I'm starting a new website from scratch and I was wondering if React UI Framework are worth the try for building a website, or it's better to create my own components, grid etc...
I really like projects such as ElementalUI's Take on bootstrap3, MaterialUI forms components, Grommet, but they don't mix well together, some are using SASS, other LESS...
During previous projects, I've used some UI frameworks, but when I needed to do something that was not thinked by the creator of the framework, it was less complicated to create it myself than finding a workaround, and often more elegant.
I'm thinking that building my own React components using SASS and CSS3 could be the best solution.
Thanks!
This is an excellent and complicated to answer question at the same time.
I've been involved in few React projects, with different teams, and most of time, we were composing our components sets with customs style and when we needed a specific thing, the way to go was npm, for instance a custom range date picker.
Full disclosure; I wrote a great deal of ElementalUI.
I recommend researching each of the available UI frameworks and deciding whether they have the components and functionality required for your project. I also recommend looking into the components themselves to see how and why the authors solved a problem the way they did - that's probably the most valuable thing.
Elemental, and most other frameworks, are really helpful for applications where the UI must be consistent throughout. My own experience has been that for websites you're better off building your own components.
My web app is built using Zurb Foundation for the UI layer. The more I read about Material Design (getmdl.io) the more I like it. I also understand that the Material Design toolkit is not comprehensive as Foundation or Bootstrap maybe. So my question is - is it possible for me to use both? For example - use Foundation for layout etc and use Material Design for stylesheet and components?
Or am I completely missing the point and would be creating an application that would be a nightmare to maintain? Advice welcome..
The short answer to your question is yes you could use both but the work required to get them both playing nice together would be a huge undertaking.
Personally, I think using both is more trouble then it's worth as they essentially are the same thing (Front-end frameworks) however, one admittedly is more aesthetically appealing. Since you're already using Foundation I would stick with it.
You can always take specific components from Material Design that you like and include them with Foundation although this would be much easier if you were using the scss version.
Hope that helps.
Maybe the project referred below will help, if that's the direction that you want go.
Material Design version of Foundation Framework by Zurb
http://eucalyptuss.github.io/material-foundation/
Is there a sort of css framework which i can add to a gwt project, and this will completely set a new UI to my gwt application. Sort of changing the look and feel.
I love GWT, but others like Vaadin are so good styled, if there were a complete set of css librarys that would make my app a lot nicer would we great.
I think we can be great developers but not so good designers.
Thanks!
I would recommend starting with http://gwtbootstrap.github.io/
As well as: https://developers.google.com/web-toolkit/doc/latest/DevGuideUiCss
I would then dive deeper into the GWT docs to get a good handle on creating your custom themes. At some point any styling theme/framework will fail your needs and you will need to have some fundamentals for styling yourself.
Personally, I highly recommend using UiBinder and ClientBundle:
https://developers.google.com/web-toolkit/doc/latest/DevGuideUiBinder
http://granitode.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/gwt-uibinder-using-a-clientbundle-with-cssresources/
#fguespe, I'm not aware of something such for example twitter bootstrap that you 'just' plug.
Eventually the 'web designer' needs to know about specific gwt CSS classes that impact the look and feel. If importing the GWT 'non plain' themes, you'll need to write customizations.
Yes indeed Vaadin and GXT provide a default nicer look and feel... Let's just fire all Google devs for a lack of focus :-)
There are many grids and framework to choose from. A Google search for CSS frameworks will return a dozen articles that themselves list a number of frameworks to choose from.
When it comes to choosing one, it's easy to be lost without having an intimate knowledge of all of them.
What are the main factors that go into choosing a CSS framework, and how will those choices map to certain frameworks?
More generally, how does one choose a CSS framework?
Note 1: I'm using "grid" and "framework" almost interchangeably here, but there is probably one I should use over the other. Corrections on this are welcome.
Note 2: I am well aware that some choices will depend on taste and accordingly, this question can turn into a "best of" contest/subjective topic. I'm trying to keep it as answerable as possible, as I'm pretty sure many have this problem/question of choosing a framework and an answer to that would benefit the community. As such, improvements to this question are welcome rather than just closing it.
When choosing a framework, consider the following questions :
Language : Some frameworks are written in SASS. Others are written in LESS. Yet others are written in pure CSS. Pick a framework written in a language you're most comfortable working with.
Features : Some frameworks offer just a grid. Others add typography. Yet others add a whole bunch of custom UI elements. Pick a framework that corresponds best with the features you want. You don't want a framework with either too few features or one that's bloated and contains many features you never intend to use.
Modularity : You don't want to overwrite 50% of the framework's output with your own custom code. If you do pick a framework that has many more features than the features you need, make sure it's modular enough to easily get rid of much of the code bloat.
Responsiveness : Pick a responsive grid if you want your page to be responsive.
Cross-browser support : If your project needs to support older browsers, make sure you pick a framework that supports all browsers you need to support.
I built my own framework Cascade Framework because none of the frameworks out there answered those questions the way I wanted them to. Feel free to check it out.
The first thing to start with are the requirements and goals of your web project.
1. Do you target only a mobile audience?
If you want a Web-App, you'll need more than a CSS framework, a mobile framework that combines look and feel for specific target devices' UI with functional elements by means of Javascript. The next decision will be if the framework better supports smaller smartphone screens, tablet screens or both.
If you don't need the more functional Web-App approach the way to go are frameworks that are responsive. You will have to concentrate on how you want to arrange and order certain page elements on different screen resolutions and what page elements can be turned off on the smaller resolutions. (This sometimes leads to political debates with the stakeholders debating around what is (more) important and what not).
2. Do you target both mobile and desktop audience?
You want a framework that supports reponsive or fluid layouts for greatest support of your audiences clients. If the graphic design you have to produce is more static the responsive route suits better as it allows easier planning in the different stages within the breakpoints. Most designers currently follow flexible approaches, lightweight, elegant, presentational, not-so-portal-like that also allow fluid implementations (where certain or all page elements are allowed to stretch or grow according to the client/browser viewports).
3. Do you target only traditional audience?
Then simply choose the framework you're confident it allowes the easiest implementation. Did the designer use a grid? Then maybe the CSS framework fits it. Some CSS frameworks come with a nice variety of design templates for Gimp, Photoshop, Illustrator and others, so maybe the design can be based on the template upfront which allows for the best realization.
Two other considerations:
A. There is no graphic design
If you start without explicit design templates I would choose a framework that allows for easy integration of Typography, offers lots examples, use cases, pre-defined page elements or components (buttons, navigation, thumbs...).
B. Time constraints
No time? Some frameworks come with their own or third party customization scripts or wizards. Choose the elements or components you need, turn on or off certain JS libraries, reset stylesheets, things like that and download the final package. That's it.
Some frameworks are pretty mature and well tested so the absence of a vibrant community may not tell you that much. Depending on your skills a lot of support may not be necessary (and even be a bad sign: The grid/framework should be simple and stay out of your way. The questions that may come up should so be the usual CSS questions that are quite common and can be answered even without details of the underlying framework).
Two examples to illustrate two approaches (more grid <-> more responsive):
http://960.gs/
Definitely take a look. Follow the "view the slides" link to read nice background information. A true grid system. It also links to derivatives that support fluid and elastic looks.
http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/
Modern, nice hype. Lots of components. Customizable. Responsive.
Web-Apps:
http://jquerymobile.com/ and http://www.sencha.com/products/touch
Most grids are 95% the same: they define the width of columns + include a clearfix.
You can even make your own grid if you like. So therefore, if we understand that most grids are essentially the same, which one is the best to use?
1) Customize Twitter Bootstrap by only downloading the grid. It's a great choice because most people are familiar with the "span1, span2, span3" convention. Also, it's available as fixed width and fluid (ie. responsive).
2) 960.gs is probably the most commonly used fixed width grid.
Unsemantic is the responsive sucessor to 960. Both were developed by Nathan Smith.
One question you can ask right off the bat is:
Do I want the framework to be responsive?
The answer to the question will cross many options off your list.
Another main question I ask is what kind of community support is behind the project. From my experience it is a pain to get invested into a particular project and than have it die and get no support. It is nice to have something that has key backers and a large following.
Considering the UI designers from Twitter made Bootstrap I wouldn't just call it hype surrounding that framework. It's excellent code and the most complete framework. 960.gs is a grid system which boostrap has called scaffolding. Bootstrap is also smartphone friendly. So where someone would have to hack together jquerymobile, jquery, 960.gs, plus all the plugins they need. Bootsrap already comes bundled with plenty to get you started with and works on all browsers and phones/tables.
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.