Tailwind CSS is a CSS framework that helps developers in the rapid designing of the web without shifting back and forth between different pages for HTML and CSS. Tailwind CSS doesn't come with pre-designed components, rather it provides set of utility classes that can be used to style HTML elements directly.
History
Tailwind CSS was developed by Adam Wathan, Jonathan Reinink, David Hemphill and SteveSchoger. It was first released in November 2017. and the stable release was released in 5 January 2024. It gained significant popularity since then due to its simplicity and flexibility to use.
Different Ways of Using Tailwind CSS
Using CDN
This method involves directly linking the tailwind CSS using CDN (Content Delivery Network) in our HTML file. In this approach, we don't need to install tailwind CSS via npm package.
<link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/tailwindcss@2.0.3/dist/tailwind.min.css" rel="stylesheet">Using NPM Package
This method of using tailwind CSS involves installing tailwind CSS as an npm package. There are few steps that we need to go through to set tailwind CSS up for the project.
- Install tailwind CSS with npm package.
npm install tailwindcss- Create a Tailwind configuration file.
npx tailwindcss init- Include Tailwind CSS utility classes.
/* styles.css */
@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;
Example: This example shows the use of Tailwind CSS in HTML file.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,
initial-scale=1.0">
<title>Tailwind CSS Example</title>
<link href=
"https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/tailwindcss@2.2.19/dist/tailwind.min.css"
rel="stylesheet">
</head>
<body>
<div class="p-4 bg-blue-500 text-white">Hello,
Tailwind CSS!</div>
</body>
</html>
Output:
Output
Features of Tailwind CSS
- Tailwind CSS provides a wide range of utility classes for styling elements.
- Developers can easily customize the default configuration of Tailwind CSS to match the requirements.
- Tailwind CSS contains responsive designs utilities, helping developers to create a design the adapts to variable viewport.
- A variety of plugins are available that enhances the functionality of the design.
- Tailwind CSS generates optimized CSS output on build, resulting in smaller files size and improved performance.
Applications of Tailwind CSS
- Responsive Web Design: ailwind CSS provides utility classes that helps in creating responsive web design without writing custom CSS. In tailwind CSS, its very easy to adjust the styling based on size of the viewport.
- Component-Based UI Development: Tailwind CSS works very smoothly with component based frameworks such as React, Vue and Angular. It helps in creating reusable UI components with tailwind CSS.
- Integration with Build Tools: Tailwind CSS is easily integrable to build tools like Webpack, Parcel, or Gulp. This helps in simplifying the task of compiling, minifying and prefixing your CSS.
- Support for Dark Mode: Tailwind CSS comes with built-in support for dark mode. It allows to make easy switch between light and dark color schemes.
- Theming: Tailwind supports also supports theming. That means you can define custom colors, fonts, spacing etc.
Advantages of Tailwind CSS
- Flexiblity: Tailwind CSS let the developers build highly customizable designs without the need of custom CSS.
- Rapid Development: Due it it's inline approach, Tailwind CSS helps developer speed up the development.
- Consistent Design: Using a predefined set of classes ensures a consistent design across all the components in a project.
- Community Support: Due to its popularity, there is a large active community of tailwind CSS.
Limitations of Tailwind CSS
- File Size: Using many utility classes can result in larger and unmanageable files.
- Maintenance: Project over tailwind CSS requires more maintenance since a small change in design may involve updating multiple classes.