I was wondering if anybody knows of any css resources that are geared strictly towards mobile web apps?
I am building a mobile app using backbone and zepto, but am missing a framework for handling the main user interface components.
I know there is jQuery mobile and ST2 (and yes I know you can just grab their css), but I was wondering if there are any resources that are standalone mobile css libraries and focus on using css transitions to mimic device behaviors?
topcoat.io is still in an early stage, but is developing quite fast.
For simple example application have a look at: Sample Mobile / PhoneGap Application with Backbone.js and Topcoat
Question is a bit older, but I just stumbled across it. Maybe this is useful for someone :)
I don't know of any css frameworks that are strictly mobile but these ones are very good and have media queries that help make their stuff look good on mobile devices. Bootstrap is highly modular so it is a great starting point:
bootstrap - http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/
foundation - http://foundation.zurb.com/
There's now Kendo Mobile available that does this, but it's not free or that cheap though.
http://www.kendoui.com/mobile.aspx
I have a simple project of a web application for mobile using Emberjs. For the look and feel, I want something equivalent to JQuery Mobile. Is there a way to mix Emberjs and jquery mobile? If so, how?
I have looked at the Travis-ci mobile app and they seem to have only defined a specific css for the mobile version. What is strange is that they also have this file : file that seems to be an attempt to integrate with JQMobile but they don't use it anywhere in the code.
I also have found this article Using Ember.js with jQuery UI but it's about JQuery UI. Can I use the same technique for JQuery Mobile?
Please share your own experience about having a mobile look and feel with Emberjs.
If you know any open source project on GitHub or wherever that uses Emberjs for mobile I will be thankful if you let me know the address.
What Technique do you recommend?
Note: I have make a first attempt to use the 'data-' html5 attributes of jquery mobile within a list generated by a controller but the elements of the view don't have change to a jquery mobile look and feel and I not sure why.
Sorry for my English, it is not my mother tongue.
As stated in the Ember.js wiki there are two projects concerning mobile:
ember-titanium - Titanium Mobile wrapped in Ember (formerly SproutCore-Titanium)
ember-mk - Mobile Kit for ember.js
Maybe they are useful for you.
#luissala created a proof of concept project using Ember with jQuery Mobile. It might get you on the right track:
https://github.com/LuisSala/emberjs-jqm
Have a look at Twitter Bootstrap: http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/
https://github.com/fohr/blossom
Is in a very premature state, but it seems pretty promising.
It's from the guys who started Sproutcore (I think!), so the syntax is very relevant to EmberJS
I know similar questions have been closed for it being "impossible to answer objectively", but stick with me here.
I built a prototype in Adobe Flex, they (customers) liked it. Everything was fine until they later told me that iPads / iOS needs to be supported too.
I checked out Adobe's Packager for iPhone. We're evaluating that and we will know if it works out in a couple of days. (We need to get through Apple's red tape and certificates raj so this angle is delayed by a few days!)
There is a growing voice for using HTML5/Canvas as a technology platform itself. And despite being quite proficient in Flex, I think this makes sense.
I'm in need of a HTML5 library that can:
Render "widgets" i.e. containers with forms and components (this should be easy and possible using POHJC - Plain old HTML, JavaScript and CSS ;-) )
Provide a Tree like control for laying out some data
Provide a Canvas where data structures can be represented as basic shapes
Provide drag and drop capabilities between Trees, Buttons and Canvas
Provide some sort of Tab Navigator container (I guess JQuery works here)
Interact with back-end services (JSON/XML calls will be okay, but mapping directly with back-end entities will be awesome!)
Renders on latest versions of major browsers, Android OS and iOS (WebKit for mobile?)
Am I asking for too much?
I'm ready to give JQuery & JQuery UI a try.
I looked at Sencha / ExtJS but it seems we need to maintain two code bases one for normal browsers and the other for mobiles (is that correct?)
Are there any other JS libraries worth trying out?
My concerns areas are
Single code base, I don't want to suggest to them that multiple code bases for the client need to be maintained. That's a last resort option and would lead to complete ruling out of HTML5 with Flash apps and native apps being developed.
Canvas capabilities - I don't want to work with raw canvas and shape tags. This too is a last resort option. Is there any abstraction available?
Integration with back-end services, obviously I need some capability here!
Help me out. Communitywikify this if required.
Thanks,
Sri
How about trying Vaadin?
http://vaadin.com/comparison
I do construe its irrelevant to your question, but still this framework can help in great deal. I still use Flex and PHP as main base for many application, but actually fell in love with Vaadin and started using it for my new projects.
Grant Skinner the flash guru is working on a html5 libary. It has some features you requested. It is still in development.
The new Canvas element in HTML5 is powerful, but it can be difficult to work with. It has no internal concept of discrete display elements, so you are required to manage updates manually. The Easel Javascript library provides a full, hierarchical display list, a core interaction model, and helper classes to make working with Canvas much easier.
The libary is called easeljs, you can find it here : http://easeljs.com/
For the normal html and css manipulations without html canvas JQuery is very easy to learn.
It's been a couple of years since I've done any Java work, my last efforts were using Swing. I'm poking around with a cross-platform client app that will interact with a Rails web service. JavaFX is one of the options I'm considering, but I'm concerned at the out-of-the-box aesthetic. Does JavaFX have a native look and feel option for the JavaFX controls (not Swing)?
I'm getting the impression that if I want to build a line of business application in Java, I should probably stick with Swing which is a shame since I like some of the features of JavaFX like binding, a terse syntax, and easy support for REST client programming.
I haven't see that. At best, you can use the extensive support of CSS styling we got with 1.3 to mimic native look and feel, but that's a big job! Not even sure how to deal with various themes we got on modern systems...
I suppose the point of RIAs is to bring their own look or to be flexible enough to allow to do your own shinny look, not to look like a random bland application on your platform... :-)
(Now, if I like skinnable applications, I also appreciate GUI frameworks using native controls or looking as such, like Qt (vs. GTK+ for example), precisely to provide good old "bland" applications not breaking user experience.)
JavaFX 2.0 has only one Look by default that is called "Caspian".
With Java 8 a second one was introduced, called "Modena".
Both are cross-platform Look&Feels.
See announcement of Modena, with screenshots.
At the moment some developers create native Styles for JavaFX as OpenSource projects. You can find an overview here:
http://www.guigarage.com/2013/01/this-is-for-the-native-ones/
If you are interested in the Mac OS L&F (AquaFX) for JavaFX, here are some posts with previews:
http://www.guigarage.com/category/aquafx/
Native look and feel is not supported by Oracle in the default JavaFX 2.x distribution.
A proof of concept on button styles by one of the JavaFX developers demonstrates that JavaFX is flexible enough to generate widgets that look like native widgets.
For OS X, you can try the third party AquaFX style for JavaFX, which makes JavaFX applications look like native OS X applications. AquaFX appears quite complete and comprehensive to me.
There have been other 3rd party projects which partially create native look and feels for other platforms, but their coverage is currently nowhere near comprehensive.
Some third party projects (all of which seem currently experimental and incomplete) are:
JMetro in jfx-styles
javafx-native-themes (JavaFX look and feels for: default swing, iOS, windows 7...)
you could definitely embed some css in your application to make the javafx components look more like the standard swing look. With scene builder its actually really easy to get all your tags setup correctly.
Check this out
http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/2/css_tutorial/jfxpub-css_tutorial.htm
Interesting thing is in javaFx is, you can give the rich look and feel to native application also.You can apply css to the javaFx components. Not only that you can embed the HTML Css and pages in JAVAFX application.Which i can feel great revolution in terms of UI building for Standalone applications.
I have to present a prototype of an web app in the following days to one of my clients, the thing is I'm not so good at CSS and worst of all I'm almost never happy with the results I get.
Coding the business logic poses no challenge to me, the UI design however takes more than 80% of my time. I don't need nothing breathtaking, just a clean, nice and presentable environment, an example:
This is a recurring problem I've been having, I wish web UI development could have a less naked default style, an approach similar to Visual Studio or iPhone SDK would be very useful to me.
The above mockup created with Balsamiq Mockups is a great example, all the most common "components" are available to use, and best of all: there is only one good-looking style to choose from.
Is there something like this for the web? A neutral yet nice CSS or Javascript UI framework?
Options so far:
Bootstrap
Qooxdoo
jQuery UI
jQuery Tools
MochaUI
Ext JS
Yahoo! User Interface Library
BlueTrip
BluePrint
Uki (Demo)
Napkee
YAML
Baseline
iPlotz
Sproutcore
ForeUI
I'm interested in knowing if there are any CSS-only UI frameworks.
I found this page with a very nice list of Web UI Libraries, but most of them (at least the good ones) seem to be specific to Java, are there any equally good alternatives in pure CSS or JS?
PS: I'm not interested in AJAX, effects, behaviors and so on... my main (only) concern is style.
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!
After a very careful consideration of all the UI libraries suggested, I've come to the conclusion that ExtJS and Qooxdoo are the ones that most closely fit my needs. jQuery UI seems promising but only offers a reduced amount of elements.
As far as CSS-only libraries go I've found BlueTrip / BluePrint and the themes suggested by tambler to be the best. Aside from that, Flex and Napkee also seem to be worth exploring.
Time to learn ExtJS now! =)
A combination of 960gs for layout and jQuery-UI for styling is probably what you are after.
You could also consider the blueprint CSS framework instead of 960gs.
I can't believe nobody has mentioned:
http://www.extjs.com/
Its a commercial js frameworks, but pretty affordable, and makes putting together a nice UI a breeze. There's a much more complete set of elements then jqueryui, and its designed to make an entire app. I've only played with it a little, but I really love it so far. Free for personal use.
If you really want to get a feel for a complete UI developed with EXT, try this url:
http://docs.sencha.com/extjs/4.2.1/extjs-build/examples/feed-viewer/feed-viewer.html
What about using dojo and dijit?
Dijit is a fast way to create widgets and elements. It also comes with 3 default themes which are easy to modify.
A good list of different widgets here
Pair up with someone who specializes in UI design.
If you are better at dealing with business logic, your time is better off spent exclusively coding business logic so you can master it. This will require you to learn how to interface with someone else who excels at presentation. (xml and json are common means)
Business logic and presentation are very different. Designing a system that not only looks good, but is intuitive and easy to use is quite difficult. Equally as difficult and time-consuming as establishing the inner workings of a complex application.
A good interface is not as simple as including a css framework.
I consider myself to be a more 'creative' programmer who does excel in presentation. I happened to be lucky enough to cross path's with someone who was, first of all... very motivated, and second of all very good at 'business logic'. He had a lot more experience planning and implementing complex systems, while I mainly have been focusing on interface design.
If you are more productive doing system architecture, planning, developing, whatever... you should push yourself in that direction. While solo development projects can be rather fulfilling, I view it as inefficient. It is very rare that someone possess skills to develop top-level applications solo.
The challenge is finding someone who you work well with.
Check out Google Web Toolkit. It has a pretty clean default look. They have examples . In particular, their Showcase example demonstrates all of the available widgets and the css styling used to achieve the look.
There are a few frameworks aimed at (G)UI Design; Qooxdoo, JQuery UI and MochaUI being a few of them (although the last is more a proof-of-concept than a usable framework). These frameworks usually offer a variety of JS-powered elements (form elements, such as input fields and submit buttons, but other elements like tabs as well). However, it will still be up to you to position these elements, and perhaps style them, to your liking.
Perhaps familiarizing yourself with a CSS framework (such as 960GS) might complement the above JS UI Frameworks.
(As a personal disclaimer; I have very little experience with any of the frameworks mentioned above. But I'm sure either Google or SO can provide answers I can't.)
This won't help you out for your current project, but it's worth considering for future projects. After spending many years creating GUI applications in HTML 4 and constantly wrestling against the limitations of CSS and HTML, I thought I'd try out Adobe Flex. What an improvement!
Rather than faking a tabbed page control or data grid, with Flex or Silverlight, your markup can simply specify a tabbed page control or data grid. And the frameworks come with default styles that are boring but not at all bad. I'm not saying these completely replace HTML, but if you need widgets and GUI layout, I believe they're a much better alternative.
You might consider browsing the following site:
http://themeforest.net/category/site-templates/admin-skins
There are several "Administrative" themes available for purchase here that may suit your needs.
wireframe mockups like that are a brilliant way to start.
Having used most of the UI framewroks discussed here, I'd liek to steer you towards jQueryUi for the following reasons:
jQueryUI CSS framework takes care of the consistent and cool looking CSS for you (it's really easy - just make some markup and apply the classes)
jQueryUI has tabcontrol, and heaps on neat quick easy ways to style forms.
If you are targeting modern, non IE, browsers, then you should check out Sproutcore. For mockups I use mockingbird.
A relatively new PHP framework specifically designed for development of UI-focused software. Elements you have here including Tabs, Filters and Grids are included and will take you about 20 lines of code to implement.
http://agiletoolkit.org/
Have you tried Axure? It's a tool for rapidly creating wireframes, prototypes and specifications for applications and web sites.
It works in a similar way to Balsamiq, but it allows you to export your wireframes/prototype as HTML, CSS and Javascript.
You can then upload this to a server or run it on your computer as a working example.
You can create forms, links, tabs, rollovers, Javascript effects.
If you are already using Balsamic Mockups for your prototypes then you should consider Napkee. To quote the website "Napkee lets you to export Balsamiq Mockups to HTML/CSS/JS and Adobe Flex 3 at a click of a button."
I ran into this awhile ago, and couldn't find anything, so I took it as an opportunity to learn css. But since then it seems great strides have been made towards this subject.
Summarizing your problem, there is a wikipedia page.
There is yaml-css, which takes yaml and turns it into css
There is baseline, but it assumes some css knowledge.
I'd also suggest looking at Adobe's Dreamweaver. They have a lot of css and style generation tools which produce very readable and w3c compatible code.
I hope that helps.
A combination of 960gs for layout and jQuery-UI or Jquery tools is great
i use them almost in every project but i'd like to add to http://easyframework.com/
although its not a business friendly so
make sure to check out its license
but i like it
I recently discovered a nice website called iplotz.com where you can create a mockup of your application/website/project online without installing anything.
It also has most of the common controls, along with much more features for managing thw whole project and sharing it with others online.
I must admit, i didn't try it yet myself, but i looked at it a bit and it seems pretty cool. I'll probably be using it soon enough.
Sass looks like it has potential as a way to mitigate some css headaches.
I like to add Bootstrap it's intuitive, and powerful front-end framework for faster and easier web development.
I like RocketCSS. Nice clean design, give it a go.