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CSS Sass Basics Improve Your Workflow with Sass Extend the Properties of Selectors

Sean Daniel
Sean Daniel
4,811 Points
Posted by Sean Daniel
Sean Daniel
4,811 Points

Could I have created a mixin instead of @extend?

ORIGINAL SYNTAX
.btn {
  color: $white;
  display: inline-block;
  font-weight: bold;
  text-decoration: none;
  text-transform: uppercase;
  padding: 0.75em 1.5em;
  border-radius: 0.35em;
}

.btn-callout {
  @extend .btn
  font-size: 1.1em;
  background-color: $color-secondary;
}

.btn-info {
  @extend .btn
  font-size: 0.85em;
  background-color: $color-primary;  
  margin-top: auto;
}

WITH A MIXIN INSTEAD

mixins --------------->

@mixin button {
  color: $white;
  display: inline-block;
  font-weight: bold;
  text-decoration: none;
  text-transform: uppercase;
  padding: 0.75em 1.5em;
  border-radius: 0.35em;
}

components -------------------->
.btn {
 @include button;
}

.btn-callout {
  @include button;
  font-size: 1.1em;
  background-color: $color-secondary;
}

.btn-info {
  @include button;
  font-size: 0.85em;
  background-color: $color-primary;  
  margin-top: auto;
}

3 Answers

Eric Butler
Eric Butler
33,512 Points

Yes, you could have. There is an important difference, though, in the way each option will be output into CSS. Using @mixin, all of those declarations will be repeatedly written out, like so:

.btn {
  color: #fff;
  display: inline-block;
  font-weight: bold;
  text-decoration: none;
  text-transform: uppercase;
  padding: 0.75em 1.5em;
  border-radius: 0.35em;
}

.btn-callout {
  color: #fff;
  display: inline-block;
  font-weight: bold;
  text-decoration: none;
  text-transform: uppercase;
  padding: 0.75em 1.5em;
  border-radius: 0.35em;
  font-size: 1.1em;
  background-color: pink;
}

.btn-info {
  color: #fff;
  display: inline-block;
  font-weight: bold;
  text-decoration: none;
  text-transform: uppercase;
  padding: 0.75em 1.5em;
  border-radius: 0.35em;
  font-size: 0.85em;
  background-color: red;
  margin-top: auto;
}

Using @extend, however, will lump whatever you've added the extend to into the initial rule block, like so:

.btn,
.btn-callout,
.btn-info {
  color: #fff;
  display: inline-block;
  font-weight: bold;
  text-decoration: none;
  text-transform: uppercase;
  padding: 0.75em 1.5em;
  border-radius: 0.35em;
}

.btn-callout {
  font-size: 1.1em;
  background-color: pink;
}

.btn-info {
  font-size: 0.85em;
  background-color: red;
  margin-top: auto;
}

So it's a more verbose to do this as a mixin. But, one major limitation with extends is that you can't nest them, and they can also get kinda unpredictable, so I rarely ever use extends. But, up to you. Both do what you want.