The @use feature of Sass

Question

First of all, I hope someone can actually understand this rambling question because I'm struggling to even word what I mean in a coherent way, but here goes:

I don't know why I'm struggling so much to figure this out, but I've been using @import with SCSS for a while now and feel I have my head around it fairly well, but now I want to use the @use rule since the phasing out of @import is a thing. And I can't find any videos or any real articles explaining how to use it properly.

The problem I'm having is I can't get my head around how to actually use it, I feel like I get the basic idea, and how to use the modules in each partial (I think..), but I feel like I don't understand how to actually get all of the partials into a main .scss file to be compiled into css.. This is hard to explain.. I just feel like I would still need to @import at least the files that have @use inside them into a main file for it to be compiled.. I'm guessing this obviously isn't the case, but otherwise I can't work it out.. Do I just @use all the files I want imported into the main file or..?

If anyone could shed some light on this for me, I would be really grateful.

Thanks

Answer 1

The new rules @use/@forward and the remove from @import are indeed a really big impact to SASS. It leads to a complete new form to write sass. A try to make an easy explanation for the beginning to use the new technique:

(1) @use works similar to @import. It adds the code from a (config- or partial-)file or a module to your stylesheet.

(2) The difference is: SASS changes the scope of variables/mixins/functions from global (all imported files = one scope) to local files (variables are only valid in the actual file). If you need to use variables/mixins/functions from another (config- or partial-)file you need to 'include' them to the actual file first.

That means for your project(*):

//file ###> _config.scss

$columnWidth: 50%;
$projectColors: (
   primary: red,
   secondary: blue,
);


//file ###> _functions.scss 

@use 'config' as * // --> to use config vars (here: without namespace)

@function getColor( $name ){
   $color: map-get($projectColors, $name);  
   @return $color;
}


//file ###> _partial.scss

@use 'config' as *     // --> use config vars (here: without namespace)
@use 'functions' as *  // --> use functions (here: without namespace)

.class {
   width: $width;
   color: getColor( primary );
}


//file ###> myStylesheet.scss
// no need to @use 'config' or 'functions' 
// as they are not direct needed in this file

@use 'partial'  //--> write the css

---

( * ) Including files without using a namespace is a special case to make the example more easy. Normaly you will include variables/mixins/functions to a separated namespace and call them by namespace.$variable or namespace.mixin. And there are techniques to move special settings to a @used file as well so you can move variable settings to the project. Please have a look to official and excelent description: https://sass-lang.com/documentation/at-rules/use

---

NOTES:

(1) As it is heavily discussed: Yes. This is INDEED the intended new way to work with SASS. (https://github.com/sass/sass/issues/2750)

(2) Very interesting: The actual brandnew version from Bootstrap has moved to the new Sass Version. But as I have seen Bootstrap does not use that new feature @use and still works with @import. That may have reasons ... and it seems not to easy to change the technique.

(3) Also it seems to be a little bit complicated there are some advantages comming with that new technique. Using separate namespaces make it much mor easier to work with external modules without causing name conflicts.