best css framework for layouts, boxes, images, ...? - html

I'm a coder coming from the pre-CSS era and trying to find a powerful but simple CSS framework, that would let me create any kind of layout with boxes I want.
I already have a wordpress theme so I'm looking for something to include into the theme.
I looked at ez-css which looks nice, but it just seems to do the box layouts, and I was wondering if there exists a framework that comes with many different snippets for typical layout tasks, like a box with a small image + paragraph text, etc.
I've looked at wordpress themes like pagelines, builder and headway but don't like them very much because they lock me into their themes, and they seem quite fiddly after playing with them.
Thanks
B

http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/

You could have a look at -
blueprint - http://www.blueprintcss.org/
or
960 Grid System - http://960.gs/

Have you taken a look at http://960.gs/?

It would be easier for you if you search separately for a CSS Framework and after for a blank WordPress Theme.
Most of these "CSS frameworks" are not really frameworks because CSS is not like JavaScript or PHP, so don't bother spending time with them.
What I will suggest is to get a premium html/css theme and modify it yourself and turn it to your own custom framework.

Related

how to convert/integrate shopify cdn to bootstrap

good day guys, i am new to web development, so apperntly, i got a work to design an ecommerce site for a client. the client wants something similar to www.gallerydept.com . But when i used inspect, i noticed the cdn is shopify's and not bootstrap and i'm only familiar with bootstrap.
how can i convert or intergrate bootstrap?
or what is the best suggestion or advice you can give me?
(please remember i'm new to web dev)
A suggestion would be - Don't use bootstrap within shopify.
Reason - Bootstrap has their own set of customizations and shopify's depends upon the theme you are using. Let's consider two scenarios:
For example, you want to create a modal popup and you directly use the bootstrap's library for the same. The look and feel will be different and then you would add your own CSS to override that - problematic thing.
Second scenario, you integrate bootstrap's cdn into shopify then all the other components styling will get affected like buttons, navbar, hrefs etc. So the flow is bootstrap's css overrided your shopify theme css and then you will override both in order to get back to the original - shortly it will become unmanageable.
But after all this I am not saying don't go ahead with this, what I have seen some people doing is utilizing only bootstrap's flexbox system to manage responsiveness in custom shopify pages (which is a good technique because bootstrap's flexbox system is pretty great). So basically what they do is take bootstrap's CSS file and remove all CSS tags not pertaining to the flexbox system and use that leftover CSS file.
And answering your doubt, what you should do now is - go with native HTML/CSS. You get stuck somewhere, SO that doubt/get the code by inspecting the website you have.
Shopify is using themes so you can start looking into tutorials on how to create themes for Shopify. Bootstrap is only controlling the look and feel of the website which is what you do. Shoppify will control the entire ecommerce functionality. So you can use Bootstrap inside the Shopify theme.
You need to be using LIQUID to code anything in Shopify and be sure not to use SCSS only CSS

Using Flexboxgrid or Bootstrap?

I may have a very stupid question for some of you, but I am a beginner, and need a little help from some of you who have experience in this area.
For example, I work freelance or have my own business where I do web design with HTML, CSS and JS.
Now I feel very comfortable writing my code with the FLEXBOXGrid system instead of maybe Bootstrap4 or something like that.
does it matter, if I use the Flexboxgrid system or bootstrap or maybe raw Html,css without frameworks?
Is it perhaps better paid to do it with Bootstrap than with Flexboxgrid?
Thanks !
FlexboxGrid http://flexboxgrid.com/ is just a grid. If you need make things like modals, tooltips, etc. use Bootstrap. Bootstrap offers the grid and other components.
That said, do what you feel comfortable with. But a few caveats:
1) When using a framework, it's good to know the underlying technology and how it works, because you can debug your code faster and make optimizations easier.
2) You also don't need to know the underlying technology all that well to use a framework. That's why the framework was invented. It was made to speed up the entire dev process. So by all means, use Bootstrap if you need a suite of components, use FlexboxGrid if you just need a grid. You can also make a custom build of Bootstrap. A quick Google only turned up a custom build of Bootstrap 3 https://getbootstrap.com/docs/3.4/customize/ But if you're using npm to get your libraries you can probably import only the parts of the framework you need.
3) If you're looking to just get the job done for the front-end try approaching it like this:
- What does the client need (modals, grids, static content, etc?)
- If client needs more than static content and a grid, use Bootstrap
- Checkout bootstraps Docs, also checkout other forms of bootstrap. There's two that I love: https://github.com/thednp/bootstrap.native
and https://reactstrap.github.io/
If you're not looking to add more overhead, go with Bootstrap Native.
You're going to get paid based on the agreed upon price. But if you make a fantastic looking site quickly, you may get more. Remember that when using Bootstrap, you can customize the CSS to essentially add your own theme. There are also plenty of free themes out there.
Best of luck

Terminology for UI Features / Components

I am in the process of learning and building my first website using HTML/CSS.
I have come across several nifty tricks that rely solely on CSS or sometimes on CSS+HTML to create a variety of UI features (or should I call them widgets or components?). I want to learn more about these, but I can't find proper name(s) for such features.
From what little I have been able to learn, some of them are commonly known as: Accordions, Tabs, Carousel (slider), Flip-boxes, etc.
Is there any authentic/reliable source where I can learn proper names of these CSS features or widgets, and then learn more about using them in my work.
Thanks,
These are the most common HTML/CSS/Javascript frameworks to build websites.
Go through with their Documentation.
ZurbFoundation
Bootstrap
Refer to some CSS frameworks like Bootstrap, Semantic-ui. They will have a bunch of css components/elements under them.
Use Semantic-ui page to get started

Ready to use CSS Template or Framework

Do you know a source for pure CSS Templates? After setting up a simple Web Project I always wish to have a CSS file to:
Set reasonable font settings for paragraphs and headers
Polish my anchor tags
Style my forms (if I have to touch the HTML for this one - no problem)
Style my tables (I use headers and footers etc) using even & odd
Maybe give me some handy classes for error boxes, etc.
So if I Google for a such CSS file I find CSS Homepage Templates with HTML Structure and massive CSS which I can't use without changing much. I find CSS examples for perfect tables, other examples for perfect forms but what I don't find is a single CSS File which when loaded in a properly formatted HTML website will make it look "okay" instead of the pure HTML look.
Do you get me?
Does anybody have a hint for me?
Twitter Bootstrap might interested you but I believe it has a bit of javascript in it as well.
Edit: As mentioned in comment you can use many of the Bootstrap features without using any javascript.
I've personally used bootstrap and I love it. I've also bookmarked few others to play with when bandwidth permits.
Bootstrap
Blueprint
960 Grid
Update: On related matter, I would also checkout CSS Preprocessors such as Sass and LESS that could help in writing better CSS and build up a custom library to use across projects.
Perhaps try the CSS off of Twitter Bootstrap. Provides all sorts of consistent styling that's simple but elegant, in addition to some fancier element behaviors.
Update:
Adding to Yonix's related list, the following are alternative CSS preprocessors, which makes working with CSS a little more digestible:
Compass
Stylus
There's a bit of a learning curve when teaching yourself CSS, but some basic CSS is easier than you think.
For quick prototyping/wireframing and pre-made HTML templates, I use Zurb Foundation, as compared to Twitter Bootstrap. My advice is to familiarize yourself with their online documentation and delve into the main CSS file (foundation.css). You can build on top of that CSS file with the provided app.css file.
It comes with a lot of pre-made styles (buttons, forms, etc) and everything is responsive (fits on any size screen). You can choose to include all the plugins, or just the HTML and CSS. It also has an option to download the HTML templates, which come with a variety a layouts, such as a blog or a basic structure. I absolutely love it!

What are the design patterns for HTML and CSS?

I know that is a very embracing question, but I have just started with Ruby on Rails, and still have a long way with CSS and HTML.
There are lots of books about CSS and HTML patterns, but I would like to know what is really applied to actual webpages.
For example, what's the best way of doing a simple webpage with a lateral menu, a logo on the top, and some text below?
Ok, it seems stupid, but there's lot of ways of doing that, or not ?
So, how can I learn this patterns and what are the real patterns ?
Would appreciate suggestions of books, articles, etc.
you can find some good css templates here:
http://www.csszengarden.com/
Actually in html and css there are not patterns in the oo sense.
I find this tutorial very useful:
Design and Code your first website
The nettuts website has a lot af very good free tutorials.
A very good book to begin is:
Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML
It varies from developer to developer. So I'll just tell you what I'm doing!
I'm actually following a very common pattern - separate ANY layout from the contents!
Into the HTML goes...
Text
<div/> containers with IDs to be layouted
And in the CSS goes...
Layout for the ID'd and class'ed <div/> layout containers
Colors, Background images
Fonts
It allows to rapidly change the whole page design without even touching the HTML! And it decreases both your server's traffic and the load time on the client pages, because the CSS file can be cached, since it does not change as much as the HTML does!
The CSS Zengarden nate posted is a very nice example of this pattern. The same unmodified HTML with dozens of CSS files with totally different looks!
This pattern also allows the same unmodified HTML to be displayed with automatically selected CSS files on huge displays, on small netbooks and on mobile devices. Can't be any better if you ask me!
You might want to check out some CSS libraries.
I don't personally like using them because I have ways that I like to do things and sometimes they aren't flexible enough for what I want to do. But since you're just starting out they might help you get something that looks good up really fast without having to worry about float drop bugs or margin collapsing or any other CSS quirks that are easy to hit but hard to recognize if you haven't seen them before.
An example would be the Yahoo User Interface (YUI) Grids CSS that will help you set up many different kinds of grid layouts. To find more, I would search for "css framework" or "css library".
Another YUI resource I think would be really useful for you would be their design pattern library, which documents different ways to display common interface items and gives you resources to go implement them. This can help make your interface look familiar to users and can keep you from feeling like you have to redesign a drop-down box or something.
The rule of thumb should be to do all design in CSS and HTML is just HTML without calls to design. That way, like referenced above, you can change design rapidly.
A good reference for how this works is the Zengarden CSS site at: http://www.csszengarden.com/
This is a site I used often as I learned the ins and outs of CSS design.