ASP.NET Core Blazor CSS isolation
Note
This isn't the latest version of this article. For the current release, see the .NET 8 version of this article.
Warning
This version of ASP.NET Core is no longer supported. For more information, see .NET and .NET Core Support Policy. For the current release, see the .NET 8 version of this article.
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This information relates to a pre-release product that may be substantially modified before it's commercially released. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information provided here.
For the current release, see the .NET 8 version of this article.
By Dave Brock
This article explains how CSS isolation scopes CSS to Razor components, which can simplify CSS and avoid collisions with other components or libraries.
Isolate CSS styles to individual pages, views, and components to reduce or avoid:
- Dependencies on global styles that can be challenging to maintain.
- Style conflicts in nested content.
Enable CSS isolation
To define component-specific styles, create a .razor.css
file matching the name of the .razor
file for the component in the same folder. The .razor.css
file is a scoped CSS file.
For an Example
component in an Example.razor
file, create a file alongside the component named Example.razor.css
. The Example.razor.css
file must reside in the same folder as the Example
component (Example.razor
). The "Example
" base name of the file is not case-sensitive.
Example.razor
:
@page "/example"
<h1>Scoped CSS Example</h1>
Example.razor.css
:
h1 {
color: brown;
font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif;
}
The styles defined in Example.razor.css
are only applied to the rendered output of the Example
component. CSS isolation is applied to HTML elements in the matching Razor file. Any h1
CSS declarations defined elsewhere in the app don't conflict with the Example
component's styles.
Note
In order to guarantee style isolation when bundling occurs, importing CSS in Razor code blocks isn't supported.
CSS isolation bundling
CSS isolation occurs at build time. Blazor rewrites CSS selectors to match markup rendered by the component. The rewritten CSS styles are bundled and produced as a static asset. The stylesheet is referenced inside the <head>
tag (location of <head>
content). The following <link>
element is added to an app created from the Blazor project templates:
Blazor Web Apps:
<link href="@Assets["{ASSEMBLY NAME}.styles.css"]" rel="stylesheet">
Standalone Blazor WebAssembly apps:
<link href="{ASSEMBLY NAME}.styles.css" rel="stylesheet">
<link href="{ASSEMBLY NAME}.styles.css" rel="stylesheet">
The {ASSEMBLY NAME}
placeholder is the project's assembly name.
The following example is from a hosted Blazor WebAssembly Client app. The app's assembly name is BlazorSample.Client
, and the <link>
is added by the Blazor WebAssembly project template when the project is created with the Hosted option (-ho|--hosted
option using the .NET CLI or ASP.NET Core Hosted checkbox using Visual Studio):
<link href="BlazorSample.Client.styles.css" rel="stylesheet">
Within the bundled file, each component is associated with a scope identifier. For each styled component, an HTML attribute is appended with the format b-{STRING}
, where the {STRING}
placeholder is a ten-character string generated by the framework. The identifier is unique for each app. In the rendered Counter
component, Blazor appends a scope identifier to the h1
element:
<h1 b-3xxtam6d07>
The {ASSEMBLY NAME}.styles.css
file uses the scope identifier to group a style declaration with its component. The following example provides the style for the preceding <h1>
element:
/* /Components/Pages/Counter.razor.rz.scp.css */
h1[b-3xxtam6d07] {
color: brown;
}
At build time, a project bundle is created with the convention obj/{CONFIGURATION}/{TARGET FRAMEWORK}/scopedcss/projectbundle/{ASSEMBLY NAME}.bundle.scp.css
, where the placeholders are:
{CONFIGURATION}
: The app's build configuration (for example,Debug
,Release
).{TARGET FRAMEWORK}
: The target framework (for example,net6.0
).{ASSEMBLY NAME}
: The app's assembly name (for example,BlazorSample
).
Child component support
CSS isolation only applies to the component you associate with the format {COMPONENT NAME}.razor.css
, where the {COMPONENT NAME}
placeholder is usually the component name. To apply changes to a child component, use the ::deep
pseudo-element to any descendant elements in the parent component's .razor.css
file. The ::deep
pseudo-element selects elements that are descendants of an element's generated scope identifier.
The following example shows a parent component called Parent
with a child component called Child
.
Parent.razor
:
@page "/parent"
<div>
<h1>Parent component</h1>
<Child />
</div>
Child.razor
:
<h1>Child Component</h1>
Update the h1
declaration in Parent.razor.css
with the ::deep
pseudo-element to signify the h1
style declaration must apply to the parent component and its children.
Parent.razor.css
:
::deep h1 {
color: red;
}
The h1
style now applies to the Parent
and Child
components without the need to create a separate scoped CSS file for the child component.
The ::deep
pseudo-element only works with descendant elements. The following markup applies the h1
styles to components as expected. The parent component's scope identifier is applied to the div
element, so the browser knows to inherit styles from the parent component.
Parent.razor
:
<div>
<h1>Parent</h1>
<Child />
</div>
However, excluding the div
element removes the descendant relationship. In the following example, the style is not applied to the child component.
Parent.razor
:
<h1>Parent</h1>
<Child />
The ::deep
pseudo-element affects where the scope attribute is applied to the rule. When you define a CSS rule in a scoped CSS file, the scope is applied to the right most element. For example: div > a
is transformed to div > a[b-{STRING}]
, where the {STRING}
placeholder is a ten-character string generated by the framework (for example, b-3xxtam6d07
). If you instead want the rule to apply to a different selector, the ::deep
pseudo-element allows you do so. For example, div ::deep > a
is transformed to div[b-{STRING}] > a
(for example, div[b-3xxtam6d07] > a
).
The ability to attach the ::deep
pseudo-element to any HTML element allows you to create scoped CSS styles that affect elements rendered by other components when you can determine the structure of the rendered HTML tags. For a component that renders an hyperlink tag (<a>
) inside another component, ensure the component is wrapped in a div
(or any other element) and use the rule ::deep > a
to create a style that's only applied to that component when the parent component renders.
Important
Scoped CSS only applies to HTML elements and not to Razor components or Tag Helpers, including elements with a Tag Helper applied, such as <input asp-for="..." />
.
CSS preprocessor support
CSS preprocessors are useful for improving CSS development by utilizing features such as variables, nesting, modules, mixins, and inheritance. While CSS isolation doesn't natively support CSS preprocessors such as Sass or Less, integrating CSS preprocessors is seamless as long as preprocessor compilation occurs before Blazor rewrites the CSS selectors during the build process. Using Visual Studio for example, configure existing preprocessor compilation as a Before Build task in the Visual Studio Task Runner Explorer.
Many third-party NuGet packages, such as AspNetCore.SassCompiler
, can compile SASS/SCSS files at the beginning of the build process before CSS isolation occurs.
CSS isolation configuration
CSS isolation is designed to work out-of-the-box but provides configuration for some advanced scenarios, such as when there are dependencies on existing tools or workflows.
Customize scope identifier format
Scope identifiers use the format b-{STRING}
, where the {STRING}
placeholder is a ten-character string generated by the framework. To customize the scope identifier format, update the project file to a desired pattern:
<ItemGroup>
<None Update="Components/Pages/Example.razor.css" CssScope="custom-scope-identifier" />
</ItemGroup>
In the preceding example, the CSS generated for Example.razor.css
changes its scope identifier from b-{STRING}
to custom-scope-identifier
.
Use scope identifiers to achieve inheritance with scoped CSS files. In the following project file example, a BaseComponent.razor.css
file contains common styles across components. A DerivedComponent.razor.css
file inherits these styles.
<ItemGroup>
<None Update="Components/Pages/BaseComponent.razor.css" CssScope="custom-scope-identifier" />
<None Update="Components/Pages/DerivedComponent.razor.css" CssScope="custom-scope-identifier" />
</ItemGroup>
Use the wildcard (*
) operator to share scope identifiers across multiple files:
<ItemGroup>
<None Update="Components/Pages/*.razor.css" CssScope="custom-scope-identifier" />
</ItemGroup>
Scope identifiers use the format b-{STRING}
, where the {STRING}
placeholder is a ten-character string generated by the framework. To customize the scope identifier format, update the project file to a desired pattern:
<ItemGroup>
<None Update="Pages/Example.razor.css" CssScope="custom-scope-identifier" />
</ItemGroup>
In the preceding example, the CSS generated for Example.razor.css
changes its scope identifier from b-{STRING}
to custom-scope-identifier
.
Use scope identifiers to achieve inheritance with scoped CSS files. In the following project file example, a BaseComponent.razor.css
file contains common styles across components. A DerivedComponent.razor.css
file inherits these styles.
<ItemGroup>
<None Update="Pages/BaseComponent.razor.css" CssScope="custom-scope-identifier" />
<None Update="Pages/DerivedComponent.razor.css" CssScope="custom-scope-identifier" />
</ItemGroup>
Use the wildcard (*
) operator to share scope identifiers across multiple files:
<ItemGroup>
<None Update="Pages/*.razor.css" CssScope="custom-scope-identifier" />
</ItemGroup>
Change base path for static web assets
The scoped.styles.css
file is generated at the root of the app. In the project file, use the <StaticWebAssetBasePath>
property to change the default path. The following example places the scoped.styles.css
file, and the rest of the app's assets, at the _content
path:
<PropertyGroup>
<StaticWebAssetBasePath>_content/$(PackageId)</StaticWebAssetBasePath>
</PropertyGroup>
Disable automatic bundling
To opt out of how Blazor publishes and loads scoped files at runtime, use the DisableScopedCssBundling
property. When using this property, it means other tools or processes are responsible for taking the isolated CSS files from the obj
directory and publishing and loading them at runtime:
<PropertyGroup>
<DisableScopedCssBundling>true</DisableScopedCssBundling>
</PropertyGroup>
Disable CSS isolation
Disable CSS isolation for a project by setting the <ScopedCssEnabled>
property to false
in the app's project file:
<ScopedCssEnabled>false</ScopedCssEnabled>
Razor class library (RCL) support
Isolated styles for components in a NuGet package or Razor class library (RCL) are automatically bundled:
The app uses CSS imports to reference the RCL's bundled styles. For a class library named
ClassLib
and a Blazor app with aBlazorSample.styles.css
stylesheet, the RCL's stylesheet is imported at the top of the app's stylesheet:@import '_content/ClassLib/ClassLib.bundle.scp.css';
The RCL's bundled styles aren't published as a static web asset of the app that consumes the styles.
For more information on RCLs, see the following articles:
- Consume ASP.NET Core Razor components from a Razor class library (RCL)
- Reusable Razor UI in class libraries with ASP.NET Core
Additional resources
ASP.NET Core