From c766125fe85f8e2e5106bb6364b709b2955db341 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: chapoi <101828855+chapoi@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2023 16:04:19 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] UX: add BEM documentation to styleguide (#24512)

* UX: add BEM documentation to styleguide

* grammar fix

Co-authored-by: Jarek Radosz <jradosz@gmail.com>

* typo fix

Co-authored-by: Jarek Radosz <jradosz@gmail.com>

* add another hierarchy layer

---------

Co-authored-by: Jarek Radosz <jradosz@gmail.com>
---
 .../discourse/templates/styleguide/index.hbs  | 80 +++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 80 insertions(+)

diff --git a/plugins/styleguide/assets/javascripts/discourse/templates/styleguide/index.hbs b/plugins/styleguide/assets/javascripts/discourse/templates/styleguide/index.hbs
index e0fe882bc2e..7d2b8c4e905 100644
--- a/plugins/styleguide/assets/javascripts/discourse/templates/styleguide/index.hbs
+++ b/plugins/styleguide/assets/javascripts/discourse/templates/styleguide/index.hbs
@@ -2,4 +2,84 @@
   <div class="description">
     {{i18n "styleguide.welcome"}}
   </div>
+  <h1>Syntax</h1>
+  <h2>BEM</h2>
+  <p>
+    The guidelines outlines below strive to bring structure and consistency to
+    our classnames. Additionally, with this approach the nesting of css is
+    firmly reduced. BEM stands for:
+    <ul>
+      <li>Block</li>
+      <li>Element</li>
+      <li>Modifier</li>
+    </ul>
+  </p>
+  <p>We use a slightly modified version of the BEM classname format.</p>
+  <h3>Block</h3>
+  For example
+  <strong><code>d-modal</code></strong>
+  <p>A block is a standalone component. Blocks can be used within blocks. It
+    should be a "top-level" element, which could be used in its entirety in
+    another place of the app. It has no dependencies on any parent class.</p>
+  <h3>Element</h3>
+  For example
+  <strong><code>d-modal__header</code></strong>
+  <p>
+    An element is a part of a block that can not be used outside that context.
+    They because it depends on the parent class and can not be used standalone
+    outside this context. In the example above, an element with class
+    <code>d-modal__header</code>
+    will only work within the d-modal block, but not when placed elsewhere.
+  </p>
+  <h3>Modifiers</h3>
+  Examples
+  <strong><code>--success</code>,
+    <code>--large</code>,<code>--inline</code>,
+    <code>--highlighted</code></strong>
+  <p>
+    A modifier is used mainly for changing the appearance, if different than the
+    default. It is less than an element, and has no html structure of it own.
+    Meaning, it can only exist when applied to an element (or potentially a
+    block).
+  </p>
+  <p>In classic BEM, a modifier looks like:
+    <code>d-modal__header--success</code>. This can quickly turn into very
+    verbose HTML. Imagine an already long block-element name, for example:
+
+    <p>
+      <code>class="chat-message-creator__search-container"</code>
+    </p>
+
+    With classic BEM and 2 modifiers, it would look like this:
+
+    <p>
+      <code>class="chat-message-creator__search-container
+        chat-message-creator__search-container--highlighted
+        chat-message-creator__search-container--inline"</code>
+    </p>
+
+    To avoid this, we decouple our modifiers from the BE parts of the classnames
+    and use them as separate classes. So in the previous case with 2 modifiers
+    this turns into:
+    <p>
+      <code>class="chat-message-creator__search-container --highlighted
+        --inline"</code>
+    </p>
+
+    which is far more readable.
+  </p>
+
+  <h4>Special modifiers</h4>
+  Some special prefixes are useful to identify modifiers as temporary states or
+  condition. These are:
+  <ul>
+    <li><code>is-foo</code> = example: is-open</li>
+    <li><code>has-foo</code> = example: has-errors</li>
+  </ul>
+
+  <h3>In Code</h3>
+  <p>Even though the BEM convention avoids nesting, we can use SCSS to write the
+    code nested. This is to taste, but I find it easier to read and write,
+    because it will keep all relevant elements and modifiers grouped together
+    and avoids unnecessary repetition of the block class.</p>
 </StyleguideSection>
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