Stylus PX to REM Mixin

By  on  

The REM unit is the hottest thing since Christina Ricci ... it's hot.  And it's especially hot when it comes to font size.  Rather than paraphrase a bunch of documentation as to why REM is important, I'd like to point you to Jonathan Snook's outstanding Font sizing with rem post, where he explains sizing with PX, EM, and how REM comes into the picture.  Here's how I implemented REM sizing within Stylus with a PX fallback!

The Stylus CSS

My method uses two mixins to accomplish the feat: one to set the base font-size and another to rem-ify the pixel unit:

set-font-size(value) {
    font-size: value; /* add PX (or original value) as backup */

    if (value is inherit) {
        /* do nothing, "inherit" has no unit */
    } else {
        font-size: remify(value);
    }
}

remify(value) { /* separate mixin, so it can be used elsewhere */
    u = unit(value);

    if (u is 'px') {
        return unit(value/16, 'rem');
    } else {
        return unit(value, u);
    }
}

The 16 within the remify unit represents the base font size, in pixels, that rems should be calculated by. The usage and output looks as follows:

.smaller {
	set-font-size(13px);
}

/*
	yields:

	.smaller {
		font-size: 13px;
		font-size: .8125rem;
	}

*/

Don't forget to set the base font size on the html element, usually 100%.  Also remember this mixin assumes a PX font is passed in, so if you aren't looking to use PX as backup, this isn't the solution for you.  If you do, however, there's no hurt in using these Stylus mixins!

Recent Features

  • By
    Camera and Video Control with HTML5

    Client-side APIs on mobile and desktop devices are quickly providing the same APIs.  Of course our mobile devices got access to some of these APIs first, but those APIs are slowly making their way to the desktop.  One of those APIs is the getUserMedia API...

  • By
    Introducing MooTools Templated

    One major problem with creating UI components with the MooTools JavaScript framework is that there isn't a great way of allowing customization of template and ease of node creation. As of today, there are two ways of creating: new Element Madness The first way to create UI-driven...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    MooTools Star Ratings with MooStarRating

    I've said it over and over but I'll say it again:  JavaScript's main role in web applications is to enhance otherwise boring, static functionality provided by the browser.  One perfect example of this is the Javascript/AJAX-powered star rating systems that have become popular over the...

  • By
    Chris Coyier’s Favorite CodePen Demos

    David asked me if I'd be up for a guest post picking out some of my favorite Pens from CodePen. A daunting task! There are so many! I managed to pick a few though that have blown me away over the past few months. If you...

Discussion

  1. You can also use this REM converter, which is really nice! https://offroadcode.com/prototypes/rem-calculator/

  2. I’ve been doing it px-ify style instead of remify!

    $default-font-size = 14px
    
    font-size(_size)
      if unit(_size) == 'rem'
        font-size: (_size * $default-font-size)px
      font-size: _size
    
    .bigger
      font-size(1.2rem)
    
  3. The first sentence in this post cracks me up every time. Oh and if anyone wants to remify multiple values you can just:

    remify() {
        remified = ();
    
        for arg in arguments {
            push(remified, unit(arg/16, 'rem'));
        }
        
        return remified;
    }
    

    so

    .foo {
        padding: remify(16px 32px 8px);
    }
    

    yields:

    .foo {
        padding: 1rem 2rem 0.5rem;
    }
    
  4. Mohamed Elkebir

    It’s best to let this code work with multi/mixed-values:

    pixify(property, sizes, base = 16)
      pixels = ()
      rems = ()
    
      for j, i in sizes
        if typeof(j) is 'unit'
          push(pixels, unit(j * base, 'px'))
          push(rems, unit(j, 'rem'))
        else
          push(pixels, j)
          push(rems, j)
    
      {property}: pixels
      {property}: rems
    

    Usage:

    pixify(border, 0.3 solid red)
    

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!