One cool thing about CSS custom properties is that they can be a part of a value. Let’s say you’re using multiple backgrounds to pull off a a design. Each background will have its own color, image, repeat, position, etc. It can be verbose!

You have four images:

body {
  
  background-position:
    top 10px left 10px,
    top 10px right 10px,
    bottom 10px right 10px,
    bottom 10px left 10px;
  
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  
  background-image:
    url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-top-left.svg),
    url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-top-right.svg),
    url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-bottom-right.svg),
    url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-bottom-left.svg);
  
}

You want to add a fifth in a media query:

@media (min-width: 1500px) {
  body {
    /* REPEAT all existing backgrounds, then add a fifth. */
  }
}

That’s going to be super verbose! You’ll have to repeat each of those four images again, then add the fifth. Lots of duplication there.

One possibility is to create a variable for the base set, then add the fifth much more cleanly:

body {
  --baseBackgrounds: 
    url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-top-left.svg),
    url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-top-right.svg),
    url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-bottom-right.svg),
    url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-bottom-left.svg);

  background-position:
    top 10px left 10px,
    top 10px right 10px,
    bottom 10px right 10px,
    bottom 10px left 10px;
  
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  
  background-image: var(--baseBackgrounds);
}
@media (min-width: 1500px) {
  body {
    background-image: 
      var(--baseBackgrounds),
      url(added-fifth-background.svg);
  }
}

But, it’s really up to you. It might make more sense and be easier manage if you made each background image into a variable, and then pieced them together as needed.

body {
  --bg1: url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-top-left.svg);
  --bg2: url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-top-right.svg);
  --bg3: url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-bottom-right.svg);
  --bg4: url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-bottom-left.svg);
  --bg5: url(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/3/angles-bottom-left.svg);
  
  background-image: var(--bg1), var(--bg2), var(--bg3), var(--bg4);
}
@media (min-width: 1500px) {
  body {
    background-image: var(--bg1), var(--bg2), var(--bg3), var(--bg4), var(--bg5);
  }
}

Here’s a basic version of that, including a supports query:

See the Pen
Multiple BGs with Custom Properties by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier)
on CodePen.

Dynamically changing just the part of a value is a huge strength of CSS custom properties!

Note, too, that with backgrounds, it might be best to include the entire shorthand as the variable. That way, it’s much easier to piece everything together at once, rather than needing something like…

--bg_1_url: url();
--bg_1_size: 100px;
--bg_1_repeat: no-repeat;
/* etc. */

It’s easier to put all of the …

We’ve looked at React Hooks before, around here at CSS-Tricks. I have an article that introduces them as well that illustrates how to use them to create components through functions. Both articles are good high-level overviews about the way they work, but they open up a lot of possibilities, too.

So, that’s what we’re going to do in this article. We’re going to see how hooks make our development process easier and faster by building a chat application.

Specifically, we are building a chat application using Create React App. While doing so, we will be using a selection of React Hooks to simplify the development process and to remove a lot of boilerplate code that’s unnecessary for the work.

There are several open source Reacts hooks available and we’ll be putting those to use as well. These hooks can be directly consumed to build features that otherwise would have taken more of code to create. They also generally follow well-recognized standards for any functionality. In effect, this increases the efficiency of writing code and provides secure functionalities.

Let’s look at the requirements

The chat application we are going to build will have the following features:

• Get a list of past messages sent from the server
• Connect to a room for group chatting
• Get updates when people disconnect from or connect to a room
• Send and receive messages

We’re working with a few assumptions as we dive in:

• We’ll consider the server we are going to use as a blackbox. Don’t worry about it working perfectly as we’re going to communicate with it using simple sockets.
• All the styles are contained in a single CSS file, can be copied to the src directory. All the styles used within the app are linked in the repository.

Getting set up for work

OK, we’re going to want to get our development environment ready to start writing code. First off, React requires both Node and npm. You can set them up here.

Let’s spin up a new project from the Terminal:…

You can’t position: sticky; a <thead>. Nor a <tr>. But you can sticky a <th>, which means you can make sticky headers inside a regular ol’ <table>. This is tricky stuff, because if you didn’t know this weird quirk, it would be hard to blame you. It makes way more sense to sticky a parent element like the table header rather than each individiaul element in a row.

The issue boils down to the fact that stickiness requires position: relative to work and that doesn’t apply to <thead> and <tr> in the CSS 2.1 spec.

There are two very extreme reactions to this, should you need to implement sticky table headers and not be aware of the <th> workaround.

• Don’t use table markup at all. Instead, use different elements (<div>s and whatnot) and other CSS layout methods to replicate the style of a table, but not locked out of using position: relative and creating position: sticky parent elements.
• Use table elements, but totally remove all their styling defaults with new display values.

The first is dangerous because you aren’t using semantic and accessible elements for the content to be read and navigated. The second is almost the same. You can go that route, but need to be really careful to re-apply semantic roles.

Anyway, none of that matters if you just stick (get it?!) to using a sticky value on those <th> elements.

See the Pen
Sticky Table Headers with CSS by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier)
on CodePen.

It’s probably a bit weird to have table headers as a row in the middle of a table, but it’s just illustrating the idea. I was imagining colored header bars separating players on different sports teams or something.

Anytime I think about data tables, I also think about how tricky it can be to make them responsive. Fortunately, there are a variety of ways, all depending on the best way to group and explore the data in them.

The post Position Sticky …