This package makes it possible to use TailwindCSS in your .NET project without any external dependency.

It uses the Tailwind Standalone CLI to make this possible.

Dependencies

You must have nodejs installed on your system to use this package. You can download it from https://nodejs.org.

Usage

After installation, the NuGet package will automatically build the tailwind input file on every build. It will minify the output file when in Release mode.

Install the NuGet package

dotnet add package mvdmio.Tailwind.NET

This does the following:

1. Creates a <root>/Tailwind folder with the following files:
   1. tailwind.input.css with the basics to get tailwind running.
2. Adds build targets to your .csproj that automatically build the TailwindCSS input file

Tailwind Functionality

More information about Tailwind Functions & Directives: https://tailwindcss.com/docs/functions-and-directives.

Layers

Tailwind recommends using layers like so:

# /tailwind/tailwind.input.css
@import 'tailwindcss';

@layer base {
  # Your base module additions
}

@layer components {
  # Your components module additions
}

@layer utilities {
  # Your utilities module additions
}

Import

You can use @import to import different files like so:

# /tailwind/tailwind.input.css
@import 'tailwindcss';

@import './some-other-file.css'

# /tailwind/some-other-file.css

.select2-dropdown {
  @apply rounded-b-lg shadow-md;
}
.select2-search {
  @apply border border-gray-300 rounded;
}
.select2-results__group {
  @apply text-lg font-bold text-gray-900;
}
/* ... */

Customization

Customizing file locations

You can change the input and output file paths by adding the following properties in your .csproj:

<PropertyGroup>
  <TailwindInputFile>path/to/your/input/file.css</TailwindInputFile>
  <TailwindOutputFile>path/to/your/output/file.css</TailwindOutputFile>
</PropertyGroup>

The defaults for these properties are:

<PropertyGroup>
  <TailwindInputFile>tailwind/tailwind.input.css</TailwindInputFile>
  <TailwindOutputFile>wwwroot/tailwind.output.css</TailwindOutputFile>
</PropertyGroup>

Override the build binary

You can override the binary used in the tailwind command:

<PropertyGroup>
  <TailwindBinaryFile>tailwindcss-linux-arm64</TailwindBinaryFile>
</PropertyGroup>

See the 'lib/tools' folder in this project for the binaries that can be used.

By default, the build tries to select the correct binary based on the OS and Platform properties of MSBuild.

Disable default files copy action

The library copies default file (tailwind/tailwind.input.css) to your project. To disable this, add the following property:

<PropertyGroup>
  <TailwindCopyDefaultFiles>false</TailwindCopyDefaultFiles>
</PropertyGroup>

Tailwind Watch

The package contains a task for running tailwind --watch in a separate window. To do so, open a terminal in the folder of your project, and run the following command. Note that you need to have Visual Studio Build tools installed for this command to work.

msbuild /t:WatchTailwind
--or--
dotnet msbuild /t:WatchTailwind

Of course you can also install Tailwind using NPM and use the following command. This will not use this package to build your tailwind.

npx tailwind -i tailwind/tailwind.input.css -o wwwroot/tailwind.output.css --watch

Contact

For issues with the package, please create a new issue on GitHub. Pull requests are also welcome.

For anything else, please contact me at michiel@mvdm.io.