oliverdavies.uk/source/_posts/rebuilding-bartik-with-vuejs-tailwind-css-part-2.md

---
title:
  Rebuilding Bartik (Drupal’s Default Theme) with Vue.js and Tailwind CSS - part
  2
date: 2018-12-27
excerpt:
  A follow-up to my original post on rebuilding Bartik with Tailwind and Vue.js.
tags:
  - drupal
  - tailwind-css
  - tweet
  - vuejs
has_tweets: true
---

In [the original post](/blog/rebuilding-bartik-with-vuejs-tailwind-css) I
detailed how I built [a clone of Drupal’s Bartik theme][netlify] with
[Vue.js][vuejs] and [Tailwind CSS][tailwind]. This follow-up post details some
updates that I’ve made to it since then.

## Customising Tailwind’s colours

During the first version of the page, my thoughts were to not edit the Tailwind
configuration, however I changed my mind on this whilst working on the
subsequent updates and did make some changes and customisations to the
`tailwind.js` file.

By default, Tailwind includes a full colour palette including colours such as
yellows, oranges, reds that weren’t being used in this page so they were
removed. This makes the file more readable as well as reduces the number of
classes that Tailwind generates.

Whist I was changing the colours, I also took the opportunity to tweak the
values of the remaining colours to more closely match Bartik’s original colours.

I also added a `black-60` class which uses
[RGBA](https://css-tricks.com/the-power-of-rgba) to provide a semi-transparent
background. I used this when adding the
[skip to main content link](#adding-the-skip-to-main-content-link).

```js
let colors = {
  transparent: 'transparent',

  black: '#22292f',
  'grey-darkest': '#3d4852',
  'grey-dark': '#8795a1',
  grey: '#b8c2cc',
  'grey-light': '#dae1e7',
  'grey-lighter': '#f0f0f0',
  'grey-lightest': '#F6F6F2',
  white: '#ffffff',

  'black-60': 'rgba(0, 0, 0, .6)',

  'blue-dark': '#2779bd',
  blue: '#3490dc',
  'blue-light': '#bcdefa',

  'green-dark': '#325E1C',
  green: '#77B159',
  'green-light': '#CDE2C2',
  'green-lighter': '#F3FAEE',
};
```

## Adding default styling for links

In the first version, every link was individually styled which resulted in a lot
of duplicate classes and a potential maintenance issue.

I added a `style` section within `Welcome.vue`, and added some default styling
for links based on their location on the page -
[extracting some Tailwind components](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/extracting-components).

<div v-pre markdown="1">{% verbatim %}
```vuejs
<template>
  ...

  <div id="footer" class="text-xs text-white">
    <div class="container mx-auto px-4 pt-16 pb-4">
      <div class="border-t border-solid border-gray-900 pt-6 -mb-6">
        <div class="mb-6">
          <p><a href="#0">Contact</a></p>
        </div>

        <div class="mb-6">
          <p>
            A clone of <a href="https://www.drupal.org">Drupal</a>’s default theme (Bartik).
            Built by <a href="https://www.oliverdavies.uk">Oliver Davies</a>
            using <a href="https://vuejs.org">Vue.js</a>
            and <a href="https://tailwindcss.com">Tailwind CSS</a>.
          </p>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>

  </div>
</template>
```

Within the `style` section, I’m able to use Tailwind’s custom `@apply` directive
to inject it’s rules into more traditional CSS, rather than needing to add them
onto every link.

```vuejs
<style lang="sass">
#header a
  @apply text-white no-underline

  &:hover,
  &:focus
    @apply underline

#main a
  @apply text-blue-dark no-underline border-b border-blue-600 border-dotted

  &:hover,
  &:focus
    @apply text-blue-600 border-solid

#footer a
  @apply text-white no-underline border-b border-dotted border-white

  &:hover,
  &:focus
    @apply border-none
</style>
```

{% endverbatim %}</div>

## Extracting a Vue component for Drupal blocks

As well as being able to extract re-usable components within Tailwind, the same
can be done within Vue. As the page could potentially have multiple sidebar
blocks, I extracted a `SidebarBlock` component which would act as a wrapper
around the block’s contents.

```vuejs
// src/components/Sidebar.vue

<template>
  <div class="bg-gray-200 p-4 mb-4">
    <slot></slot>
  </div>
</template>
```

The component provides the wrapping div and the appropriate classes in a single
easy-to-maintain location, and
[uses a slot](https://vuejs.org/v2/guide/components-slots.html) as a placeholder
for the main content.

That means that within `Welcome.vue`, the markup within the `sidebar-block` tags
will be used as the block contents.

```html
<sidebar-block>
  <p>My block contents.</p>
</sidebar-block>
```

## Adding the Skip to Main Content Link

One thing
[that was missing](https://github.com/opdavies/rebuilding-bartik/issues/1) was
the 'Skip to main content link'. This an accessibility feature that allows for
users who are navigating the page using only a keyboard to bypass the navigation
links and skip straight to the main content if they wish by clicking a link that
is hidden and only visible whilst it’s focussed on.

Here is the markup that I used, which is placed directly after the opening
`<body>` tag.

```html
<a
  href="#0"
  class="skip-link text-white bg-black-60 py-1 px-2 rounded-b-lg focus:no-underline focus:outline-none"
>
  Skip to main content
</a>
```

I initially tried to implement the same feature on this website using
[Tailwind’s visually hidden plugin](https://www.npmjs.com/package/tailwindcss-visuallyhidden)
which also contains a `focussable` class, though I wasn’t able to style it the
way that I needed. I created my own
[Tailwind skip link plugin](https://www.npmjs.com/package/tailwindcss-skip-link)
and moved the re-usable styling there.

To enable the plugin, I needed to add it within the `plugins` section of my
`tailwind.js` file:

```js
plugins: [
  require('tailwindcss/plugins/container')(),
  require('tailwindcss-skip-link')(),
],
```

I added only the page-specific styling classes to the link (as well as the
`skip-link` class that the plugin requires) as well as my own focus state to the
skip link that I did within the `style` section of `App.vue`.

```vuejs
<style lang="sass">
@tailwind preflight
@tailwind components

.skip-link:focus
  left: 50%
  transform: translateX(-50%)

@tailwind utilities
</style>
```

![The Bartik clone with the skip to main content link visible](/images/blog/rebuilding-bartik-vue-tailwind-part-2/skip-link.png){.border}

## Adding the DrupalMessage component

I also added a version of Drupal’s status message as another Vue component. This
also uses a slot to include the message contents and accepts a
[prop](https://vuejs.org/v2/guide/components-props.html) for the message type.

```html
<template>
  <div :class="[ wrapperClasses, wrapperClasses ? 'pl-2 rounded-sm' : '' ]">
    <div
      class="py-4 pl-3 pr-4 mb-4 border flex items-center rounded-sm"
      :class="classes"
    >
      <svg
        v-if="type == 'status'"
        class="fill-current w-4 h-4 text-green mr-3"
        xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
      >
        <path
          d="M6.464 13.676a.502.502 0 0 1-.707 0L.797 8.721a.502.502 0 0 1 0-.707l1.405-1.407a.5.5 0 0 1 .707 0l2.849 2.848a.504.504 0 0 0 .707 0l6.629-6.626a.502.502 0 0 1 .707 0l1.404 1.404a.504.504 0 0 1 0 .707l-8.741 8.736z"
        />
      </svg>
      <slot></slot>
    </div>
  </div>
</template>
```

The value of the `type` prop is then used within some computed properties to
determine the type specific classes to add (e.g. green for success, and red for
warning), as well as whether or not to include the checkmark SVG image.

```js
<script>
export default {
  props: {
    type: String,
  },

  computed: {
    classes: function () {
      return {
        status: 'border-green-light text-green-dark bg-green-lighter',
      }[this.type]
    },

    wrapperClasses: function () {
      return {
        status: 'bg-green',
      }[this.type]
    },
  }
}
</script>
```

I did need to make one change to the `tailwind.js` file in order to change the
border on links when they are hovered over - within `modules` I needed to enable
the `borderStyle` module for hover and focus states in order for Tailwind to
generate the additional classes.

```js
modules: {
  // ...
  borderStyle: ['responsive', 'hover', 'focus'],
  // ...
}
```

The message is included within the Welcome component by including the
`<drupal-message />` element, though rather than importing it there, it’s
registed as a global component so it would be available to any other components
that could be added in the future.

This is done within `main.js`:

```js
// ...

Vue.component('drupal-message', require('@/components/DrupalMessage').default);

new Vue({
  render: h => h(App),
}).$mount('#app');
```

![The Bartik clone with the Drupal Message component visible](/images/blog/rebuilding-bartik-vue-tailwind-part-2/drupal-message.png){.border}

**The updated version is [live on Netlify][netlify], and the [latest source code
is available on GitHub][github].**

[github]: https://github.com/opdavies/rebuilding-bartik
[netlify]: https://rebuilding-bartik.oliverdavies.uk
[tailwind]: https://tailwindcss.com
[vuejs]: https://vuejs.org