Note that you must have node (and npm) installed before you can follow this guide.
If you want to use the CLI, you can install it globally via npm:
$ npm install -g style-dictionary
Or you can install it like a normal npm dependency. Style Dictionary is a build tool, and you are most likely to use it as a dev dependency:
$ npm install -D style-dictionary
The CLI comes with some starter code to get a new project started easily.
$ mkdir MyStyleD
$ cd MyStyleD
$ style-dictionary init basic
This command will copy over the example files found in the basic example in this repo and then run the style-dictionary build
command to generate the build artifacts. You should see something like this output:
Copying starter files...
Source style dictionary starter files created!
Running `style-dictionary build` for the first time to generate build artifacts.
scss
✔︎ build/scss/_variables.scss
android
✔︎ build/android/font_dimens.xml
✔︎ build/android/colors.xml
ios
✔︎ build/ios/StyleDictionaryColor.h
✔︎ build/ios/StyleDictionaryColor.m
✔︎ build/ios/StyleDictionarySize.h
✔︎ build/ios/StyleDictionarySize.m
ios-swift
✔︎ build/ios-swift/StyleDictionary.swift
ios-swift-separate-enums
✔︎ build/ios-swift/StyleDictionaryColor.swift
✔︎ build/ios-swift/StyleDictionarySize.swift
Pat yourself on the back, you built your first style dictionary! Take a look at what you built. This should have created a build directory and it should look like this:
├── README.md
├── config.json
├── properties/
│ ├── color/
│ ├── base.json
│ ├── font.json
│ ├── size/
│ ├── font.json
├── build/
│ ├── android/
│ ├── font_dimens.xml
│ ├── colors.xml
│ ├── scss/
│ ├── _variables.scss
│ ├── ios/
│ ├── StyleDictionaryColor.h
│ ├── StyleDictionaryColor.m
│ ├── StyleDictionarySize.h
│ ├── StyleDictionarySize.m
│ ├── ios-swift/
│ ├── StyleDictionary.swift
│ ├── StyleDictionaryColor.swift
│ ├── StyleDictionarySize.swift
If you open config.json
you will see there are 3 platforms defined: scss, android, ios. Each platform has a transformGroup, buildPath, and files defined. The buildPath and files of the platform should match up to the files what were built. Those files should look like these:
Android
<!-- font_dimens.xml -->
<resources>
<dimen name="size_font_small">12.00sp</dimen>
<dimen name="size_font_medium">16.00sp</dimen>
<dimen name="size_font_large">32.00sp</dimen>
<dimen name="size_font_base">16.00sp</dimen>
</resources>
<!-- colors.xml -->
<resources>
<color name="color_base_gray_light">#ffcccccc</color>
<color name="color_base_gray_medium">#ff999999</color>
<color name="color_base_gray_dark">#ff111111</color>
<color name="color_base_red">#ffff0000</color>
<color name="color_base_green">#ff00ff00</color>
<color name="color_font_base">#ff111111</color>
<color name="color_font_secondary">#ff999999</color>
<color name="color_font_tertiary">#ffcccccc</color>
</resources>
SCSS
$color-base-gray-light: #cccccc;
$color-base-gray-medium: #999999;
$color-base-gray-dark: #111111;
$color-base-red: #ff0000;
$color-base-green: #00ff00;
$color-font-base: #ff0000;
$color-font-secondary: #00ff00;
$color-font-tertiary: #cccccc;
$size-font-small: 0.75rem;
$size-font-medium: 1rem;
$size-font-large: 2rem;
$size-font-base: 1rem;
iOS
#import "StyleDictionaryColor.h"
@implementation StyleDictionaryColor
+ (UIColor *)color:(StyleDictionaryColorName)colorEnum{
return [[self values] objectAtIndex:colorEnum];
}
+ (NSArray *)values {
static NSArray* colorArray;
static dispatch_once_t onceToken;
dispatch_once(&onceToken, ^{
colorArray = @[
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.800f green:0.800f blue:0.800f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.600f green:0.600f blue:0.600f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.067f green:0.067f blue:0.067f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:1.000f green:0.000f blue:0.000f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.000f green:1.000f blue:0.000f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:1.000f green:0.000f blue:0.000f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.000f green:1.000f blue:0.000f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.800f green:0.800f blue:0.800f alpha:1.000f]
];
});
return colorArray;
}
@end
Pretty nifty! This shows a few things happening:
- The build system does a deep merge of all the property JSON files defined in the
source
attribute ofconfig.json
. This allows you to split up the property JSON files however you want. There are 2 JSON files withcolor
as the top level key, but they get merged properly. - The build system resolves references to other style property values.
{size.font.medium.value}
is resolved properly. - The build system handles references to property values in other files as well (as you can see in
properties/color/font.json
). - Values are transformed specifically for each platform.
Now let's make a change and see how that affects things. Open up properties/color/base.json
and change "#111111"
to "#000000"
. After you make that change, save the file and re-run the build command style-dictionary build
. Open up the build files and take a look. Now:
Android
<!-- colors.xml -->
<resources>
<color name="color_base_gray_light">#ffcccccc</color>
<color name="color_base_gray_medium">#ff999999</color>
<color name="color_base_gray_dark">#ff000000</color>
<color name="color_base_red">#ffff0000</color>
<color name="color_base_green">#ff00ff00</color>
<color name="color_font_base">#ffff0000</color>
<color name="color_font_secondary">#ff00ff00</color>
<color name="color_font_tertiary">#ffcccccc</color>
</resources>
$color-base-gray-light: #cccccc;
$color-base-gray-medium: #999999;
$color-base-gray-dark: #000000;
$color-base-red: #ff0000;
$color-base-green: #00ff00;
$color-font-base: #ff0000;
$color-font-secondary: #00ff00;
$color-font-tertiary: #cccccc;
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.800f green:0.800f blue:0.800f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.600f green:0.600f blue:0.600f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.000f green:0.000f blue:0.000f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:1.000f green:0.000f blue:0.000f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.000f green:1.000f blue:0.000f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:1.000f green:0.000f blue:0.000f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.000f green:1.000f blue:0.000f alpha:1.000f],
[UIColor colorWithRed:0.800f green:0.800f blue:0.800f alpha:1.000f]
That's it! There is a lot more you can do with your style dictionary than generating files with color values. Take a look at some examples or take a deeper dive into package structure, extending, or how the build process works.
$ style-dictionary build
Call this in the root directory of your project, which must include a configuration file.
More detailed information about using the Style Dictionary CLI is available here.
You can also use the style dictionary build system in node if you want to extend the functionality or use it in another build system like Grunt or Gulp.
const StyleDictionary = require('style-dictionary').extend('config.json');
StyleDictionary.buildAllPlatforms();
The .extend()
method is an overloaded method that can also take a configuration object.
const StyleDictionary = require('style-dictionary').extend({
source: ['properties/**/*.json'],
platforms: {
scss: {
transformGroup: 'scss',
buildPath: 'build/',
files: [{
destination: 'variables.scss',
format: 'scss/variables'
}]
}
// ...
}
});
StyleDictionary.buildAllPlatforms();
More detailed information about using the Style Dictionary npm module is available here.