I have been looking at a couple html/css form frameworks like Uni-Form and Formy. They provide easier management of html forms. I was wondering if anyone knows similar ones. I am not looking for css grid frameworks nor Yahoo's YUI.
blueprintCSS has a form plugin (I don't know if it can be used alone, I haven't tried to do that). http://www.blueprintcss.org/
http://www.blueprintcss.org/tests/parts/forms.html
Baseline CSS also has a form system. I haven't personally used it.
just tried formy and uniform..
i want something styled a bit simpler, just to look clean so i can do the rest..
Formalize is another one, quite simple, worth a look.. looked at uniform and jformer and they're both too comprehensive, if that could be used as a reason to ignore them
Formalize
Uniform (different from Uni-Form)
There is also Tacit.
It's a "class-less" CSS framework were you only need a single <link> statement in your HTML and the web page will have a complete look. In particular, for forms, you get a more finished appearance out of the box, just by including the CSS file, and you don't need to attribute specific classes to your form elements. It also guarantees your form will work visually fine both in Desktop and in Mobile.
You can get an overall idea from the demo page.
Here are also a few examples of pages that use Tacit, and the only work put into was including the CSS file: http://filfreire.com/, http://www.jare.io/, https://socatar.com/,
I think uniform is the best solution for forms.
Html is good and understandable, it has a bunch of tricky form examples solved very nicely ad it pays attention to usability much more than other frameworks.
Other seem to insist more on a vertical typographic rythm than common sense and usability. :)
There is also: Formy http://code.google.com/p/formy-css-framework/
I have developer a single class CSS framework just for forms. The class "form" can be added to any form input to style it properly. You can see the examples on the documentation: https://form.js.org
Here an example of mailing list form:
form {
margin: 1rem;
}
<link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/#codolog/form#1.0.0/dist/form.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<form>
<div>
<div>
<input type="email" class="form" placeholder="Enter your email">
</div>
<div>
<button type="button" class="form full">Subscribe</button>
</div>
</div>
<form>
Related
On my webpage there are DIV's that are created dynamically with the class of jOUT.
I want to change the color of every other iteration of the class.
I'm trying to do it this way:
.jOUT:nth-child(even){
background:#eeefff;
}
.jOUT:nth-child(odd){
background:#cccffe;
}
My HTML is as follows:
<div id="outData">
<input type="hidden" name="outDivider" value="-------">
<div class="jOUT isOpaque">
<!-- ... -->
</div>
<input type="hidden" name="outDivider" value="-------">
<div class="jOUT isOpaque">
<!-- ... -->
</div>
<input type="hidden" name="outDivider" value="-------">
<div class="jOUT">
<!-- ... -->
</div>
</div>
Full HTML here
But it's not working. What's really weird is that using the console in Chrome, when I select each jOUT, it shows ALL of them as having the "even" attribute.
I thought for sure that I had invalid CSS or HTML but I can't find it. It has to be something I'm doing, but what? I guess what I'm asking for is an idea for a place to start looking for the problem. I've verified the CSS using w3c CSS verification, and the HTML using HTML Tidy.
Your current CSS is working as it should, because you're targeting ALL children (including input); which means, in this scenario, all your div.jOUT are even - you should rather use :nth-of-type, which will only target instances of div.jOUT ...
.jOUT:nth-of-type(even){
background:#eeefff;
}
.jOUT:nth-of-type(odd){
background:#cccffe;
}
DEMO fiddle
This would work here:
.jOUT:nth-child(4n){
background:#eeefff;
}
More on that
This is somewhat fragile, though. A better approach is to add an alternative style class on those elements, possibly via your server-side app.
Your input[name="outDivider"] elements are in the way, thus making every jOUT element even. Here's a working pen where I took them out and made the selector work properly. I also changed the colors, so it's easier to see.
Edit: #isherwood beat me to it, but if this input[name="outDivider"] elements are absolutely necessary, his solution works best!
I need to layout a page, but I can't figure out how to do it without tables. I know it must be possible, but I can't think of a solution that isn't table-based that isn't incredibly rigid with fixed widths for everything.
Mockup: http://i.imgur.com/jSSDhIh.png
No matter what I do, it looks like I'm going to have commit a major sin. For example, the top set - it looks like I'm going to have either to:
Create a table (the root of all evil, apparently)
Hardcode widths and heights specifically for these elements. (either #id or style= or single-use classes, all three are also considered evil)
Is that the case? Is there a realistic way I can avoid those scenarios? Googling for answers just gets me a bunch of useless "TABLES ARE EVIL SO ARE CSS TABLES ALSO DON'T USE ID SELECTORS OR STYLE ATTRIBUTES EVERYTHING MUST BE A REUSABLE CLASS" with no actual useful information.
EDIT: I've already done this with CSS tables (display: table) and had it thrown back as unacceptable. I think it's fine because it works and it still looks good, but it's not my call.
Tables aren't evil. This stackexchange page alone has many tables on it. Some people want to use divs to create rows and spans using a grid. I suggest using tables where they seem appropriate. If you're really bent on avoiding it, consider grabbing something like bootstrap for twitter.
http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/scaffolding.html#gridSystem
There you can use their scaffolding to arrange items the way you want without tables.
heres a link on HTML Tables – when and how to use tables in HTML
this might help you understand when to use tables.
on your mock theres no reason not to use tables. like wordpress backend uses tables for forms but in tabular form.
but if you really want to layout this on divs i rather suggest using css grid frameworks.
I personally use zurb foundation. heres the link
I'd recommend using Bootstrap, it gives you plenty of options for styling forms. (However it may interfere with the rest of your CSS.)
Here's how a two column form would work:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/assets/css/bootstrap.css">
<div class="row">
<!-- right column -->
<div class="span6">
<label>Subject <input type="text"></label>
<label>Category <select></select></label>
<label><input type="radio"> Permanent Change</label>
<label><input type="radio"> Temporary Change</label>
</div>
<!-- right column -->
<div class="span6">
<label>Requested Approval Date <input type="text"></label>
Effective Dates <input type="text"> to <input type="text">
</div>
</div>
Obviously the styling leaves a lot to be desired, but check out http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/base-css.html#forms to see how much you can do. You'll want to look into <form class="form-horizontal">. Be forewarned that the CSS is picky, you'll need a lot of <div class="control-group">'s.
I've tried to search for a subject on this, but I haven't found any, so I thought I'd go ahead.
My question is when it is correct, if anytime, to just put your style directly in your HTML file, instead of using a .css file.
I mean, I get that it is very useful to use your .css file when you have alot of things that needs to be repeated, or is used on several pages.
But in my case, I have one page where I'm about to style something, that I'm pretty sure only will be on that page. This being the width, height, and small stuff for a div.
To show you what I mean, here's the code:
<div style="margin:0px auto; width:600px;">
<div style="float:left">
<p class="InputFieldsText">Brugernavn</p>
<div class="InputFields"><input name="Text1" type="text" class="Medium" placeholder="Din e-mail adresse" /></div>
<p class="InputFieldsUnderText">Glemt dit brugernavn?</p>
<p class="InputFieldsText">Password</p>
<div class="InputFields"><input name="Text1" type="password" class="Medium" /></div>
<p class="InputFieldsUnderText">Glemt dit password?</p>
<input onclick="window.location='user_page.html'" class="LargeIndent" name="Submit1" type="button" value="Log ind" />
</div>
<div style="float:left; width:172px; text-align:center">
<img alt="" height="128" src="images/lock.png" width="128">
</div>
</div>
So, as you can see, in some divs I styled it directly, instead of coming up with a name for my class and put on there.
I know it isn't wrong to do, since it will come out the same if I used it in my .css file and called a class, but is there a "guideline" or something that this and this is not recommended etc. etc.
Hope you understood my question. Really not that big of a deal, I've just always wondered :)
Regards
The answer is pretty simple, IMO: never. :)
You should always use a style sheet, because it allows you to quickly and easily change the entire appearance and layout of your site. If you embed the style information in the HTML directly, you have to work a lot harder if something needs to change; with a style sheet, you simply change the CSS file in a single location, and the change becomes global everywhere that style sheet is used.
It's best not to mix presentation with content. To simplify your CSS there is nothing wrong with using smarter selectors and IDs for elements for which you know there will always be one and only one. You don't have to define classes for every little thing.
In my opinion, inline styles make markup so cluttered, especially with large style declarations which cause line wrapping.
A small block of style inside the HTML page (instead of an external file) might be acceptable in some cases as it reduces the number of requests sent to the server. Server-side processing can be used to accomplish this by reading a separate stylesheet file and injecting the style directly into the page. With this approach, there is a trade-off between page size and the number of HTTP requests.
During development of a page I bung eveything into the same file.
just being lazy - have the stylesheet in the head part.
Then when in production seperate the HTML from the CSS. actually I do that during development when they share common features - a cut and paste job is required.
Never have your style information inline
When working with hierarchical template systems, I sometimes find it convenient to place style definitions in a stylesheet in that template, which ends up being part of the page. If these need to be reused, they can be migrated to a separate stylesheet.
Well, first things first. Styling takes some order of precedence :
inline styling
CSS in HEAD
imported CSS files
That is, if a specific element has some attributes defined in the .css file, then you can definitely override them by using inline CSS (<div style='...'></div>), for example.
Apart from that, I suppose it's merely a matter of taste and of how 'cluttered' (vs 'compartmentalized') you want your code to end up. Don't forget that CSS's main purpose is to separate : LOOK from STRUCTURE.
My GENERAL STRATEGY is :
Use CSS files, for better organization is bigger sites, that may be used an re-used in various files (portability)
Use CSS in HEAD in some "quite" big, but not too big chunks of CSS code, that are page-specific.
Use inline CSS for local modifications only (in REALLY small pages, or for existing specifications that I want to alter on location)...
CONCLUSION :
Anyway, as your main issue is about inline CSS, here's my 2 cents : inline CSS makes the code easily unreadable (at least for my taste), so why do it unless necessary?
You should always use a external .css files, because external style sheets enable you to change the appearance and layout of all the pages in a Web site, just by editing one single file!
If you will use inline css rather than external css in HTML pages that will take of much time to edit the changes so should use the external css files for smoother process.
I have always struggled designing css forms, I can never get the input and label side by side. Do you have any words of wisdom that may help me.
I usually use a 10px margin on the bottom but cannot get them aligned
My Common form:
Name:
Email:
Phone:
Message:
text area
I know I'm going to get backlash for this from people who think that the only possible way to do things is with pure CSS, divs, spans, etc. However, your form is tabular. You have a column of titles, and a column of input fields. In this case, because of the tabular layout, a valid solution could be tables.....GASP!
Tables are not valid for page layout...let me repeat that again, tables are not valid for layout. However, you've got an element of a page, you're not doing a full page layout. You can easily use <th> elements to style the labels for the inputs, which is quick and simple. Overall, the table (tabular) solution would be less verbose than many of the CSS layouts given, which from a pure HTML standpoint is a win. It will continue to work and layout properly even when the server gets backed up and can't load the external CSS document. To all those who believe that tables are never ok, let me remind you that this solution will validate with W3 100% of the time provided your table is properly structured. And it's far more cross browser compatible, with no box-model issues in the "crabby" legacy browers. Certainly continue to progressively enhance with CSS as is best practice.
Theory and practice, especially in the web world, are two entirely different things. In theory, all of us should be producing 100% HTML5/CSS3/Semantic/SEO Optimized...blah blah blah. In practice, theory only goes as far as the first customer complaint. Progressive enhancement is key to survival. When a webform breaks in a big corporate setting, money is lost and people get fired. For that reason, the International Bank I recently did work for had requirements that demanded all its webforms were tabular (assembled with tables) It's hard to argue with a portfolio of sites whose users generate the company hundreds of millions of $$$ annually.
<style>
ul.anyclassname{
padding:0;
}
ul.anyclassname li{
list-style-type:none;
clear:left;
}
ul.anyclassname li label{
width:300px;
float:left;
}
.inputs{
float:left;
}
</style>
<form>
<ul class="anyclassname">
<li>
<label>Name:</label>
<div div class="inputs"><input type="text"></div>
</li>
<li>
<label>Email:</label>
<div div class="inputs"><input type="text"></div>
</li>
<li>
<label>Phone:</label>
<div div class="inputs"><input type="text"></div>
</li>
</ul>
</form>
I usually do this:
<div>
<label for="txtname">Name:</label>
<input type="text" id="txtname" name="txtname"/>
</div>
<div>
<label for="txtEmail">Email:</label>
<input type="text" id="txtEmail" name="txtEmail"/>
</div>
<div>
<label for="txtPhone">Phone:</label>
<input type="text" id="txtPhone" name="txtPhone"/>
</div>
etc...
Then with my CSS:
label { width: 100px; display: inline-block; }
Something along those lines. Nothing fancy, but they are side-by-side and with the surrounding div you get a block level element to give you a line return after each pair.
I wrote a complete form in this answer: how can we make forms like this with css & html? . It has the html markups and the css classes you need to start.
The code is also in a fiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/vSqR3/64/ (Now with the nice addition of the for attribute, thanks Kyle!)
You will find in that link not only how to put one markup next to the other, but how to set sizes and borders for each.
I strongly suggest you to play on the jsfiddle.net website. You'll be able to modify and test immediately all your changes.
One part of web development (from a front-end perspective) is laying out forms. There is never a standard set, and I've seen people continuing to use <tables> to keep styling consistent. Say you were to lay out this form:
At first glance it seems that a table would make laying out this form easy. Another options is to use <fieldset>'s, with perhaps a list inside them. Float the fieldsets to the left, give them equal widths.
My question is what is the most standard way of laying out forms? There seem to be several techniques, but many of them don't work cross browser.
How would you do it? And why?
I must say, the most common way to do this would be to use tables. Unfortunately, there are problems with table based form layouts (big surprise). One big thing is that tables will bleed over their containers (if overflow is not hidden) and they don't squash their contents like CSS can do. On top of that, rendering tables is more expensive (takes up more CPU cycles). Overall, I think that, compared to pure CSS solutions, table based form layouts are rigid and inflexible, and as a designer, I cringe (and you should, too!) at using tables for layout purposes to begin with.
A method that I am beginning to like (and that is growing more popular) is a pure, CSS2 method for laying out forms. I will not credit myself for coming up with the idea, but it is really straight forward. All you have to do is this:
THE HTML:
<form action="process.php" method="post">
<label for="username">Username:</label>
<input type="text" name="username" id="username" />
<br />
<label for="password">Password:</label>
<input type="password" name="password" id="password" />
</form>
THE CSS:
label, input {
width:200px;
display:block;
float:left;
margin-bottom:10px;
}
label {
width:125px;
text-align:right;
padding-right:10px;
margin-top:2px;
}
br {
clear:left;
}
As you can see, the CSS code is really minimal and the results are really awesome. The pros of this method is that it uses less code (faster to download), it is cleaner without all the messy table tags littering your HTML document (maintainability), and I believe web browsers will render the CSS method faster.
Update 1: I also found a CSS method using unordered lists.
Update 2: #musicinmyhead reminded me about using fieldset and legend tags in CSS form layouts. I coded us a quick and dirty little demo here.
Note: I originally learned of this pure CSS form layout from: http://www.cssdrive.com/index.php/examples/exampleitem/tableless_forms/
Research shows that labels above fields and fields all in one column are the easiest to fill out. Lukew has a lot of form's data/research/info:
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?504
As a bonus, that's usually the easiest way to build the presentation layer as well. Plus, it's usually much more mobile-friendly out-of-the-box.
All that said, tables can be valid. In many ways, a form is a partially filled out spreadsheet (if you want to think in terms of tabular data).
I typically wrap the LABEL/FIELD pair in a div and position the label and field as needed depending on the layout desired.
The practice of using tables as layout made sense prior to CSS, but tables are actually intended to present data and nothing else. The simplest way to layout a form is label above field in a single column, but it is possible to create the same grid-like layout that tables provide using the <div> element and some CSS.
For that, the CSS might look like this:
.layout-grid{
display: table;
}
.layout-row{
display: table-row;
}
.layout-cell{
display: table-cell;
}
and the HTML might look like this:
<form action="foo.php" method="post">
<div class="layout-grid">
<div class="layout-row">
<div class="layout-cell">
<label for="foo">Foo:</label>
</div>
<div class="layout-cell">
<input id="foo" name="foo" />
</div>
</div>
<div class="layout-row">
<div class="layout-cell">
<label for="foo">Foo:</label>
</div>
<div class="layout-cell">
<input id="foo" name="foo" />
</div>
</div>
<div class="layout-row">
<div class="layout-cell">
</div>
<div class="layout-cell">
<button type="submit">Go!</button>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</form>
Personally? A table. At work? CSS. I go with whatever is required. There's the whole debate about the fact that a form is not in and of itself tabular data (like that of a form), which is true, and there is CSS that can create a cell-like structure.
If you're short on time and comfortable with only tables? Tables. Next up is the CSS/cell structure, but most will (probably rightly) say CSS all the way. It's not too difficult, and if you want to mix and match the whole thing, say adding an extra, fourth question at the bottom at the first three, it will make the change just a tad quicker. Not much, but a tad.