Why Patternizer doesn’t output CSS

Despite numerous Tweets and posts to the contrary, Patternizer does not output CSS. It outputs JavaScript to be used with the patternizer.js library. So why is this, when CSS is built-in and has no overhead? In short, it looks like crud at non-ordinal angles (not 45 or 90). Let’s take a look at an odd angle with both approaches.

CSS Gradients

JS Canvas

So which one would you choose? Or maybe, which one would your designer choose? CSS gradients don’t anti-alias their edges with their current implementations, so we get those choppy edges. Some color combos make that less evident, but to me, they are not up to snuff. I wish they were, and maybe in the future they will be, but I wouldn’t hold your breath—using gradients for stripes is kind of an abuse-case more than a use-case.

But…If enough people make enough noise, I’m open to doing a CSS export too. So make some noise if you can’t live without it.

-Matt