Resets

Athena includes various cross-browser style resets to provide an elegant, consistent, and simple baseline to build upon.

Part of Athena's job is to provide an elegant, consistent, and simple baseline to build upon. We use a combination of our own opinionated resets and Bootstrap's Reboot, a collection of element-specific CSS changes in a single file, to kickstart that.

Reboot builds upon Normalize, providing many HTML elements with somewhat opinionated styles using only element selectors. Additional styling is done only with classes. For example, we reboot some <table> styles for a simpler baseline and later provide .table, .table-bordered, and more.

Contents

Approach

Listed below are guidelines and reasons for resetting element styles in Athena:

  • Update some browser default values to use rems instead of ems for scalable component spacing.
  • Avoid margin-top. Vertical margins can collapse, yielding unexpected results. More importantly though, a single direction of margin is a simpler mental model.
  • For easier scaling across device sizes, block elements should use rems for margins.
  • Keep declarations of font-related properties to a minimum, using inherit whenever possible.

Page defaults

The <html> and <body> elements are updated to provide better page-wide defaults. More specifically:

  • The box-sizing is globally set on every element—including *:before and *:after, to border-box. This ensures that the declared width of element is never exceeded due to padding or border.
  • No base font-size is declared on the <html>, but 16px is assumed (the browser default).
    • Note that Athena applies different font sizes on <body> at different breakpoints: .875rem by default, and 1rem at the -md breakpoint and up. Font size adjustments are applied on the <body> using rem units for easy responsive type-scaling via media queries while respecting user preferences and ensuring a more accessible approach.
    • Athena intentionally does not utilize or recommend a responsive typography approach due to the need for fine-tuned font size customizations across the framework, and the fact that this method makes browser-level font size adjustments less flexible.
  • The <body> also sets a global font-family and line-height. This is inherited later by some form elements to prevent font inconsistencies.
  • For safety, the <body> has a declared background-color, defaulting to #fff.
  • Global <a> and <button> transitions are applied when $enable-transitions is true.

Font stack

Unlike Bootstrap 4, Athena provides an opinionated font stack and does not rely on system fonts unless no other font libraries can be loaded. Athena's base font family is its sans-serif stack:


$font-family-sans-serif: 'UCF Sans Serif Alt', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;

This font-family is applied to the <body> and automatically inherited globally throughout Athena.

Headings and paragraphs

All heading elements—e.g., <h1>—and <p> are reset to have their margin-top removed. Headings have margin-bottom: .5rem added and paragraphs margin-bottom: 1rem for easy spacing.

Like with the base <body> font size, all headings increase in size at the -md breakpoint in Athena.

h1 heading

Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.

h2 heading

Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.

h3 heading

Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.

h4 heading

Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.

h5 heading

Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.

h6 heading

Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.


<h1>h1 heading</h1>
<p>Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.</p>

<h2>h2 heading</h2>
<p>Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.</p>

<h3>h3 heading</h3>
<p>Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.</p>

<h4>h4 heading</h4>
<p>Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.</p>

<h5>h5 heading</h5>
<p>Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.</p>

<h6>h6 heading</h6>
<p>Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum.</p>

Lists

All lists—<ul>, <ol>, and <dl>—have their margin-top removed and a margin-bottom: 1rem. Nested lists have no margin-bottom.

  • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
  • Consectetur adipiscing elit
  • Integer molestie lorem at massa
  • Facilisis in pretium nisl aliquet
  • Nulla volutpat aliquam velit
    • Phasellus iaculis neque
    • Purus sodales ultricies
    • Vestibulum laoreet porttitor sem
    • Ac tristique libero volutpat at
  • Faucibus porta lacus fringilla vel
  • Aenean sit amet erat nunc
  • Eget porttitor lorem
  1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
  2. Consectetur adipiscing elit
  3. Integer molestie lorem at massa
  4. Facilisis in pretium nisl aliquet
  5. Nulla volutpat aliquam velit
  6. Faucibus porta lacus fringilla vel
  7. Aenean sit amet erat nunc
  8. Eget porttitor lorem

<ul>
  <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</li>
  <li>Consectetur adipiscing elit</li>
  <li>Integer molestie lorem at massa</li>
  <li>Facilisis in pretium nisl aliquet</li>
  <li>Nulla volutpat aliquam velit
    <ul>
      <li>Phasellus iaculis neque</li>
      <li>Purus sodales ultricies</li>
      <li>Vestibulum laoreet porttitor sem</li>
      <li>Ac tristique libero volutpat at</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Faucibus porta lacus fringilla vel</li>
  <li>Aenean sit amet erat nunc</li>
  <li>Eget porttitor lorem</li>
</ul>

<ol>
  <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</li>
  <li>Consectetur adipiscing elit</li>
  <li>Integer molestie lorem at massa</li>
  <li>Facilisis in pretium nisl aliquet</li>
  <li>Nulla volutpat aliquam velit</li>
  <li>Faucibus porta lacus fringilla vel</li>
  <li>Aenean sit amet erat nunc</li>
  <li>Eget porttitor lorem</li>
</ol>

For simpler styling, clear hierarchy, and better spacing, description lists have updated margins. <dd>s reset margin-left to 0 and add margin-bottom: .5rem. <dt>s are bolded.

Description lists
A description list is perfect for defining terms.
Euismod
Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper eget lacinia odio sem.
Donec id elit non mi porta gravida at eget metus.
Malesuada porta
Etiam porta sem malesuada magna mollis euismod.

<dl>
  <dt>Description lists</dt>
  <dd>A description list is perfect for defining terms.</dd>
  <dt>Euismod</dt>
  <dd>Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper eget lacinia odio sem.</dd>
  <dd>Donec id elit non mi porta gravida at eget metus.</dd>
  <dt>Malesuada porta</dt>
  <dd>Etiam porta sem malesuada magna mollis euismod.</dd>
</dl>

Preformatted text

The <pre> element is reset to remove its margin-top and use rem units for its margin-bottom.

.example-element {
  margin-bottom: 1rem;
}


<pre>
.example-element {
  margin-bottom: 1rem;
}
</pre>

Tables

Tables are slightly adjusted to style <caption>s, collapse borders, and ensure consistent text-align throughout. Additional changes for borders, padding, and more come with the .table class.

This is an example table, and this is its caption to describe the contents.
Table heading Table heading Table heading Table heading
Table cell Table cell Table cell Table cell
Table cell Table cell Table cell Table cell
Table cell Table cell Table cell Table cell

Forms

Various form elements have been rebooted for simpler base styles. Here are some of the most notable changes:

  • <fieldset>s have no borders, padding, or margin so they can be easily used as wrappers for individual inputs or groups of inputs.
  • <legend>s, like fieldsets, have also been restyled to be displayed as a heading of sorts.
  • <label>s are set to display: inline-block to allow margin to be applied.
  • <input>s, <select>s, <textarea>s, and <button>s are mostly addressed by Normalize, but Reboot removes their margin and sets line-height: inherit, too.
  • <textarea>s are modified to only be resizable vertically as horizontal resizing often "breaks" page layout.
  • <button>s, <input>s, <optgroup>s, <select>s, and <textarea>s have $font-family-base explicitly applied to them in Athena.

These changes, and more, are demonstrated below.

Example legend

100

Misc elements

Address

The <address> element is updated to reset the browser default font-style from italic to normal. line-height is also now inherited, and margin-bottom: 1rem has been added. <address>s are for presenting contact information for the nearest ancestor (or an entire body of work). Preserve formatting by ending lines with <br>.

Twitter, Inc.
1355 Market St, Suite 900
San Francisco, CA 94103
P: (123) 456-7890
Full Name
first.last@example.com

Blockquote

The default margin on blockquotes is 1em 40px, so we reset that to 0 0 1rem for something more consistent with other elements.

<cite> elements have forced unitalicized text in Athena.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer posuere erat a ante.

Someone famous in Source Title

Inline elements

The <abbr> element receives basic styling to make it stand out amongst paragraph text.

Nulla attr vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue.

HTML5 [hidden] attribute

HTML5 adds a new global attribute named [hidden], which is styled as display: none by default. Borrowing an idea from PureCSS, we improve upon this default by making [hidden] { display: none !important; } to help prevent its display from getting accidentally overridden.


<input type="text" hidden>

jQuery incompatibility

[hidden] is not compatible with jQuery's $(...).hide() and $(...).show() methods. Therefore, we don't currently especially endorse [hidden] over other techniques for managing the display of elements.

To merely toggle the visibility of an element, meaning its display is not modified and the element can still affect the flow of the document, use the .invisible class instead.