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Svelte is an up and coming front end framework for developing front end web apps.

It’s simple to use and lets us create results fast.

In this article, we’ll look at how to change class names dynamically with the Svelte class directive.

Class Directive

We can use the class directive with an expression to return the class to display based on the condition.

Also, we can add class names as modifiers and the condition to display it as the value as pass in.

For instance, we can write the following code to toggle a class:

App.svelte :

<script>  
let enableFoo;  
</script>

<style>  
  .foo {  
    color: red;  
  }  
</style>

<button    
  on:click="{() => enableFoo = !enableFoo}"  
>  
  Toggle Class  
</button>  

<p class="{enableFoo ? 'foo': ''}">foo</p>

In the code above, we have class=”{enableFoo ? ‘foo’: ‘’}” to toggle the foo class on when the enableFoo variable is true since we return 'foo' then. Otherwise, we have no class apply to the p element.

The class directive conditionally applies the foo class to the p element since we added the class directive to that element.

The button toggles the enableFoo on and off, which is used to return 'foo' when enableFoo is true . Otherwise, we return an empty string, which means no class.

The foo class sets the color to red. So the text in the p tag will be toggle between red and black.

We can also write the code to do the same thing as follows:

App.svelte :

<script>  
let enableFoo;  
</script>

<style>  
  .foo {  
    color: red;  
  }  
</style>

<button    
  on:click="{() => enableFoo = !enableFoo}"  
>  
  Toggle Class  
</button>  
<p class:foo="{enableFoo}">foo</p>

We changed:

class="{enableFoo ? 'foo': ''}"

to:

class:foo="{enableFoo}

foo is the class name, which the modifier for the class directive.

If our class is the same as our variable name for toggling on a class on and off, then we can shrink the class directive code with the shorthand.

For instance, instead of writing:

<script>  
let foo;  
</script>

<style>  
  .foo {  
    color: red;  
  }  
</style>

<button    
  on:click="{() => foo = !foo}"  
>  
  Toggle Class  
</button>  

<p class:foo="{foo}">foo</p>

We can write:

<script>  
let foo;  
</script>

<style>  
  .foo {  
    color: red;  
  }  
</style>

<button    
  on:click="{() => foo = !foo}"  
>  
  Toggle Class  
</button>  

<p class:foo>foo</p>

They both toggle the foo class. class:foo=”{foo}” is the same as class:foo .

Conclusion

The class directive lets us conditionally apply a class to an element. We can do that either by passing in an expression to conditionally return a class name to apply.

Or we can add the class name as the modifier to the class directive and then pass in the condition to add the class as the value we pass into the directive.