gulp-css-spriter

gulp-css-spriter looks through the CSS you pipe in and gathers all of the background images. It then creates a sprite sheet and updates the references in the CSS.

You can easily exclude/include certain background image declarations using meta info in your styles(see meta section below) and includeMode option(see options section below) depending on your use case.

About

Latest Version: 0.1

gulp-css-spriter uses spritesmith behind the scenes for creating the sprite sheet.

Usage

Basic usage

This is most likely the setup you will probably end up using.

gulp.task('css', function() {
	return gulp.src('./src/css/styles.css')
		.pipe(spriter({
			// The path and file name of where we will save the sprite sheet
			'spriteSheet': './dist/images/spritesheet.png',
			// Because we don't know where you will end up saving the CSS file at this point in the pipe,
			// we need a litle help identifying where it will be.
			'pathToSpriteSheetFromCSS': '../images/spritesheet.png'
		}))
		.pipe(gulp.dest('./dist/css'));
});

Barebones usage

The slimmest usage possible.

gulp.task('css', function() {
	return gulp.src('./styles.css')
		.pipe(spriter())
		.pipe(gulp.dest('./'));
});

Options

• options: object - hash of options
  • includeMode: string - Determines whether meta data is necessary or not
    • Values: 'implicit', 'explicit'
    • Default: 'implicit'
    • For example, if explicit, you must have meta include as true in order for the image declarations to be included in the spritesheet: /* @meta {"spritesheet": {"include": true}} */
    • If left default at implicit, all images will be included in the spritesheet; except for image declarations with meta include as false: /* @meta {"spritesheet": {"include": false}} */
  • spriteSheet: string - The path and file name of where we will save the sprite sheet
    • Default: 'spritesheet.png'
  • pathToSpriteSheetFromCSS: string - Because we don't know where you will end up saving the CSS file at this point in the pipe, we need a litle help identifying where it will be. We will use this as the reference to the sprite sheet image in the CSS piped in.
    • Default: 'spritesheet.png'
  • spriteSheetBuildCallback: function - Same as the spritesmith callback
    • Default: null
    • Callback has a parameters as so: function(err, result)
      • result.image: Binary string representation of image
      • result.coordinates: Object mapping filename to {x, y, width, height} of image
      • result.properties: Object with metadata about spritesheet {width, height}
  • spritesmithOptions: object - Any option you pass in here, will be passed through to spritesmith. See spritesmith options documenation
    • Default: {}

Meta info

gulp-css-spriter uses a JSON format to add info onto CSS declarations.

The example below will exclude this declaration from the spritesheet.

/* @meta {"spritesheet": {"include": false}} */
background: url('../images/dummy-blue.png');

Please note that if you are compiling from SASS/LESS and are not getting correct results, to check the outputted CSS and make sure the comments are still in tact and on the line you expect. For SASS, use multiline /* */ comment syntax and put them above declarations. This is because gulp-sass/node-sass/libsass removes single line comments and puts mult-line comments that are on the same line as a declaration, below the declaraton.

The @meta comment data can be above or on the same line as the declaration for it to apply.

/* @meta {"spritesheet": {"include": false}} */
background: url('../images/dummy-blue.png'); /* @meta {"spritesheet": {"include": false}} */

Meta options

• spritesheet: object - hash of options that gulp-css-spriter will factor in
  • include: bool - determines whether or not the declaration should be included in the spritesheet. This can be left undefined if the includeMode is 'implicit'