This demo page details a select set of elements that are meant to show off Simple.css’s styling, and provide HTML to help you get started easily. If you want a comprehensive demonstration of elements that may or may not be styled by Simple.css, please see our test page.
Title
This page is a demonstration of the elements that can be formatted using Simple.css. Each section includes a code block on how to include it in your site’s design.
This may be a little basic for some people, but I wanted the barrier for entry to be as low as possible for this project.
Basic Typography
All the typography of Simple.css uses rem for sizing. This means that accessibility is maintained for those who change their browser font size. The body element has a size of 1.15rem which makes all the standard font sizes slightly larger. This equates to 18.4px for paragraph text, instead of the standard 16px.
The heading elements also have an increased top margin in order to break blocks of text up better.
Heading 1 3rem
Heading 2 2.6rem
Heading 3 2rem
Heading 4 1.44rem
Heading 5 1.15rem
Heading 6 0.96rem
<h2>This is a H2 header<h2>
<p>This is some paragraph text.</p>
Links & Buttons
Links are formatted very simply on Simple.css (shock horror). They use the accent CSS variable and are underlined. There is a :hover effect that removes the underline.
Buttons use the same accent CSS variable for their colour. When hovering, there is an opacity effect.
<a href="https://example.com">I'm a hyperlink</a>
<button>I'm a button</button>
<a class="button" href="https://example.com">I'm a button with a link</a>
Other typography elements
There are a number of other typography elements that you can use with Simple.css. Some of the common ones are:
All the standard stuff, like bold, italic and underlined text.
Highlighting text using the mark element.
Adding inline code using the code element.
Displaying keyboard commands like ALT+F4 using the kbd element.
We all love a good list, right? I know my wife does!
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Do this thing
Do that thing
Do the other thing
# Bulleted list
<ul>
<li>Item 1</li>
<li>Item 2</li>
<li>Item 3</li>
</ul>
# Numbered list
<ol>
<li>Do this thing</li>
<li>Do that thing</li>
<li>Do the other thing</li>
</ol>
Blockquotes
Sometimes you may want to quote someone else in your HTML. For this we use the blockquote element. Here’s what a quote looks like with Simple.css:
Friends don’t spy; true friendship is about privacy, too.
– Stephen King
<blockquote>
<p>Friends don’t spy; true friendship is about privacy, too.</p>
<p><cite>– Stephen King</cite></p>
</blockquote>
Code blocks
Code blocks are different from the inline code element. Code blocks are used when you want to display a block of code, like this:
There are other HTML elements that are formatted in Simple.css. If you think there should be more added, please log an issue on Github
Notice box
This is a notice box. It’s useful for calling out snippets of information. Cool, huh?
<p class="notice">This is a notice box. It's useful for calling out snippets of information. Cool, huh?</p>
Aside
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
<article>
<h2>This is an article</h2>
<p>Some content will go here, which will be inside your article.</p>
</article>
Section
Sections are good for splitting up a page into multiple…sections. 🙃
This is a section
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
<section>
<h2>This is a section</h2>
<p>Some content will go here, which will be inside your section.</p>
</section>
Navigation
The nav menu is deliberately designed to be extremely simple so that you can improve on it as you see fit. Or, just leave it as is to have a good looking, functional navigation menu.
Navigation menus inside the header are automatically formatted like the one on this site. If you decide to put a nav menu elsewhere on your site, for example in a post for a table of contents, no formatting is applied. This is so you can add your own formatting as you see fit.
There’s no JavaScript or checkbox CSS hacks here. It’s just a collection of simple “buttons” that wrap to the given width of the page.
The nav menu will also adapt to smaller screens automatically so that it doesn’t take up too much space.
To add a nav menu, just add the following to the <header> section of your site:
In Simple.css, images within the main element are always full width and have rounded edges to them. The figcaption element is also formatted in Simple.css. Here are examples of images with and without a caption:
# Standard image
<img alt="A dog on an iPad" src="/assets/images/dog-ipad.jpg" />
# Image with a caption
<figure>
<img alt="This is a black swan" src="/assets/images/goose.jpg" />
<figcaption>This is a black swan</figcaption>
</figure>
Accordions
Accordions are cool to play with. They’re especially useful when it comes to things like FAQ pages. Many people invoke JavaScript, or div for life when they use accordions. I don’t really understand why that is when it’s available in plain old HTML:
Like lists, sometimes you may need to add a table to your webpage. In Simple.css tables automatically highlight every other row to make reading easier. Table header text is also bold. Here’s what they look like: