[angular] Angular CLI SASS options

I'm new to Angular and I'm coming from the Ember community. Trying to use the new Angular-CLI based off of Ember-CLI.

I need to know the best way to handle SASS in a new Angular project. I tried using the ember-cli-sass repo to see if it would play along since a number of core components of the Angular-CLI are run off of Ember-CLI modules.

It didnt work but than again not sure if I just misconfigured something.

Also, what is the best way to organize styles in a new Angular project? It would be nice to have the sass file in the same folder as the component.

Angular-CLI is the recommended method and is the standard in the Angular 2+ community.

Crete a new project with SCSS

ng new My-New-Project --style=sass

Convert an existing project (CLI less than v6)

ng set defaults.styleExt scss

(must rename all .css files manually with this approach, don't forget to rename in your component files)

Convert an existing project (CLI greater than v6)

1. rename all CSS files to SCSS and update components that reference them.
2. add the following to the "schematics" key of angular.json (usually line 11):

"@schematics/angular:component": { "styleext": "sass" }

ng set --global defaults.styleExt=scss is deprecated since ng6. You will get this message:

get/set have been deprecated in favor of the config command

You should use:

ng config schematics.@schematics/angular:component '{ styleext: "scss"}'

If you want to target a specific project (replace {project} with your project's name):

ng config projects.{project}.schematics.@schematics/angular:component '{ styleext: "scss"}'

CSS Preprocessor integration Angular CLI supports all major CSS preprocessors:

To use these preprocessors simply add the file to your component's styleUrls:

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  templateUrl: './app.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./app.component.scss']
})
export class AppComponent {
  title = 'app works!';
}

When generating a new project you can also define which extension you want for style files:

ng new sassy-project --style=sass

Or set the default style on an existing project:

ng config schematics.@schematics/angular:component.styleext scss

note: @schematics/angular is the default schematic for the Angular CLI

Style strings added to the @Component.styles array must be written in CSS because the CLI cannot apply a pre-processor to inline styles.

Based on angular documentation https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/wiki/stories-css-preprocessors

For Angular 9.0 and above, update the "schematics":{} object in angular.json file like this:

"schematics": {
  "@schematics/angular:component": {
    "style": "scss"
  }
}

As of 3/10/2019, Anguar dropped the support of sass. No mater what option you passed to --style when running ng new, you always get .scss files generated. It's a shame that sass support was dropped without any explanation.

Best could be ng new myApp --style=scss

Then Angular CLI will create any new component with scss for you...

Note that using scss not working in the browser as you probably know.. so we need something to compile it to css, for this reason we can use node-sass, install it like below:

npm install node-sass --save-dev

and you should be good to go!

If you using webpack, read on here:

Command line inside project folder where your existing package.json is: npm install node-sass sass-loader raw-loader --save-dev

In webpack.common.js, search for "rules:" and add this object to the end of the rules array (don't forget to add a comma to the end of the previous object):

{
  test: /\.scss$/,
  exclude: /node_modules/,
  loaders: ['raw-loader', 'sass-loader'] // sass-loader not scss-loader
}

Then in your component:

@Component({
  styleUrls: ['./filename.scss'],
})

If you want global CSS support then on the top level component (likely app.component.ts) remove encapsulation and include the SCSS:

import {ViewEncapsulation} from '@angular/core';

@Component({
  selector: 'app',
  styleUrls: ['./bootstrap.scss'],
  encapsulation: ViewEncapsulation.None,
  template: ``
})
class App {}

from Angular starter here.

Quoted from Officials github repo here -

To use one just install for example

npm install node-sass

and rename .css files in your project to .scss or .sass. They will be compiled automatically. The Angular2App's options argument has sassCompiler, lessCompiler, stylusCompiler and compassCompiler options that are passed directly to their respective CSS preprocessors.

See here

• https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/wiki/stories-css-preprocessors

DO NOT USE SASS OR ANGULAR's EMBEDDED CSS SYSTEM!!

I cannot stress this enough. The people at Angular did not understand basic cascading style sheet systems as when you use both these technologies - as with this angular.json setting - the compiler stuffs all your CSS into Javascript modules then spits them out into the head of your HTML pages as embedded CSS that breaks and confuses cascade orders and disables native CSS import cascades.

For that reason, I recommend you REMOVE ALL STYLE REFERENCES FROM "ANGULAR.JSON", then add them back into your "index.html" manually as links like this:

<link href="styles/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" />

You now have a fully functioning, cascading CSS system that's fully cached in your browser over many refreshes without ECMAScripted circus tricks, saving huge amounts of bandwidth, increasing CSS overall management in static files, and full control over your cascade order minus the clunky embedded CSS injected into the head of all your web pages which Angular tries to do.

SASS isn't even necessary when you understand how to manage cascades in basic CSS files. Large sites with complex CSS can be very simple to manage for those that bother to learn cascade orders using a handful of linked CSS files.

I tried to update my project to use the sass using this command

ng set defaults.styleExt scss

but got this

get/set have been deprecated in favor of the config command.

• Angular CLI: 6.0.7
• Node: 8.9.0
• OS: linux x64
• Angular: 6.0.3

So I deleted my project (as I was just getting started and had no code in my project) and created a new one with sass initially set

ng new my-sassy-app --style=scss

But I would appreciate if someone can share a way to update the existing project as that would be nice.

Like Mertcan said, the best way to use scss is to create the project with that option:

ng new My_New_Project --style=scss 

Angular-cli also adds an option to change the default css preprocessor after the project has been created by using the command:

ng set defaults.styleExt scss

For more info you can look here for their documentation:

https://github.com/angular/angular-cli

Update for Angular 6+

1. New Projects

   When generating a new project with Angular CLI, specify the css pre-processor as

   • Use SCSS syntax

     ng new sassy-project --style=scss
     

   • Use SASS syntax

     ng new sassy-project --style=sass
     

2. Updating existing project

   Set default style on an existing project by running

   • Use SCSS syntax

     ng config schematics.@schematics/angular:component.styleext scss
     

   • Use SASS syntax

     ng config schematics.@schematics/angular:component.styleext sass
     

   The above command will update your workspace file (angular.json) with

   "schematics": {
       "@schematics/angular:component": {
           "styleext": "scss"
       }
   } 
   

   where styleext can be either scss or sass as per the choice.

Original Answer (for Angular < 6)

New projects

For new projects we can set the options --style=sass or --style=scss according to the desired flavor SASS/SCSS

• Use SASS syntax

  ng new project --style=sass 
  

• Use SCSS syntax

  ng new project --style=scss 
  

then install node-sass,

npm install node-sass --save-dev

Updating existing projects

To make angular-cli to compile sass files with node-sass, I had to run,

npm install node-sass --save-dev 

which installs node-sass. Then

• for SASS syntax

  ng set defaults.styleExt sass
  

• for SCSS syntax

  ng set defaults.styleExt scss
  

to set the default styleExt to sass

(or)

change styleExt to sass or scss for desired syntax in .angular-cli.json,

• for SASS syntax

  "defaults": {
       "styleExt": "sass",
  }
  

• for SCSS syntax

  "defaults": {
       "styleExt": "scss",
  }
  

ERROR in multi styles
Module not found: Error: Can't resolve '/home/user/projects/project/src/styles.css' in '/home/user/projects/project'
 @ multi styles 

which was fixed by changing the lines of .angular-cli.json,

"styles": [
        "styles.css"
      ],

to either,

• for SASS syntax

  "styles": [
          "styles.sass"
        ],
  

• for SCSS syntax

  "styles": [
          "styles.scss"
        ],
  

I noticed a very anoying gotcha in moving to scss files!!! One MUST move from a simple: styleUrls: ['app.component.scss'] to styleUrls: ['./app.component.scss'] (add ./) in app.component.ts

Which ng does when you generate a new project, but seemingly not when the default project is created. If you see resolve errors during ng build, check for this issue. It only took me ~ 1 hour.

Step1. Install bulma package using npm

npm install --save bulma

Step2. Open angular.json and update following code

...
 "styles": [
 "node_modules/bulma/css/bulma.css",
 "src/styles.scss"
 ],
...

That's it.

To easily expose Bulma’s tools, add stylePreprocessorOptions to angular.json.

...
 "styles": [
 "src/styles.scss",
 "node_modules/bulma/css/bulma.css"
  ],
 "stylePreprocessorOptions": {
 "includePaths": [
    "node_modules",
    "node_modules/bulma/sass/utilities"
 ]
},
...

BULMA + ANGULAR 6

Set it as Global Default

ng set defaults.styleExt=scss --global

Tell angular-cli to always use scss by default

To avoid passing --style scss each time you generate a project, you might want to adjust your default configuration of angular-cli globally, with the following command:

ng set --global defaults.styleExt scss

Please note that some versions of angular-cli contain a bug with reading the above global flag (see link). If your version contains this bug, generate your project with:

ng new some_project_name --style=scss

The following should work in an angular CLI 6 project. I.e if you are getting:

get/set have been deprecated in favor of the config command.

npm install node-sass --save-dev

Then (making sure you change the project name)

ng config projects.YourPorjectName.schematics.@schematics/angular:component.styleext sass

To get your default project name use:

ng config defaultProject

However: If you have migrated your project from <6 up to angular 6 there is a good chance that the config wont be there. In which case you might get:

Invalid JSON character: "s" at 0:0

Therefore a manual editing of angular.json will be required.

You will want it to look something like this (taking note of the styleex property):

...
"projects": {
    "Sassy": {
      "root": "",
      "sourceRoot": "src",
      "projectType": "application",
      "prefix": "app",
      "schematics": {
        "@schematics/angular:component": {
          "styleext": "scss"
        }
      }
...

Seems like an overly complex schema to me. ¯_(?)_/¯

You will now have to go and change all your css/less files to be scss and update any references in components etc, but you should be good to go.