Hi everyone,
I’m a front-end developer with a strong CSS background. I’ve worked extensively with modern approaches like CSS Grid/Flexbox, Tailwind, and styled-components — all of which I found pretty straightforward to learn and use.
However, I’m really struggling with Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS), especially when it comes to building more complex or responsive layouts. It feels very rigid, and I often end up fighting with the grid system or writing lots of overrides.
So I’d love to hear from other developers:
- How do you feel about using SLDS for advanced front-end work?
- Do you see it as a reliable system, or just a starting point that always needs custom CSS on top?
- Any best practices you follow to avoid fighting against SLDS when building non-trivial layouts?
Thanks in advance for your insights!
I would suggest first off that SLDS isn't intended to offer the same kind of flexibility as pure CSS - it's how the platform is providing some measure of control over look and feel without giving complete control... Remember that most people using and trying to develop on the Salesforce platform aren't programmers and aren't as easily able to adapt what they want into code that is robust - so, the platform provides some ways to make changes without breaking some of the underlying setup and layouts that could render the pages useless.
That said, there are certainly ways you can get what you need, but because of the "protections" in place to stop less skilled people from breaking their org, those ways can become onerous...
