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.

Important

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.

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.

See also Using the Style Engine to generate block supports styles.

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:

1. selector (string) - this is the CSS selector for your block style CSS declarations.
2. 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

$block_styles =  array(
     'spacing' => array( 'padding' => '100px' )
);
$styles = wp_style_engine_get_styles(
    $block_styles,
    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 enqueue styles for rendering where enqueue and context strings are passed in the options.

Parameters

• $css_rules array<array>
• $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'. When set, the style engine will store the CSS rules using the context value as a key.

Returns string A compiled CSS string based on $css_rules.

Usage

$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' )
    ),
    array(
        'selector'.       => '.wp-kumquat',
        'declarations' => array( 'color' => 'orange' )
    ),
);

$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,.wp-kumquat{color:orange}.wp-tomato{color:red;padding:100px}

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'.

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

Usage

A use case would be to fetch the stylesheet, which contains all the compiled CSS rules from the store, and enqueue it for rendering on the frontend.

// First register some styles.
$styles = array(
    array(
        'selector'.       => '.wp-apple',
        'declarations' => array( 'color' => 'green' )
    ),
);

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

// Later, fetch compiled rules from context store.
$stylesheet = gutenberg_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`.