One of the great things about Bootstrap is that it provides a set of Sass variables that allow you to customize the look and feel of your project with ease. In this tutorial, we'll go over how to use Bootstrap's Sass variables to customize your project.
Before we dive in, it's important to note that you will need to have Sass installed on your machine in order to use Bootstrap's Sass variables. If you don't have Sass installed, you can follow the instructions on the Sass website to get it set up.
Setup Sass in your Bootstrap project
Once you have Sass installed, the first step in using Bootstrap's Sass variables is to create a Sass file in your project. You can do this by creating a new file and giving it a .scss extension (for example, style.scss).
Next, you'll need to import the Bootstrap Sass files into your project. You can do this by adding the following line to the top of your Sass file:
@import 'node_modules/bootstrap/scss/bootstrap';
This will import all of the Bootstrap Sass files into your project, including the Sass variables that we'll be using to customize the look and feel of your project.
Now that we have Bootstrap imported into our project, let's take a look at some of the Sass variables that are available to us.
How to customise a Boostrap Sass variable
One of the first variables that you might want to customize is the $theme-colors variable. This variable is an array of colors that are used throughout the Bootstrap framework, including the default colors for buttons, links, and other UI elements. You can customize the colors in this array by modifying the values in the array. For example, to change the primary color to blue, you could do the following:
$theme-colors: ( primary: blue, secondary: gray, success: green, danger: red, warning: yellow, info: light-blue, light: light-gray, dark: black );
Another variable that you might want to customize is the $font-size-base variable, which controls the base font size for the entire project. By default, the value of this variable is set to 1rem, which is equivalent to 16 pixels. You can change this value to any valid CSS font size unit (such as px, em, or rem). For example, to set the base font size to 18 pixels, you could do the following:
$font-size-base: 18px;
In addition to the $theme-colors variable, there are many other Sass variables available in Bootstrap that you can use to customize the look and feel of your project. Some other variables that you might find useful include:
- $body-bg: Controls the background color of the <body> element.
- $link-color: Controls the color of links.
- $link-decoration: Controls the text decoration of links (such as underlining).
- $link-hover-color: Controls the color of links when they are hovered over.
- $link-hover-decoration: Controls the text decoration of links when they are hovered over.
- $grid-breakpoints: Controls the breakpoints at which the Bootstrap grid system changes from one column layout to a multi-column layout.
- $container-max-widths: Controls the maximum width of the .container class at different breakpoints.
- $spacer: Controls the default value for the margin and padding utilities.
To use these variables, simply set the value of the variable to your desired value. For example, to set the $link-color to purple, you could do the following:
$link-color: purple;
There are many other Sass variables available to you in Bootstrap, including variables for controlling the spacing between elements, the border radius of UI elements, and much more. You can find a full list of the available Sass variables in the Bootstrap documentation.
Once you've customized the Sass variables to your liking, you can compile your Sass file into CSS by running the following command:
sass style.scss style.css
This will generate a new CSS file (style.css) that contains all of the styles from the Bootstrap framework, as well as your customizations. You can then include this CSS file in your HTML file to apply the styles to your project.
Conclusion
It's important to note that when you customize the Sass variables in your project, your changes will overwrite the default values that are set in the Bootstrap framework. This means that if you customize a variable and then later update to a newer version of Bootstrap, your customizations will not be lost.
One thing to keep in mind when using Sass variables is that they are only processed when the Sass files are compiled into CSS. This means that if you make a change to a Sass variable, you will need to recompile your Sass files in order to see the change reflected in your project.
One way to automate this process is to use a tool like node-sass-chokidar or grunt-sass, which will automatically compile your Sass files whenever you make a change. This can save you a lot of time and hassle, especially if you are making frequent changes to your project's styles.
In conclusion, Bootstrap's Sass variables are a powerful tool that allow you to customize the look and feel of your project with ease. By using these variables, you can quickly and easily make changes to the colors, fonts, spacing, and other aspects of your project, without having to write custom CSS. With a little bit of practice, you'll be using Bootstrap's Sass variables like a pro in no time!