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author | Bradley Taunt <bt@btxx.org> | 2024-05-25 16:14:03 -0400 |
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committer | Bradley Taunt <bt@btxx.org> | 2024-05-25 16:16:54 -0400 |
commit | e417a818e207a6cca6e2f3c471611673ab836a62 (patch) | |
tree | 664686a365c3d1e73349b5a667fa892f46445fef /_posts/2019-01-08-better-box-shadows.md |
Initial commit for Jekyll testing and conversion, updated
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-rw-r--r-- | _posts/2019-01-08-better-box-shadows.md | 124 |
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diff --git a/_posts/2019-01-08-better-box-shadows.md b/_posts/2019-01-08-better-box-shadows.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39d5fb5 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2019-01-08-better-box-shadows.md @@ -0,0 +1,124 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "Better Box Shadows" +date: 2019-01-08 +--- + + +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. + +Let's take a look at a default configuration of `box-shadow`: + + + .box-container { + box-shadow: 0 4px 8px rgba(0,0,0,0.3); + } + + +In the example above the first property number is the origin of the *x-axis*, the second number is the origin of the *y-axis* and the third is the amount of *blur*. + +We should also add some minimal styling to cleanup the `.box-container` a little bit for our example: + + + <div class="box-container"></div> + + + .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; + } + + +Not bad - but we can do a lot better than this. + +## Please sir, I want some more (depth) + +We just need to add a simple child `div` (or use a `pseudo` element if you prefer) inside our main element we want to apply the shadow to: + + + <div class="box-container"> + <div class="box-container-inner"></div> + </div> + + +Now we make our inner child element `absolute` and set it's `height` and `width` dynamically to be slightly smaller than it's parent (percentages work best for this). + +Remember to set this child element behind it's parent by adding `z-index: -1`. + + + .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; + } + + +## Inner Containers + +We also need to target the `box-container-inner` element set inside the current parent to reflect our custom shadow styling: + + + .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; + } + + +Which will make the drop-shadow render with a little more realistic depth. + + +## But wait - there's more! + +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 - `filter:blur();`. + +So your final code would look like this: + + + .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; + } + + +Which renders out into a much smoother blend of a drop-shadow, creating a more realistic illusion of depth. + + +Take a look at all the examples in the [CodePen examples](https://codepen.io/bradleytaunt/pen/dyNbZNj) + + |