What is it?
After last week’s mini-rant, it’s back to your regularly scheduled programming! This week we will explore one of my favorite frameworks: Bootstrap. Bootstrap is a constantly evolving CSS framework. To which I say: too bad, that’s just what I’m going to categorize it as anyways. Let’s preview what we features we can expect!
Features
Glyphicons
Bootstrap includes over 250 glyphs (which are like mini icons) in font format from the Glyphicon Halflings set. Glyphicons Halflings are normally not available for free, but their creator has made them available for Bootstrap free of cost.
Dropdowns
We all take these for granted. Bootstrap uses a number of CSS classes within its framework to allow the user to create highly customizable dropdown menus. Not only does Bootstrap make this a pretty straight-forward process, but it also looks very clean and increases overall usability of a website.
Columns
This is the big one. Columns allow the user to split up their content in an organized, responsive way (meaning a mobile user can interact with a website just as easily as a desktop user). By default, there are a total of 12 columns in a page, and using integers, the user can set the width of an HTML element to any amount within that 12, and it will be the same across all rows as well (unless you want to further customize it).
I’m not going to hide my bias, I love Bootstrap. That being said, it isn’t perfect, so I’m excited to explore the benefits of drawbacks of using Bootstrap in the next post. See you then!