While Tailwind CSS is one of the best utility-first frameworks out there, it can at times, cause some issues with styling. These conflicts occur especially when one wants to work with default Tailwind classes together with a dynamic or custom class names. Fortunately, there are optimized modules to deal with such problems, which we will discuss below using Tailwind Merge and clsx.
In this article we are going to define some of the problems related to styling in Tailwind CSS and then how you can solve them using Tailwind Merge and clsx.
The Common Tailwind CSS Problem: Conflicting Styles
One of the key issues that developers encounter with this particular framework is the unpredictability of the styles’ clashes. Whenever you extend the custom classes to components, these classes interfere with the regular Tailwind classes.
For instance, you may have a default background color of blue 500, bg-blue-500, you set on a button but later, you want to change it to red 500, bg-red-500. It is rather unusual to see the last class as the winner; therefore, it does not always happen. This can became random and very time consuming, which will only make it irritating when trying to style it.
In Tailwind CSS, the order of classes isn’t always respected the way you’d intuitively expect. This makes the process imprecise especially when teaching classes of students or applying conditional styles on objects.
Why Tailwind Merge is the Solution
The Tailwind Merge utility function addresses this issue by providing a solution in which, within a list of conflict classes, the last one wins, as logic dictates that is what developers anticipate.
Example:
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import { twMerge } from ‘tailwind-merge’;
const containerClasses = twMerge(
‘bg-blue-500 text-white px-4 py-2 rounded’,
‘bg-red-500’
);
In this case, Tailwind Merge ensures that bg-red-500 overrides bg-blue-500. This provides the expected result, giving you full control over your class conflicts.
Handling Conditional Classes
A typical requirement that requires filtering in web development is the application of classes depending on some conditions or state of a component. For example, you might need to change the background colour when the button is in a loading state. Fortunately, in Tailwind Merge, handling this becomes very easy.
Example with Conditionals:
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const buttonClasses = twMerge(
‘bg-blue-500 text-white px-4 py-2 rounded’,
isLoading && ‘bg-gray-500’
);
Here, when isLoading is true, the background color will switch to bg-gray-500. Tailwind Merge ensures that the final class list respects these conditions without conflicts.
clsx: A More Intuitive Way to Manage Conditional Styles
Although Tailwind Merge performs well in addressing the issue of the circular class problem, some developers may find a more categorized method of applying conditional classes. This is where clsx excel. clsx introduces an object-based syntax for handling classes, which leads to an easier approach to applying conditional styling.
Example with clsx:
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import clsx from ‘clsx’;
const buttonClasses = clsx({
‘bg-blue-500 cursor-not-allowed’: !loading,
‘bg-gray-500 cursor-pointer’: loading,
});
In this example, clsx handles the conditionals in a clean, object-oriented format. If the loading state is true, the button will use bg-gray-500 and change its cursor style accordingly.
Combining Tailwind Merge and clsx: The Ultimate Solution
To get the most out of both, you can use Tailwind Merge and clsx for both conditional styling and resolving clashes. What this approach does is to minimize the effort in using the two tools by coming up with a utility function that integrates them.
Example of Combining Tailwind Merge and clsx:
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import { twMerge } from ‘tailwind-merge’;
import clsx from ‘clsx’;
export const cn = (…inputs) => {
return twMerge(clsx(inputs));
};
This function processes the input classes through clsx for conditionals, then uses Tailwind Merge to ensure the final classes are conflict-free.
Applying the Combined Function:
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const buttonClasses = cn(
{
‘bg-blue-500’: !pending,
‘bg-gray-500’: pending,
},
‘text-white px-4 py-2 rounded’
);
By using this approach, you gain flexibility in defining both conditional and base styles while preventing conflicts between classes.
Example 2:
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const buttonClasses = cn(
‘text-white px-4 py-2 rounded’,
pending ? ‘bg-blue-500’ : ‘bg-gray-500’
);
This method simplifies the development process and ensures your Tailwind classes work exactly as intended.
Conclusion
Styling conflicts is usually a major issue with Tailwind CSS but with the help of Tailwind Merge and clsx you can be able to overcome this. Tailwind Merge unlocks conflicts through the last-class-wins-functionality, while clsx offers an orderly way to handle conditional tags. Combined, these tools provide the level of granularity over your style and enable you to build components that are easy to maintain and adapt.
Learning how to work with the Tailwind Merge alongside clsx will help in making your interactions with Tailwind CSS as seamless and unproblematic as possible without having to navigate confusing and conflicting styles.
