Day 39: comma-separated functional color notations

posted on 17.11.2022

It’s time to get me up to speed with modern CSS. There’s so much new in CSS that I know too little about. To change that I’ve started #100DaysOfMoreOrLessModernCSS. Why more or less modern CSS? Because some topics will be about cutting-edge features, while other stuff has been around for quite a while already, but I just have little to no experience with it.

On day 11 I've introduced you to space-separated functional color notations. Early color functions like rgb() and hsl() support both the old comma-separated and the new space-separated syntax.

/* ✅ works */
div {
  background-color: rgb(255, 210, 210);
  color: hsl(150, 76%, 20%);
}

/* ✅ works */
div {
  background-color: rgb(255 210 210);
  color: hsl(150 76% 20%);
}

On the other hand, new color functions like lab(), hwb(), lch(), or oklch() only support the space-separated syntax.

/* ✅ works */
div {
  background-color: hwb(0deg 82% 0%);
  color: lab(33% -31 16);
}

/*  ❌ doesn't work */
div {
  background-color: hwb(0deg, 82%, 0%);
  color: lab(33%, -31, 16);
}

See on CodePen

Further reading

• Day 11: space-separated functional color notations
• Day 23: the lab() color function
• Day 30: the hwb() color function

Do you want to learn even more awesome CSS?

I'm running a workshop with my friends at Smashing Magazine in which I introduce you to the most useful modern features in CSS and show how you can implement them today in your code base to improve scalability, maintainability, and productivity.

Learn more about the workshop!

Overview: 100 Days Of More Or Less Modern CSS