@wordpress/style-engine

The Style Engine aims to provide a consistent API for rendering styling for blocks across both client-side and server-side applications.

Initially, it will offer a single, centralized agent responsible for generating block styles, and, in later phases, it will also assume the responsibility of processing and rendering optimized frontend CSS.

Please note

This package is new as of WordPress 6.1 and therefore in its infancy.

Upcoming tasks on the roadmap include, but are not limited to, the following:

Consolidate global and block style rendering and enqueuing (ongoing)
Explore pre-render CSS rule processing with the intention of deduplicating other common and/or repetitive block styles. (ongoing)
Extend the scope of semantic class names and/or design token expression, and encapsulate rules into stable utility classes.
Explore pre-render CSS rule processing with the intention of deduplicating other common and/or repetitive block styles.
Propose a way to control hierarchy and specificity, and make the style hierarchy cascade accessible and predictable. This might include preparing for CSS cascade layers until they become more widely supported, and allowing for opt-in support in Gutenberg via theme.json.
Refactor all blocks to consistently use the “style” attribute for all customizations, that is, deprecate preset-specific attributes such as attributes.fontSize.

For more information about the roadmap, please refer to Block editor styles: initiatives and goals and the Github project board.

If you’re making changes or additions to the Style Engine, please take a moment to read the notes on contributing.

Backend API

wp_style_engine_get_styles()

Global public function to generate styles from a single style object, e.g., the value of a block’s attributes.style object or the top level styles in theme.json.

Parameters

$block_styles array A block’s attributes.style object or the top level styles in theme.json
$options array<string|boolean> An array of options to determine the output.
- context string An identifier describing the origin of the style object, e.g., ‘block-supports’ or ‘global-styles’. Default is ‘block-supports’. When both context and selector are set, the Style Engine will store the CSS rules using the context as a key.
- convert_vars_to_classnames boolean Whether to skip converting CSS var:? values to var( –wp–preset–* ) values. Default is false.
- selector string When a selector is passed, generate() will return a full CSS rule $selector { ...rules }, otherwise a concatenated string of properties and values.

Returns
array<string|array>|null

array(
    'css'           => (string) A CSS ruleset or declarations block formatted to be placed in an HTML `style` attribute or tag.
    'declarations'  => (array) An array of property/value pairs representing parsed CSS declarations.
    'classnames'    => (string) Classnames separated by a space.
);

It will return compiled CSS declarations for inline styles, or, where a selector is provided, a complete CSS rule.

To enqueue a style for rendering in the site’s frontend, the $options array requires the following:

selector (string) – this is the CSS selector for your block style CSS declarations.
context (string) – this tells the Style Engine where to store the styles. Styles in the same context will be stored together.

wp_style_engine_get_styles will return the compiled CSS and CSS declarations array.

Usage

As mentioned, wp_style_engine_get_styles() is useful whenever you wish to generate CSS and/or classnames from a block’s style object. A good example is using the Style Engine to generate block supports styles.

In the following snippet, we’re taking the style object from a block’s attributes and passing it to the Style Engine to get the styles. By passing a context in the options, the Style Engine will store the styles for later retrieval, for example, should you wish to batch enqueue a set of CSS rules.

$block_attributes =  array(
     'style' => array(
        'spacing' => array( 'padding' => '100px' ),
     ),
);

$styles = wp_style_engine_get_styles(
    $block_attributes['style'],
    array(
        'selector' => '.a-selector',
        'context'  => 'block-supports',
    )
);
print_r( $styles );

/*
array(
    'css'          => '.a-selector{padding:100px}'
    'declarations' => array( 'padding' => '100px' )
)
*/

wp_style_engine_get_stylesheet_from_css_rules()

Use this function to compile and return a stylesheet for any CSS rules. The Style Engine will automatically merge declarations and combine selectors.

This function acts as a CSS compiler, but will also register the styles in a store where a context string is passed in the options.

Parameters

$css_rules array<array>
$options array<string|bool> An array of options to determine the output.
- context string An identifier describing the origin of the style object, e.g., ‘block-supports’ or ‘global-styles’. Default is ‘block-supports’. When set, the Style Engine will attempt to store the CSS rules.
- prettify bool Whether to add new lines and indents to output. Default is to inherit the value of the global constant SCRIPT_DEBUG, if it is defined.
- optimize bool Whether to optimize the CSS output, e.g., combine rules. Default is false.

Returns
string A compiled CSS string based on $css_rules.

Usage

Useful for when you wish to compile a bespoke set of CSS rules from a series of selector + declaration items.

The Style Engine will return a sanitized stylesheet. By passing a context identifier in the options, the Style Engine will store the styles for later retrieval, for example, should you wish to batch enqueue a set of CSS rules.

You can call wp_style_engine_get_stylesheet_from_css_rules() multiple times, and, so long as your styles use the same context identifier, they will be stored together.

$styles = array(
    array(
        'selector'     => '.wp-pumpkin',
        'declarations' => array( 'color' => 'orange' )
    ),
    array(
        'selector'     => '.wp-tomato',
        'declarations' => array( 'color' => 'red' )
    ),
    array(
        'selector'     => '.wp-tomato',
        'declarations' => array( 'padding' => '100px' )
    ),
);

$stylesheet = wp_style_engine_get_stylesheet_from_css_rules(
    $styles,
    array(
        'context' => 'block-supports', // Indicates that these styles should be stored with block supports CSS.
    )
);
print_r( $stylesheet ); // .wp-pumpkin{color:orange}.wp-tomato{color:red;padding:100px}

It’s also possible to build simple, nested CSS rules using the rules_group key.

$styles = array(
    array(
        'rules_group'  => '@media (min-width: 80rem)',
        'selector'     => '.wp-carrot',
        'declarations' => array( 'color' => 'orange' )
    ),
    array(
        'rules_group'  => '@media (min-width: 80rem)',
        'selector'     => '.wp-tomato',
        'declarations' => array( 'color' => 'red' )
    ),
);

$stylesheet = wp_style_engine_get_stylesheet_from_css_rules(
    $styles,
    array(
        'context' => 'block-supports', // Indicates that these styles should be stored with block supports CSS.
    )
);
print_r( $stylesheet ); // @media (min-width: 80rem){.wp-carrot{color:orange}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.wp-tomato{color:red;}}

wp_style_engine_get_stylesheet_from_context()

Returns compiled CSS from a stored context, if found.

Parameters

$store_name string An identifier describing the origin of the style object, e.g., ‘block-supports’ or ‘ global-styles’. Default is ‘block-supports’.
$options array<bool> An array of options to determine the output.
- prettify bool Whether to add new lines and indents to output. Default is to inherit the value of the global constant SCRIPT_DEBUG, if it is defined.
- optimize bool Whether to optimize the CSS output, e.g., combine rules. Default is false.

Returns
string A compiled CSS string from the stored CSS rules.

Usage

Use this function to generate a stylesheet using all the styles stored under a specific context identifier.

A use case would be when you wish to enqueue all stored styles for rendering to the frontend. The Style Engine will merge and deduplicate styles upon retrieval.

// First, let's gather and register our styles.
$styles = array(
    array(
        'selector'     => '.wp-apple',
        'declarations' => array( 'color' => 'green' )
    ),
);

wp_style_engine_get_stylesheet_from_css_rules(
    $styles,
    array(
        'context' => 'fruit-styles',
    )
);

// Later, we fetch compiled rules from context store.
$stylesheet = wp_style_engine_get_stylesheet_from_context( 'fruit-styles' );

print_r( $stylesheet ); // .wp-apple{color:green;}

if ( ! empty( $stylesheet ) ) {
    wp_register_style( 'my-stylesheet', false, array(), true, true );
    wp_add_inline_style( 'my-stylesheet', $stylesheet );
    wp_enqueue_style( 'my-stylesheet' );
}

Installation (JS only)

Install the module

npm install @wordpress/style-engine --save

This package assumes that your code will run in an ES2015+ environment. If you’re using an environment that has limited or no support for such language features and APIs, you should include the polyfill shipped in @wordpress/babel-preset-default in your code.

Usage

compileCSS

Generates a stylesheet for a given style object and selector.

Parameters

style Style: Style object, for example, the value of a block’s attributes.style object or the top level styles in theme.json
options StyleOptions: Options object with settings to adjust how the styles are generated.

Returns

string: A generated stylesheet or inline style declarations.

Changelog

6.1.0 Introduced in WordPress core.

getCSSRules

Returns a JSON representation of the generated CSS rules.

Parameters

style Style: Style object, for example, the value of a block’s attributes.style object or the top level styles in theme.json
options StyleOptions: Options object with settings to adjust how the styles are generated.

Returns

GeneratedCSSRule[]: A collection of objects containing the selector, if any, the CSS property key (camelcase) and parsed CSS value.

Changelog

6.1.0 Introduced in WordPress core.

Glossary

A guide to the terms and variable names referenced by the Style Engine package.

Block style (Gutenberg internal): An object comprising a block’s style attribute that contains a block’s style values. E.g., { spacing: { margin: '10px' }, color: { ... }, ... }
Context: An identifier for a group of styles that share a common origin or purpose, e.g., ‘block-supports’ or ‘global-styles’. The context is also used as a key to fetch CSS rules from the store.
CSS declaration or (CSS property declaration): A CSS property paired with a CSS value. E.g., color: pink
CSS declarations block: A set of CSS declarations usually paired with a CSS selector to create a CSS rule.
CSS property: Identifiers that describe stylistic, modifiable features of an HTML element. E.g., border, font-size, width…
CSS rule: A CSS selector followed by a CSS declarations block inside a set of curly braces. Usually found in a CSS stylesheet.
CSS selector (or CSS class selector): The first component of a CSS rule, a CSS selector is a pattern of elements, classnames or other terms that define the element to which the rule’s CSS definitions apply. E.g., p.my-cool-classname > span. A CSS selector matches HTML elements based on the contents of the “class” attribute. See MDN CSS selectors article.
CSS stylesheet: A collection of CSS rules contained within a file or within an HTML style tag.
CSS value: The value of a CSS property. The value determines how the property is modified. E.g., the 10vw in height: 10vw.
CSS variables (vars) or CSS custom properties: Properties, whose values can be reused in other CSS declarations. Set using custom property notation (e.g., --wp--preset--olive: #808000;) and accessed using the var() function (e.g., color: var( --wp--preset--olive );). See MDN article on CSS custom properties.
Global styles (Gutenberg internal): A merged block styles object containing values from a theme’s theme.json and user styles settings.
Inline styles: Inline styles are CSS declarations that affect a single HTML element, contained within a style attribute
Processor: Performs compilation and optimization on stored CSS rules. See the class `WP_Style_Engine_Processor`.
Store: A data object that contains related styles. See the class `WP_Style_Engine_CSS_Rules_Store`.

First published

February 15, 2022

Last updated

March 20, 2024

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