Tips for handling the !important declaration when creating a customized bootstrap theme

Exploring the Color Dilemma

After creating a simple website in Bootstrap 4.1 with a distinct shade of purple, I encountered an issue with specificity when it came to customizing button states.

To address this, I introduced a CSS class called .btn-purple to handle color-related attributes like color, background-color, and border-color.

However, Bootstrap's built-in selectors for various button states, such as :hover, :focus, and :active, ended up overriding my custom class due to their higher specificity level.

Solving the Conundrum

Initially, I resorted to using !important on all custom selectors as a temporary fix. Yet, this approach is viewed as bad practice according to industry standards.

The advice is to prioritize specificity over the use of !important and only utilize it for page-specific CSS that needs to override external libraries like Bootstrap.

Despite this guidance, I find myself at a crossroads whether employing !important in my scenario is justifiable or considered a quick workaround.

It's worth mentioning that I'm utilizing Bootstrap from their CDN and would prefer not to create my customized version of the framework.

Seeking Guidance

What is the best approach to handling !important in this particular situation?

htmlcssbootstrap-4css-selectors

Answer №1

If you want to customize the variables in Bootstrap, you can easily overwrite the default values:

Customizing Bootstrap Variables

Each Sass variable in Bootstrap 4 comes with the !default flag which allows you to change the variable's default value in your own Sass files without altering Bootstrap's original source code. You can copy and paste the variables, adjust their values, and remove the !default flag. If a variable already has a value assigned, it will not be changed by Bootstrap's default values.

When overriding variables within the same Sass file, you can place your overrides before or after the default variables. However, if you are overriding variables across different Sass files, make sure your changes come before importing Bootstrap's Sass files.

Here is an example of how you can modify the background-color and text color when integrating and compiling Bootstrap using npm:

// Your custom variable overrides
$body-bg: #000;
$body-color: #111;

// Import Bootstrap and its default variables
@import "node_modules/bootstrap/scss/bootstrap";

Repeat this process for any variable in Bootstrap, including the global options listed below.

Answer №2

While attempting to craft a concise example to showcase my issue, I pinpointed the root cause of my troubles. Here is an illustration of how I crafted my buttons:

<a class="btn btn-outline-primary btn-purple" href="#">

Due to consistently applying the "primary" style to my buttons, my custom class struggled to override the style. The fix was simple - remove btn-outline-primary and introduce btn-outline-purple like so:

.btn-outline-purple {
    color: #490088;
    background-color: transparent;
    background-image: none;
    border-color: #490088;
}

.btn-outline-purple:not(:disabled):not(.disabled):active,
.btn-outline-purple:hover {
    color: #ffffff;
    background-color: #490088;
    border-color: #490088;
}

.btn-outline-purple:focus {
    box-shadow: 0 0 0 0.2rem rgba(73, 0, 136, 0.5);
}

By following this approach, the functionality of .btn-outline-* can be replicated without employing any !important styles. A fresh button would then be fashioned as shown below:

<a class="btn btn-outline-purple" href="#">

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