grunt-spritesmith
Grunt task for converting a set of images into a spritesheet and corresponding CSS variables.
A folder of icons processed by grunt-spritesmith
:
generates a spritesheet:
and CSS variables (available in CSS, JSON, SASS, SCSS, LESS, Stylus):
$fork_offset_x = 0px;$fork_offset_y = 0px;$fork_width = 32px;$fork_height = 32px;...$github_offset_x = -32px;$github_offset_y = 0px;$github_width = 32px;$github_height = 32px;...
Retina support
As of grunt-spritesmith@4.5.0
, retina spritesheets/templates are supported. See the Retina parameters section for more information.
Cross-platform support
grunt-spritesmith
is supported and tested on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
grunt-spritesmith
?
Do you like Support us via donations or spread word on Twitter
Breaking changes in 5.0.0
We are normalizing sprite variables even further to convert any non-alphanumeric/non-dash/non-underscore character to a delimiter character (e.g. -
). This allows us to support naming retina sprites with @2x
suffixes, to prevent regressions like #137.
Breaking changes in 6.0.0
We have moved from spritesmith-engine-spec@1.1.0 to spritesmith-engine-spec@2.0.0. This means if you use an custom engine (e.g. gmsmith
, canvassmith
), then you will need to upgrade it.
npm install my-engine-smith@latest --save-dev
This is to enable usage of streaming outputs from engines.
Getting Started
grunt-spritesmith
can be installed via npm: npm install grunt-spritesmith
Then, add and configure it to your Gruntfile.js
:
module { // Configure grunt grunt; // Load in `grunt-spritesmith` grunt;};
Run the grunt sprite
task:
$ grunt spriteRunning "sprite:all" taskFiles "destination/of/spritesheet.png", "destination/of/sprites.css" created. Done, without errors.
Results are a spritesheet:
and CSS:
Documentation
grunt-spritesmith
is a grunt multitask. It supports the following parameters:
- src
String|String[]
- Images to use as sprites in spritesheet- For example this can be a glob,
sprites/*.png
or an array of files['sprite1.png', sprite2.png']
- For example this can be a glob,
- dest
String
- Output location for generated spritesheet- For example
path/to/output/spritesheet.png
- For example
- destCss
String
- Output location for generated CSS- For example
path/to/output/sprites.css
- For example
- imgPath
String
- Optional override for spritesheet path specified in CSS- For example if
../sprite.png
is given, then the CSS will have:background-image: url(../sprite.png);
- For example if
- padding
Number
- Padding to place to right and bottom between sprites- By default there is no padding
- An example usage can be found in the Examples section
- algorithm
String
- Algorithm to use for positioning sprites in spritesheet- By default this is
binary-tree
which yields the best possible packing - An example usage can be found in the Examples section
- For more algorithm options, see the Algorithms section
- By default this is
- algorithmOpts
Mixed
- Options to pass through to algorithm- For example we can skip sorting in some algorithms via
{algorithmOpts: {sort: false}}
- This is useful for sprite animations
- See your algorithm's documentation for available options
- For example we can skip sorting in some algorithms via
- engine
String
-spritesmith
engine to use- By default this is
pixelsmith
, anode
based engine - Alternative engines must be installed via
npm install
- An example usage can be found in the Examples section
- For more engine options, see the Engines section
- By default this is
- engineOpts
Object
- Options to pass through to engine for settings- For example
phantomjssmith
acceptstimeout
via{engineOpts: {timeout: 10000}}
- See your engine's documentation for available options
- For example
- imgOpts
Object
- Options to pass through to engine uring export- For example
gmsmith
supportsquality
via{imgOpts: {quality: 75}}
- See your engine's documentation for available options
- For example
- cssFormat
String
- CSS format to use- By default this is the format inferred by
destCss'
extension- For example
.styl -> stylus
- For example
- For more format options, see our formatting library
- By default this is the format inferred by
- cssTemplate
String|Function
- CSS template to use for rendering output CSS- This overrides
cssFormat
- If a
String
is provided, it must be a path to a handlebars template- An example usage can be found in the Examples section
- If a
Function
is provided, it must have a signature offunction (data)
- An example usage can be found in the Examples section
- For more templating information, see the Templating section
- This overrides
- cssHandlebarsHelpers
Object
- Container for helpers to register to handlebars for our template- Each key-value pair is the name of a handlebars helper corresponding to its function
- For example,
{half: function (num) { return num/2; }
will add a handlebars helper that halves numbers
- cssVarMap
Function
- Mapping function for each filename to CSS variable- For more information, see Variable mapping
- cssSpritesheetName
String
- Name to use for spritesheet related variables in preprocessor templates - cssOpts
Object
- Options to pass through to templater- For example
{cssOpts: {functions: false}}
skips output of mixins - See your template's documentation for available options
- For example
Retina parameters
grunt-spritesmith
supports retina spritesheet generation via retinaSrcFilter
and retinaDest
. If at least one of these is provided, then we will expect the other and enable retina spritesheet generation.
Repeated parameters have the same properties as above but are repeated for clarity with respect to retina spritesheets.
An example retina spritesheet setup can be found in the Examples section.
- src
String|String[]
- Images to use for both normal and retina spritesheet- For example
sprites/*.png
should capturesprite1.png
andsprite1@2x.png
- These must be ordered such that when the retina images are filtered into a separate array, the normal and retina images will have the same indices
- We strongly encourage using the
@2x
suffix over-retina
or-2x
. There are known ordering issues caused when sharing a-
delimiter between sprite names and the retina suffix (see #137)
- For example
- retinaSrcFilter
String|String[]
- Images to filter out fromsrc
for our retina spritesheet- This can be a glob as with
src
(e.g.sprite/*@2x.png
) - The path/glob used should line up with
src
(e.g.src: 'sprite/*.png'
,retinaSrcFilter: 'sprite/*@2x.png'
) - For example
sprites/*@2x.png
will filter outsprite1@2x.png
for a separate retina spritesheet- Under the hood, we will group
sprite1.png
andsprite1@2x.png
as a group of normal/retina sprites
- Under the hood, we will group
- This can be a glob as with
- retinaDest
String
- Output location for generated retina spritesheet- For example
path/to/output@2x.png
- For example
- retinaImgPath - Optional override for retina spritesheet path specified in CSS
- For example
../sprite@2x.png
will yield CSS with:background-image: url(../sprite@2x.png);
- For example
- padding
Number
- Padding to place to right and bottom between sprites- By default there is no padding
- In retina spritesheets, this number will be doubled to maintain perspective
- cssFormat
String
- CSS format to use- By default this is the format inferred by
destCss'
extension- For example
.styl -> stylus_retina
- For example
- For more format options, see our formatting library
- By default this is the format inferred by
- cssVarMap
Function
- Mapping function for each filename to CSS variable- This will run through normal and retina spritesheets
- The name used for normal sprites dictates the group name for retina group variables (e.g.
$icon-home
will have group$icon-home-group
) - For more information, see Variable mapping
- cssRetinaSpritesheetName
String
- Name to use for retina spritesheet related variables in preprocessor templates - cssRetinaGroupsName
String
- Name to use for retina groups related variables in preprocessor templates
Algorithms
Images can be laid out in different fashions depending on the algorithm. We use layout
to provide you as many options as possible. At the time of writing, here are your options for algorithm
:
top-down |
left-right |
diagonal |
alt-diagonal |
binary-tree |
---|---|---|---|---|
More information can be found in the layout
documentation:
https://github.com/twolfson/layout
Templating
The cssTemplate
option allows for using a custom template. An example template can be found at:
The parameters passed into your template are known as data
. We add some normalized properties via spritesheet-templates
for your convenience.
- data
Object
Container for parameters- sprites
Object[]
- Array of sprite information- name
String
- Name of the sprite file (sans extension) - x
Number
- Horizontal position of sprite's left edge in spritesheet - y
Number
- Vertical position of sprite's top edge in spritesheet - width
Number
- Width of sprite - height
Number
- Height of sprite - total_width
Number
- Width of entire spritesheet - total_height
Number
- Height of entire spritesheet - image
String
- Relative URL path from CSS to spritesheet - escaped_image
String
- URL encodedimage
- source_image
String
- Path to the original sprite file - offset_x
Number
- Negative value ofx
. Useful tobackground-position
- offset_y
Number
- Negative value ofy
. Useful tobackground-position
- px
Object
- Container for numeric values includingpx
- x
String
-x
suffixed withpx
- y
String
-y
suffixed withpx
- width
String
-width
suffixed withpx
- height
String
-height
suffixed withpx
- total_width
String
-total_width
suffixed withpx
- total_height
String
-total_height
suffixed withpx
- offset_x
String
-offset_x
suffixed withpx
- offset_y
String
-offset_y
suffixed withpx
- x
- name
- spritesheet
Object
- Information about spritesheet- width
Number
- Width of entire spritesheet - total_height
Number
- Height of entire spritesheet - image
String
- Relative URL path from CSS to spritesheet - escaped_image
String
- URL encodedimage
- px
Object
- Container for numeric values includingpx
- width
String
-width
suffixed withpx
- height
String
-height
suffixed withpx
- width
- width
- spritesheet_info
Object
- Container forspritesheet
metadata and its representation- name
String
- Prefix for spritesheet variables
- name
- retina_sprites
Object[]
- Array of retina sprite information- This will only be accessible if we are generating a retina spritesheet
- Properties are the same as
sprites
(e.g.name
,width
,source_image
)
- retina_spritesheet
Object
- Information about retina spritesheet- This will only be accessible if we are generating a retina spritesheet
- Properties are the same as
spritesheet
(e.g.width
,px
)
- retina_spritesheet_info
Object
- Container forretina_spritesheet
metadata and its representation- This will only be accessible if we are generating a retina spritesheet
- name
String
- Prefix for spritesheet variables
- retina_groups
Object[]
- Array of objects that maps to normal and retina sprites- This will only be accessible if we are generating a retina spritesheet
-
Object
- Container for data about sprite mapping- name
String
- Name to refer to mapping by - index
Number
- Index of corresponding normal/retina sprites fromdata.sprites
/data.retina_sprites
- normal
Object
- Normal sprite fromdata.sprites
that corresponds to our mapping- This has all the same properties as
data.sprites[*]
(e.g.name
,x
,offset_y
,px
)
- This has all the same properties as
- retina
Object
- Retina sprite fromdata.retina_sprites
that corresponds to our mapping- This has all the same properties as
data.retina_sprites[*]
(e.g.name
,x
,offset_y
,px
)
- This has all the same properties as
- name
- retina_groups_info
Object
- Optional container for metadata aboutretina_groups
and its representation- This will only be accessible if we are generating a retina spritesheet
- name
String
- Name forretina_groups
- options
Object
- Options passed in viacssOpts
ingrunt-spritesmith
config
- sprites
An example sprite
is
"name": "sprite2" "x": 10 "y": 20 "width": 20 "height": 30 "total_width": 80 "total_height": 100 "image": "nested/dir/spritesheet.png" "escaped_image": "nested/dir/spritesheet.png" "source_image": "path/to/original/sprite.png" "offset_x": -10 "offset_y": -20 "px": "x": "10px" "y": "20px" "width": "20px" "height": "30px" "total_width": "80px" "total_height": "100px" "offset_x": "-10px" "offset_y": "-20px"
If you are defining a Handlebars template, then you can inherit from an existing template via handlebars-layouts
(e.g. {{#extend "scss"}}
). An example usage can be found in the Examples section.
Example usages can be found as:
Variable mapping
The cssVarMap
option allows customization of the CSS variable names
If you would like to customize CSS selectors in the
css
template, please see https://github.com/twolfson/spritesheet-templates#css
Your cssVarMap
should be a function with the signature function (sprite)
. It will receive the same parameters as sprites
from Templating except for escaped_image
, offset_x
,offset_y
, and px
.
// Prefix all sprite names with `sprite-` (e.g. `home` -> `sprite-home`) { spritename = 'sprite_' + spritename;} // Generates:// $sprite_fork_x = 0px;// $sprite_fork_y = 0px; // As oppposed to default:// $fork_x = 0px;// $fork_y = 0px;
Engines
An engine can greatly improve the speed of your build (e.g. canvassmith
) or support obscure image formats (e.g. gmsmith
).
All spritesmith
engines adhere to a common specification:
https://github.com/twolfson/spritesmith-engine-spec
This repository adheres to specification version: 2.0.0
Below is a list of known engines with their tradeoffs:
pixelsmith
pixelsmith
is a node
based engine that runs on top of get-pixels
and save-pixels
.
Key differences: Doesn't support uncommon image formats (e.g. tiff
) and not as fast as a compiled library (e.g. canvassmith
).
phantomjssmith
phantomjssmith
is a phantomjs based engine. It was originally built to provide cross-platform compatibility but has since been succeeded by pixelsmith
.
Requirements: phantomjs must be installed on your machine and on your PATH
environment variable. Visit the phantomjs website for installation instructions.
Key differences: phantomjs
is cross-platform and supports all image formats.
canvassmith
canvassmith
is a node-canvas based engine that runs on top of Cairo.
Requirements: Cairo and node-gyp must be installed on your machine.
Instructions on how to install Cairo are provided in the node-canvas wiki.
node-gyp should be installed via npm
:
npm install -g node-gyp
Key differences: canvas
has the best performance (useful for over 100 sprites). However, it is UNIX
only.
gmsmith
gmsmith
is a gm
based engine that runs on top of either Graphics Magick or Image Magick.
Requirements: Either Graphics Magick or Image Magick must be installed on your machine.
For the best results, install from the site rather than through a package manager (e.g. apt-get
). This avoids potential transparency issues which have been reported.
Image Magick is implicitly discovered. However, you can explicitly use it via engineOpts
engineOpts: imagemagick: true
Key differences: gmsmith
allows for configuring image quality whereas others do not.
Examples
Algorithm
In this example, we will use the alt-diagonal
algorithm to layout sprites in a non-intersecting manner.
Configuration:
src: 'fork.png' 'github.png' 'twitter.png' dest: 'spritesheet.algorithm.png' destCss: 'spritesheet.algorithm.styl' algorithm: 'alt-diagonal'
Output:
Engine
In this example, we will use the gmsmith
engine to support obscure image formats.
Requirements:
Install gmsmith
to our node_modules
via npm install
.
npm install gmsmith
Alternatively, we can use --save
or --save-dev
to save to our package.json's dependencies
or devDependenices
.
npm install gmsmith --save # Updates {"dependencies": {"gmsmith": "1.2.3"}} npm install gmsmith --save-dev # Updates {"devDependencies": {"gmsmith": "1.2.3"}}
Configuration:
src: 'fork.png' 'github.png' 'twitter.png' dest: 'spritesheet.algorithm.png' destCss: 'spritesheet.algorithm.styl' engine: 'gmsmith'
Output:
Padding
The padding
option allows for inserting spacing between images.
Configuration:
src: 'fork.png' 'github.png' 'twitter.png' dest: 'spritesheet.padding.png' destCss: 'spritesheet.padding.styl' padding: 20 // Exaggerated for visibility, normal usage is 1 or 2
Output:
Retina spritesheet
In this example, we will use generate a normal and retina spritesheet via the retinaSrcFilter
and retinaDest
parameters.
Configuration:
// We have `fork.png`, `fork@2x.png`, ... src: 'fork*.png' 'github*.png' 'twitter*.png' // This will filter out `fork@2x.png`, `github@2x.png`, ... for our retina spritesheet // The normal spritesheet will now receive `fork.png`, `github.png`, ... retinaSrcFilter: '*@2x.png' dest: 'spritesheet.retina.png' retinaDest: 'spritesheet.retina@2x.png' destCss: 'spritesheet.retina.styl'
Normal spritesheet:
Retina spritesheet:
Handlebars template
In this example, we will use cssTemplate
with a handlebars
template to generate CSS that uses :before
selectors.
Template:
{{#sprites}}.icon-{{name}}:before { display: block; background-image: url({{{escaped_image}}}); background-position: {{px.offset_x}} {{px.offset_y}}; width: {{px.width}}; height: {{px.height}};}{{/sprites}}
Configuration:
src: 'fork.png' 'github.png' 'twitter.png' dest: 'spritesheet.handlebarsStr.png' destCss: 'spritesheet.handlebarsStr.css' cssTemplate: 'handlebarsStr.css.handlebars'
Output:
Handlebars inheritance
In this example, we will extend the SCSS template to provide minimal variables. The JSON at the front comes from the original template and is required to provide consistent casing and default options.
Different block sections for each template are documented in:
https://github.com/twolfson/spritesheet-templates
Template:
{ // Default options 'functions': true, 'variableNameTransforms': ['dasherize']} {{#extend "scss"}}{{#content "sprites"}}{{#each sprites}}${{strings.name}}: ({{px.x}}, {{px.y}}, {{px.offset_x}}, {{px.offset_y}}, {{px.width}}, {{px.height}}, {{px.total_width}}, {{px.total_height}}, '{{{escaped_image}}}', '{{name}}', );{{/each}}{{/content}}{{#content "spritesheet"}}${{spritesheet_info.strings.name_sprites}}: ({{#each sprites}}${{strings.name}}, {{/each}});${{spritesheet_info.strings.name}}: ({{spritesheet.px.width}}, {{spritesheet.px.height}}, '{{{spritesheet.escaped_image}}}', ${{spritesheet_info.strings.name_sprites}}, );{{/content}}{{/extend}}
Configuration:
src: 'fork.png' 'github.png' 'twitter.png' dest: 'spritesheet.handlebarsInheritance.png' destCss: 'spritesheet.handlebarsInheritance.css' cssTemplate: 'handlebarsInheritance.scss.handlebars'
Output:
;;;;;/* ... */
Template function
In this example, we will use cssTemplate
with a custom function that generates YAML.
Configuration:
// var yaml = require('js-yaml'); src: 'fork.png' 'github.png' 'twitter.png' dest: 'spritesheet.yamlTemplate.png' destCss: 'spritesheet.yamlTemplate.yml' { // Convert sprites from an array into an object var spriteObj = {}; datasprites; // Return stringified spriteObj return yaml; }
Output:
fork: x: 0 "y": 0 width: 32 height: 32 source_image: fork.png image: spritesheet.yamlTemplate.png total_width: 64 total_height: 64 escaped_image: spritesheet.yamlTemplate.png offset_x: -0.0 offset_y: -0.0 px: x: 0px "y": 0px offset_x: 0px offset_y: 0px height: 32px width: 32px total_height: 64px total_width: 64pxgithub: x: 32 # ...
Contributing
In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint via npm run lint
and test via npm test
.
Attribution
GitHub and Twitter icons were taken from Alex Peattie's JustVector Social Icons.
Fork designed by P.J. Onori from The Noun Project
Plus and Equals icons were built using the Ubuntu Light typeface.
License
Copyright (c) 2012-2014 Ensighten
Licensed under the MIT license.