Create a “flat long shadow” for boxes in CSS with less CSS

Question

Currently, I have the following “flat long shadow” (I deleted 3/4 of the code so as not to break stackoverflow - in my text editor, and each shadow has its own line, it is about 600 lines of code), which I created based on Matt Lambert Tutorial .

body { background-color: #ddd; } div { min-height: 64px; width: 64px; text-align: center; background-color: cyan; border: 1px solid blue; box-shadow: #8c8c8c 1px 1px, #8c8c8c 2px 2px, #8c8c8c 3px 3px, #8c8c8c 4px 4px, #8c8c8c 5px 5px, #8c8c8c 6px 6px, #8c8c8c 7px 7px, #8c8c8c 8px 8px, #8c8c8c 9px 9px, #8c8c8c 10px 10px, #8c8c8c 11px 11px, #8c8c8c 12px 12px, #8c8c8c 13px 13px, #8c8c8c 14px 14px, #8c8c8c 15px 15px, #8c8c8c 16px 16px, #8c8c8c 17px 17px, #8c8c8c 18px 18px, #8c8c8c 19px 19px, #8c8c8c 20px 20px, #8c8c8c 21px 21px, #8c8c8c 22px 22px, #8c8c8c 23px 23px, #8c8c8c 24px 24px, #8c8c8c 25px 25px, #8c8c8c 26px 26px, #8c8c8c 27px 27px, #8c8c8c 28px 28px, #8c8c8c 29px 29px, #8c8c8c 30px 30px, #8c8c8c 31px 31px, #8c8c8c 32px 32px, #8c8c8c 33px 33px, #8c8c8c 34px 34px, #8c8c8c 35px 35px, #8c8c8c 36px 36px, #8c8c8c 37px 37px, #8c8c8c 38px 38px, #8c8c8c 39px 39px, #8c8c8c 40px 40px, #8c8c8c 41px 41px, #8c8c8c 42px 42px, #8c8c8c 43px 43px, #8c8c8c 44px 44px, #8c8c8c 45px 45px, #8c8c8c 46px 46px, #8c8c8c 47px 47px, #8c8c8c 48px 48px, #8c8c8c 49px 49px, #8c8c8c 50px 50px, #8c8c8c 51px 51px, #8c8c8c 52px 52px, #8c8c8c 53px 53px, #8c8c8c 54px 54px, #8c8c8c 55px 55px, #8c8c8c 56px 56px, #8c8c8c 57px 57px, #8c8c8c 58px 58px, #8c8c8c 59px 59px, #8c8c8c 60px 60px, #8c8c8c 61px 61px, #8c8c8c 62px 62px, #8c8c8c 63px 63px, #8c8c8c 64px 64px, #8c8c8c 65px 65px, #8c8c8c 66px 66px, #8c8c8c 67px 67px, #8c8c8c 68px 68px, #8c8c8c 69px 69px, #8c8c8c 70px 70px, #8c8c8c 71px 71px, #8c8c8c 72px 72px, #8c8c8c 73px 73px, #8c8c8c 74px 74px, #8c8c8c 75px 75px, #8c8c8c 76px 76px, #8c8c8c 77px 77px, #8c8c8c 78px 78px, #8c8c8c 79px 79px, #8c8c8c 80px 80px, #8c8c8c 81px 81px, #8c8c8c 82px 82px, #8c8c8c 83px 83px, #8c8c8c 84px 84px, #8c8c8c 85px 85px, #8c8c8c 86px 86px, #8c8c8c 87px 87px, #8c8c8c 88px 88px, #8c8c8c 89px 89px, #8c8c8c 90px 90px, #8c8c8c 91px 91px, #8c8c8c 92px 92px, #8c8c8c 93px 93px, #8c8c8c 94px 94px, #8c8c8c 95px 95px, #8c8c8c 96px 96px, #8c8c8c 97px 97px, #8c8c8c 98px 98px, #8c8c8c 99px 99px, #8c8c8c 100px 100px, #8c8c8c 101px 101px, #8c8c8c 102px 102px; } 

 <div> wow that a lot of CSS! </div> 

I want to include this in my site, but I’m sad about the length of the code that it takes (in this case I don’t need to use graphics).

I explored ways to write less code, but didn't find a way with simple CSS - AKA no SASS, etc.

Here is one of the things I found - not really hope:

Your example above is the only way to do this with pure CSS, and although it looks pretty crazy - it will allow you to customize these text shadows with transitions, etc. - @Lost Left Stack

I wanted to ask the stackoverflow community again if there is a more compact way to do this.

Answer 1

You can use 2 pseudo skew to simulate the same shadow

 div { min-height: 64px; width: 64px; text-align: center; background-color: cyan; border: 1px solid blue; position: relative; } div:before, div:after { content: ""; position: absolute; top: -1px; /* compensate border in the root element */ left: -1px; right: -1px; bottom: -1px; z-index: -1; transform-origin: right bottom; } div:before { transform: skewX(45deg); box-shadow: 1px 60px 0px 0px gray, 1px 120px 0px 0px lightgray; /* 1px in x direction to avoid small gap between shadows */ } div:after { transform: skewY(45deg); box-shadow: 60px 0px gray, 120px 0px lightgray; } 

 <div> wow that a lot of CSS! </div> 

one of the advantages of this method is that you can easily modify the shadow angle

 body { background-color: #ddd; } div { min-height: 64px; width: 64px; text-align: center; background-color: cyan; border: 1px solid blue; position: relative; } div:before, div:after { content: ""; position: absolute; top: -1px; /* compensate border in the root element */ left: -1px; right: -1px; bottom: -1px; z-index: -1; transform-origin: right bottom; } div:before { transform: skewX(60deg); box-shadow: 1px 34px 0px 0px gray; /* 1px in x direction to avoid small gap between shadows */ } div:after { transform: skewY(30deg); box-shadow: 60px 0px gray; } 

 <div> wow that a lot of CSS! </div> 

To achieve longer shadows, you can increase the size of the pseudo-distance:

 div { min-height: 64px; width: 64px; text-align: center; background-color: cyan; border: 1px solid blue; position: relative; } div:before, div:after { content: ""; position: absolute; right: -1px; bottom: -1px; z-index: -1; transform-origin: right bottom; } div:before { height: 200px; /* increased height */ left: -1px; transform: skewX(45deg); box-shadow: 1px 200px 0px 0px gray; /* 1px in x direction to avoid small gap between shadows */ } div:after { width: 200px; /* increased width */ top: -1px; transform: skewY(45deg); box-shadow: 200px 0px gray; } 

 <div> wow that a lot of CSS! </div> 

Answer 2

If you use SASS or SCSS, cut the element and its box-shadow property, for example:

 div { box-shadow: /* your very long value */; } 

then paste it into another SASS / SCSS file. For example, you name it boxShadow.scss . After that, import it into your main SASS / SCSS file as follows: @import 'boxShadow' . By doing this, you save a lot of space for your main SASS / SCSS file.