semi-baseline grid. All sizes are scaled up or down by a factor of .25.

Lists

All lists have stripped out styles. No bullets, no left padding. To add back the expected browser default styles add @extend %default-ul; or @extend %default-ol; to the <ul> or <ol> respectively.

Forms

Adds basic styles all form elements. The variables at the top of the file all inherit from the variables file but make it really easy to be overridden.

Buttons

Basic style for button and input[type="submit"]. Button style can be changed by setting the $button-style variable to one of the Bourbon button style options.

Flashes

Used for any error, warning or success messages in applications or forms. Specifically made for Ruby on Rails application notices.

The Bourbon family

Bourbon: A simple and lightweight mixin library for Sass
Neat: A lightweight semantic grid framework for Sass and Bourbon
Bitters: Scaffold styles, variables and structure for Bourbon projects
Refills: Prepackaged patterns and components, built on top of Bourbon, Bitters & Neat

Credits

Bitters is maintained and funded by thoughtbot, inc. Tweet your questions or suggestions to @bourbonsass and while you’re at it follow us too.