I'm wondering if there are any good non-native form inputs for web development? I am currently using the built in <input> controls. They work just fine, but for my application they are too big (especially on OS X). I am wondering if there are any libraries that I can drop in as replacements.
I am especially interested in ones that:
Are a close to native control behavior as possible. Support for tabbing, highlighting current textbox, pressing up/down in <select>, etc.
Have something that replicates <select>
Look good and are compact
I am aware that you can use CSS for some styling, but it's pretty minimal and looks different depending on the browser.
Thanks for your help.
These two from Codrops give the native selects "display: none", then add an overlay that can be styled/modified.
Pretty simple, you just need to call the plugin on your select box.
Demos
http://tympanus.net/Development/SelectInspiration/index3.html
http://tympanus.net/Development/SimpleDropDownEffects/
HTML is not modular like that. Importantingly, you're also restricted by the browser support. The only ways to customize the look'n'feel of HTML are CSS and Javascript. There are crossbrowser CSS/JS based UI frameworks available like jQuery UI and several CSS based form solutions with the goal to have the same look'n'feel among the (most) browsers.
You can also consider to develop an Rich Internet Application (RIA) using one of Flex, Air, JavaFX, Silverlight, etc. This way it looks exactly the same in every webbrowser, but that requires at least an additional plugin which the client may have to install first.
http://plugins.jquery.com/project/jNice
http://www.whitespace-creative.com/jquery/jNice/
You may want to customize the images, sizes and CSS with your own.
You could try creating the controls with Flex/Flash and using JavaScript to retrieve the values.
This would allow you to customize the control as much as you wanted while still staying compatible with most users/browsers.
Related
I am in a collaborative work of generating a website for disabled people, mostly will run on limited number of educational centers-offices that will donate tablets and old-notebooks to attendants. I am telling you this because i want to give you an idea about the possible users and different OS and browsers.
I want to generate CSS code that will be compatible with all possible browsers; older and newer browsers..
I am writing from scratch and i build it by visiting http://browsershots.org/ each time to see if there is any compatibility issues, but it takes time. Also i use http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ but again too many manual work..
What i would like know is: do you happen to know any tool that you feed your CSS file that is compatible with, say IE at the beginning, and hands you the extended version of the CSS file that covers many of the compatibility issues?
Any help is greatly appreciated..
In simple words there is no easy way to generate one CSS for all browsers.
For details, It highly depends a lot of over how extensively are you using the CSS, what version of CSS is that etc plus there are many places where different browser renders same CSS property in different ways, so its not really simple enough for all the situations.
But, for a little help, with the time passing there are different tools and scripts that can make your task of achieving CSS compatibility for all browser easier, I would recommend you go through the following tools they can be useful to you while trying to maintain your CSS.
15+ techniques and tools for cross browser CSS coding
Some CSS-preprocessor/helpers to help you in maintaining your CSS throughout:
Less: The dynamic stylesheet language.
Sass makes CSS fun again.
Compass is an open-source CSS Authoring Framework.
I'm not sure such a tool exists. That said, there are some advices to write cross-browser CSS:
Use a reset stylesheet (e.g. http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/);
Use IE conditionnal comments such as <!--[if IE]><![endif]-->;
Practice a continuous coding: open few browsers (e.g. IE, FF, Chrome) and check the run-of-river display they provide;
Use IETester to check IE5.5+ rendering, depending of the IE versions you want to cover;
Use absolute positions and specify widths and heights (especially when using floating elements) whenever you can;
If you want to try CSS3, use PIE;
Try to write pure, simple CSS, avoid exotic layouts.
Netbeans IDE has a feature which helps you to construct CSS from simple tick boxes and drop downs. I haven't confirmed the validity against W3 yet though, but the code generated looks good.
Also a useful resource to check use is http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/default.asp. It does take time to reference the properties you wish to use, but it is always worth confirming their compatibly if your going to experiment with layouts, and a must if using CSS3.
W3 Schools gives a clear indication of which browser supports a stated property. See example image below which is shows the compatibility for box-pack.
I have been assigned to build a mobile web application. I have found two ways to develop that (there might be hundred other ways to do that, but I am aware of these two): jQuery Mobile and HTML 5.
Which one should I use? The application will be a normal web app, like a shopping web app or a user management system.
I am looking for compatibility in different phones and great UI with fast processing.
So, the ways I know is JQuery mobile and HTML 5.
Which one should I use?
It's not a case of using one or the other - you use both to create a solution.
HTML5 provides the framework to present your content, whether it is text, images, video, audio, or any mixture of the above.
jQuery (Original or Mobile) is used for "Progressive Enhancement", that is to provide additional functionality, features or flair to the HTML5 framework.
To ensure the best compatibility across the majority of devices, you want to have a website which is usable without the jQuery enhancement. Then, once you have that, you can use jQuery (and/or standard javascript) to add the "nice-to-have"s, like animations, AJAX interactions, geolocation, etc.
Lucanos is right in the sense that HTML and jQuery aren’t alternatives. (Browsers display HTML, and then you write JavaScript — possibly using a framework like jQuery — to manipulate that HTML in custom ways where necessary.)
However, if you‘re using “HTML5” in the Apple sense of the word (i.e. to describe HTML5, CSS3, and browser-specific extensions to CSS), then there are some choices to make — e.g. some WebKit-based mobile browsers support CSS animations, which should perform faster than JavaScript animations.
I’m not familiar with jQuery Mobile — it might well use CSS animations when they’re supported, and simulate them when they’re not, meaning you get wider compatibility without much runtime performance cost.
But for mobile, personally I think you’re better off picking the most popular platforms (i.e. iOS and Android), and writing to their capabilities, without bothering with a framework like jQuery Mobile. That way you serve most of the market with less effort (and thus serve them better), rather than making everyone download jQuery Mobile just to serve a few older phones that’ll get binned in a year or two anyway.
Disclaimer: this depends entirely on your target market. If they all use old phones, write to the capabilities of those phones.
Is it possible to style the option elements of a select list/dropdown beyond background and font? I'm specifically looking to add some padding/margins so the list isn't as cramped.
Not possible if you want broad browser support. At least IE doesn't support it. There's then no other option than to mimic and progressively enhance the dropdown with <ul><li> and a good shot of JavaScript. You can get here some ideas what's possible with JS (jQuery actually) based dropdowns.
#Alex: we were in the same predicament as you seem to be. We too wanted to control the UI of the dropdown. Unfortunately as others have already mentioned, you have no option with the system dropdown if you want to have cross-browser compatibility also.
so we came up with our own jQuery plugin which works like a system dropdown for most features. It also supports themeing as well as flexibility to provide customized list items by way of templates. You can see the running code samples from the following URLs listed and learn more about it. We are sure you will find it useful.
Sample and documentation - india.assigninfo.com/assignlabs/jaldropdown
Cascading dropdown sample code from coderun.com - coderun.com/ide/?w=GEXVey_kckKrAkLeoIfZNg
Sample code to configure jaldropdown from within scrollable DIVs - coderun.com/ide/?w=BiE5TbXdIEehDOxNk1oajw
It is possible however the functionality is not available in Internet Explorer
Styling form elements using css can be problematic since every browser render tag in different way (just like when safari render checkbox).
Okay lets ignore safari for a while, skinning input and button are rather easy but how to completely skin select, checkbox, radio, etc.
See this pages:
Checkbox skinning
Select skinning
Radio skinning
I've heard some JS framework such as EXTJS or MooTools can do that, but i don't want a large scale framework solution, just independent JS and we can modify the skin as we like, please no JQuery solution, since i don't use it.
Any idea to do that without using some specific framework?
If you want complete control, then you generally have to replace the browser controls completely and fake them with other elements, stylesheets and scripting.
If you don't want to use a framework, then it basically comes down to DIY.
That said, the whole concept have a couple of problems.
Trying to get the controls to behave how the user expects (given input from clicking, double clicking, triple clicking, right clicking, dragging, arrow keys, the control key, etc, etc, etc) is hard.
The controls might not look as the user expects.
Personally, I'd generally try to let form controls stick to the system defaults and not try to deviate from them. Give users what they expect.
Today there are quite many javascript solutions which allow a wide range of customization for form elements styling. A quick google came up with a few nice ones:
Perhaps the best known is the Bootstrap CSS framework:
https://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.0/components/forms
https://www.psd2html.com/js-custom-forms (jQuery plugin)
https://purecss.io/forms
https://github.com/select2/select2
https://github.com/harvesthq/chosen
Checkboxes/Radios:
https://codepen.io/vsync/pen/aBOOZB
https://codepen.io/vsync/pen/wKkuz
https://codepen.io/manabox/pen/raQmpL
Today you can find many kinds of form element styling on Codepen.com
Old answer (from May 16 '09):
yes, it is quite easy.
you can use niceforms, which is independet script for making
nice looking forms, then you can modify the graphics images /
CSS as your wish.
The idea is, coding something that looks the same with same
funcionality but different design, then you need to "give it
life" with some javascript magic :)
then, you have to have ilsteners all over the place, to check
what the user clicked, than you need to reflect that same value
to the pre-hidden form element the corresponds to the "fake"
one. means, to manipulate it. then when you send the form, the
right values are places via JS.
jQuery provides a browser neutral library for accessing and manipulating the DOM. This is good.
However I'm looking for a counterpart for the visual side of things - I need to build pixel measured interfaces, without wasting so much time testing and correcting cross browser issues (buttons having crazy margins in IE, or using the wrong box model in FireFox. The many IE and otherwise instances where putting several elements on one line screws up alignment or floats).
Basically I need to be able to plan out interfaces on paper with exact pixel dimensions (for example all textboxes should be exactly 22px high), and then easily translate those designs into Html. In a WinForms world, this is usually straight forward. With html it's anything but, and I find it's worst when it comes to input controls.
What libraries or collections could I use to make this sort of design a reality (outside of just converting everything into Silverlight where that degree of control exists). Javascript is required to be on (AJAX to begin with), so libraries can depend on it entirely for controls.
Some of the components I'm looking for in a uniform style with precise pixel control
Buttons
Textboxes
Dropdowns
ComboBoxes (Dropdown whose text can be edited directly)
Toggle Buttons
Alternatives include dojo (pure-JS) and GWT (JS generated from Java). Some may argue that ditching JS altogether and going with the Flash-backed Flex is a good option.
Also check out ExtJS. I've used this one extensively and I can vouch for how good it is. Originally it was a fork of the Yahoo UI Library (YUI), which Soviut mentioned. Personally, I think it's much better and more usable than the original YUI.
JQuery UI is a good extension of JQuery that allows for rich controls like dialogs, drag and droppables, etc.
The Yahoo Interface Library is another toolset you can use that may be closer to what you were originally asking for.