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<title>Better Box Shadows</title>
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<h1>Better Box Shadows</h1>
<p>2019-01-08</p>
<p><style>
.message {
position: relative;
z-index: 1;
}
.box-container,
.box-container-depth {
background: white;
box-shadow: 0 4px 8px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
border: 1px solid #eee;
border-radius: 10px;
margin: 2rem auto;
padding: 10px;
position: relative;
height: 200px;
width: 250px;
}
.box-container-depth { box-shadow: none; }
.box-container-depth .box-container-depth-inner {
bottom: 0;
box-shadow: 0 4px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
content:'';
position: absolute;
width: 94%;
height: 94%;
left: 3%;
z-index: -1;
}
.box-container-depth-inner.blur {
filter: blur(6px);
}
</style></p>
<p>Box shadow on <abbr title="hypertext markup language">HTML</abbr> elements has been widely supported across most browsers for a while now, but I find the default options don't allow for much visual manipulation of the shadows in general.</p>
<p>Let's take a look at a default configuration of <code>box-shadow</code>:</p>
<pre><code>.box-container {
box-shadow: 0 4px 8px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
}
</code></pre>
<p>In the example above the first property number is the origin of the <em>x-axis</em>, the second number is the origin of the <em>y-axis</em> and the third is the amount of <em>blur</em>.</p>
<p>We should also add some minimal styling to cleanup the <code>.box-container</code> a little bit for our example:</p>
<pre><code><div class="box-container"></div>
</code></pre>
<pre><code>.box-container {
box-shadow: 0 4px 8px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
/* Styles to make it less ugly */
background: white;
border-radius: 10px;
border: 1px solid #eee;
height: 200px;
padding: 10px;
position: relative;
width: 250px;
}
</code></pre>
<p>Which would render as this:</p>
<p><div class="box-container"></div></p>
<p>Not bad - but we can do a lot better than this.</p>
<h2>Please sir, I want some more (depth)</h2>
<p>We just need to add a simple child <code>div</code> (or use a <code>pseudo</code> element if you prefer) inside our main element we want to apply the shadow to:</p>
<pre><code><div class="box-container">
<div class="box-container-inner"></div>
</div>
</code></pre>
<p>Now we make our inner child element <code>absolute</code> and set it's <code>height</code> and <code>width</code> dynamically to be slightly smaller than it's parent (percentages work best for this). </p>
<p>Remember to set this child element behind it's parent by adding <code>z-index: -1</code>.</p>
<pre><code>.box-container {
/* No box-shadow needed on this element anymore */
/* Styles to make it less ugly */
background: white;
border-radius: 10px;
border: 1px solid #eee;
height: 200px;
padding: 10px;
position: relative;
width: 250px;
}
</code></pre>
<h2>Inner Containers</h2>
<p>We also need to target the <code>box-container-inner</code> element set inside the current parent to reflect our custom shadow styling:</p>
<pre><code>.box-container-inner {
bottom: 0;
/* The box-shadow is added here now */
box-shadow: 0 4px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
height: 94%;
left: 3%;
position: absolute;
width: 94%;
z-index: -1;
}
</code></pre>
<p>Which will make the drop-shadow render with a little more realistic depth:</p>
<p><div class="box-container-depth"><span class="box-container-depth-inner"></span></div></p>
<h2>But wait - there's more!</h2>
<p>We could stop now and have a decent drop-shadow that is certainly easier on the eyes - but we can make this even better with one extra property - <code>filter:blur();</code>. </p>
<p>So your final code would look like this:</p>
<pre><code>.box-container {
/* Styles to make it less ugly */
background: white;
border-radius: 10px;
border: 1px solid #eee;
height: 200px;
padding: 10px;
position: relative;
width: 250px;
}
.box-container-inner {
bottom: 0;
box-shadow: 0 4px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
filter: blur(6px);
height: 94%;
left: 3%;
position: absolute;
width: 94%;
z-index: -1;
}
</code></pre>
<p>Which renders out into a much smoother blend of a drop-shadow, creating a more realistic illusion of depth:</p>
<p><div class="box-container-depth">
<span class="box-container-depth-inner blur"></span>
</div></p>
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