Vuetify with Tailwindcss: A Comprehensive Guide

Vuetify is a popular front-end framework for building responsive and visually appealing UI components, while Tailwind CSS is a utility-first CSS framework that provides a flexible and customizable way to style your application.

Vuetify and Tailwind CSS can be used together to create a unique and powerful UI design system.

To start using Vuetify with Tailwind CSS, you'll need to install both frameworks in your project. This can be done using npm or yarn.

In this guide, we'll walk you through the process of setting up Vuetify with Tailwind CSS and provide tips on how to use them together effectively.

You can add Tailwind to your project by picking the correct installation process depending on your stack. The TailwindCSS team has made a massive effort to revamp their documentation for version 3.

To replace the margin utility, you'll need to specify the core plugins you want to use, which allows you to replace only the available Vuetify utilities precisely.

Here are the key settings you'll need to configure:

By configuring theme.spacing, you can provide a generator that returns an object based on a step of “4px”, and those values will be used for all space-based utilities (margin, padding, inset, transform).

PurgeCSS is a powerful tool that helps reduce the size of your CSS bundle by removing unused classes. It's especially useful when working with TailwindCSS, which creates thousands of classes, increasing your bundle size significantly.

To install PurgeCSS, you'll need to run a command in your terminal. However, it's worth noting that newer versions of TailwindCSS already come with PurgeCSS support, so be sure to check the documentation before proceeding.

In your app.css file, you'll need to tell PurgeCSS not to purge Tailwind's base classes. This will prevent your application from entering a "sad state" with all Vuetify styles being removed.

PurgeCSS will only purge your CSS when compiling for production, so you don't need to worry about it affecting your development workflow.

To configure PurgeCSS, you'll need to add it to your PostCSS plugins. This is usually done in the main JavaScript file where you import Vuetify's CSS.

Here are the common issues you might encounter with PurgeCSS:

You'll likely need to make some adjustments to your project's layout after adding Tailwind. To avoid class name clashes between Tailwind and Vuetify, you can add a prefix to your Tailwind classes.

Add a prefix to your Tailwind classes by modifying the tailwind.config.js file. This will change the class name from flex to tw-flex, for example.

To disable preflight in Tailwind, head back to the tailwind.config.js file and add the necessary code. This is because Vuetify is already handling some cross-browser inconsistencies.

Here are the specific steps to add a prefix and disable preflight:

In conclusion, using TailwindCSS with Vuetify can be a game-changer for your app's performance.

Your app is probably lighter, which means faster loading times and a better user experience.

This is because you're only using the utilities you need from the TailwindCSS ecosystem, which can be a significant weight reduction compared to using the full Vuetify framework.

You can also replace the rest of Vuetify's utilities with TailwindCSS, giving you more control over the design of your app.

Here's a quick rundown of the benefits: