Style AEM CIF Core Components

Navigate and expand the ui.frontend module and expand the folder hierarchy to: ui.frontend/src/main/styles/commerce:

Notice that there are multiple Sass (.scss) files beneath the folder. These are the Commerce specific styles for each of the Commerce components.

Open the file _productteaser.scss.

Update the .item__image rule and modify the border rule:

.item__image {
    border: #ea00ff 8px solid; /* <-- modify this rule */
    display: block;
    grid-area: main;
    height: auto;
    opacity: 1;
    transition-duration: 512ms;
    transition-property: opacity, visibility;
    transition-timing-function: ease-out;
    visibility: visible;
    width: 100%;
}

The above rule should add a bold pink border to the Product Teaser Component.

Open a new terminal window and navigate to the ui.frontend folder:

$ cd <project-location>/aem-cif-guides-venia/ui.frontend

Run the following Maven command:

$ mvn clean install
...
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  29.497 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2020-08-25T14:30:44-07:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inspect the terminal output. You can see that the Maven command ran several NPM scripts including npm run build. The npm run build command is defined in the package.json file and has the effect of compiling the webpack project and triggering the client library generation.

Inspect the file ui.frontend/dist/clientlib-site/site.css:

The file is the compiled and minified version of all the Sass files in the project.

NOTE

Files like this are ignored from source control since they should be generated during build time.

Inspect the file ui.frontend/clientlib.config.js.

/* clientlib.config.js*/
...
// Config for `aem-clientlib-generator`
module.exports = {
    context: BUILD_DIR,
    clientLibRoot: CLIENTLIB_DIR,
    libs: [
        {
            ...libsBaseConfig,
            name: 'clientlib-site',
            categories: ['venia.site'],
            dependencies: ['venia.dependencies', 'aem-core-cif-react-components'],
            assets: {
...

This is the configuration file for aem-clientlib-generator and determines where and how the compiled CSS and JavaScript will transformed into an AEM client library.

In the ui.apps module inspect the file: ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/venia/clientlibs/clientlib-site/css/site.css:

This copies the site.css file into the ui.apps project. It is now part of a client library named clientlib-site with a category of venia.site. Once the file is part of the ui.apps module it can be deployed to AEM.

NOTE

Files like this are also ignored from source control since they should be generated during build time.

Next inspect the other client libraries generated by the project:

These client libraries are not managed by the ui.frontend module. Instead these client libraries include CSS and JavaScript dependencies provided by Adobe. The definition for these client libraries is in the .content.xml file beneath each folder.

clientlib-base - This is an empty client library that simply embeds the necessary dependencies from AEM Core Components. The category is venia.base.

clientlib-cif - This is also an empty client library that simply embeds the necessary dependencies from AEM CIF Core Components. The category is venia.cif.

clientlib-grid - This includes the CSS needed to enable AEM’s Responsive Grid feature. Using the AEM grid enables Layout Mode in the AEM Editor and gives content authors the ability to resize components. The category is venia.grid and is embedded in the venia.base library.

Inspect the files customheaderlibs.html and customfooterlibs.html beneath ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/venia/components/page:

These scripts include venia.base and venia.cif libraries as a part of all pages.

NOTE

Only the base libraries are “hard-coded” as part of the page scripts. venia.site is not included in these files and instead included as part of the page template for greater flexibility. This is inspected later.

From the terminal, build and deploy the entire project to a local instance of AEM:

$ cd aem-cif-guides-venia/
$ mvn clean install -PautoInstallPackage,cloud

Open a new browser tab and navigate to the Home Page of the site: http://localhost:4502/editor.html/content/venia/us/en.html.

Expand the Asset finder (the side rail) in Edit mode. Switch the Asset filter to Products.

Drag and drop a new Product onto the home page in the main Layout Container:

You should see that the Product Teaser now has a bright pink border based on the CSS rule change created earlier.

Navigate to the Home Page of the site: http://localhost:4502/editor.html/content/venia/us/en.html.

Select the Page Information menu and click View as Published:

This opens the page without any of the AEM author JavaScript loaded, as it would appear on the published site. Notice that the url has the query parameter ?wcmmode=disabled appended. When developing CSS and JavaScript, it is a good practice to use this parameter to simplify the page without anything from AEM author.

View the page source and you should be able to identify several client libraries are included:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
<head>
    ...
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/etc.clientlibs/venia/clientlibs/clientlib-base.min.css" type="text/css">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/etc.clientlibs/venia/clientlibs/clientlib-site.min.css" type="text/css">
</head>
...
    <script type="text/javascript" src="/etc.clientlibs/venia/clientlibs/clientlib-site.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="/etc.clientlibs/core/wcm/components/commons/site/clientlibs/container.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="/etc.clientlibs/venia/clientlibs/clientlib-base.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/etc.clientlibs/core/cif/clientlibs/common.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/etc.clientlibs/venia/clientlibs/clientlib-cif.min.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Client libraries when delivered to the page are prefixed with /etc.clientlibs and are served via a proxy to avoid exposing anything sensitive in /apps or /libs.

Notice venia/clientlibs/clientlib-site.min.css and venia/clientlibs/clientlib-site.min.js. These are the compiled CSS and JavaScript files derived from the ui.frontend module.

Navigate to the Home Page of the site within the AEM Editor: http://localhost:4502/editor.html/content/venia/us/en.html.

Select the Page Information menu and click Edit Template:

This opens the Landing Page template the Home page is based on.

NOTE

To view all available templates from the AEM Start screen navigate to Tools > General > Templates.

In the upper left-hand corner, select the Page Information icon and click Page Policy.

This opens the Page Policy for the Landing Page template:

On the right-hand side you can see a listing of client libraries categories that will be included on all pages that use this template.

• venia.dependencies - Provides any vendor libraries that venia.site depends on.
• venia.site - This is the category for clientlib-site that the ui.frontend module generates.

Notice that other templates use the same policy, Content Page, Landing Page, and so on. By reusing the same policy, we can ensure that the same client libraries are included on all the pages.

The advantage of using Templates and Page policies to manage the inclusion of client libraries is that you can change the policy per template. For example, perhaps you are managing two different brands within the same AEM instance. Each brand has its own unique style or theme but the base libraries and code will be the same. Another example, if you had a larger client library that you only wanted to appear on certain pages, you could make a unique page policy just for that template.

In the browser navigate to the Home page and View as Published: http://localhost:4502/content/venia/us/en.html?wcmmode=disabled.

View the source of the page and the copy the raw HTML of the page.

Return to the IDE of your choice beneath the ui.frontend module open the file: ui.frontend/src/main/static/index.html

Overwrite the contents of index.html and paste the HTML copied in the previous step.

Find the includes for clientlib-site.min.css, clientlib-site.min.js and remove them.

<head>
    <!-- remove this link -->
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/etc.clientlibs/venia/clientlibs/clientlib-base.min.css" type="text/css">
    ...
</head>
<body>
    ...
     <!-- remove this link -->
    <script type="text/javascript" src="/etc.clientlibs/venia/clientlibs/clientlib-site.min.js"></script>
</body>

These are removed because they represent the compiled version of the CSS and JavaScript generated by the ui.frontend module. Leave the other client libraries as they will be proxied from the running AEM instance.

Open a new terminal window and navigate into the ui.frontend folder. Run the command npm start:

$ cd ui.frontend
$ npm start

This starts the webpack-dev-server on http://localhost:8080/

CAUTION

If you get a Sass related error, stop the server and run the command npm rebuild node-sass and repeat the above steps. This can occur if you have a different version of npm and node then specified in the project aem-cif-guides-venia/pom.xml.

Navigate to the http://localhost:8080/ in a new tab with the same browser as a logged in instance of AEM. You should see the Venia home page via the webpack-dev-server:

Leave the webpack-dev-server running. It is used in the next exercise.

In the ui.frontend module, reopen the file _productteaser.scss at ui.frontend/src/main/styles/commerce/_productteaser.scss.

Make the following changes to the Product Teaser border:

    .item__image {
-       border: #ea00ff 8px solid;
+       border-bottom: 1px solid #c0c0c0;
        display: block;
        grid-area: main;
        height: auto;
        opacity: 1;
        transition-duration: 512ms;
        transition-property: opacity, visibility;
        transition-timing-function: ease-out;
        visibility: visible;
        width: 100%;
    }

Save the changes and the webpack-dev-server should automatically refresh with the new styles.

Add a drop-shadow and include rounded corners to the Product Teaser.

 .item__root {
     position: relative;
     box-shadow: 0 4px 8px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.2);
     transition: 0.3s;
     border-radius: 5px;
     float: left;
     margin-left: 12px;
     margin-right: 12px;
}

.item__root:hover {
   box-shadow: 0 8px 16px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.2);
}

Update the Product’s name to appear at the bottom of the teaser and modify the text color.

.item__name {
    color: #000;
    display: block;
    float: left;
    font-size: 22px;
    font-weight: 900;
    line-height: 1em;
    padding: 0.75em;
    text-transform: uppercase;
    width: 75%;
}

Update the Product’s price to also appear in the bottom of the teaser and modify the text color.

.price {
    color: #000;
    display: block;
    float: left;
    font-size: 18px;
    font-weight: 900;
    padding: 0.75em;
    padding-bottom: 2em;
    width: 25%;

    ...

Update the media query at the bottom, to stack the name and price in screens smaller than 992px.

@media (max-width: 992px) {
    .productteaser .item__name {
        font-size: 18px;
        width: 100%;
    }
    .productteaser .item__price {
        font-size: 14px;
        width: 100%;
    }
}

You should now see the card-style reflected in the webpack-dev-server:

However, the changes have not been deployed to AEM yet. You can download the solution file here.

Deploy the updates to AEM using your Maven skills, from a command-line terminal:

$ cd aem-cif-guides-venia/
$ mvn clean install -PautoInstallPackage,cloud

NOTE

There are additional IDE Setup and Tools that can sync project files directly to a local AEM instance without having to perform a full Maven build.

Return to your browser and refresh the Home page: http://localhost:4502/editor.html/content/venia/us/en.html. You should see the updated product teaser styles applied.

Experiment by adding additional Product teasers. Use Layout Mode to change the width and offset of the components to display multiple teasers in a row.