I'm using DirectWrite.
How do I adjust overall letter spacing? I think I want the equivalent of SetTextCharacterExtra in GDI.
The built-in layout has IDWriteTextLayout1::SetCharacterSpacing on Windows 8. For Windows 7, you would need to use the lower level layers and create your own text layout (which is no small task, but it would allow complete flexibility to add any additional layout features). A base example of a custom layout is here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd941711(v=vs.85).aspx
Related
I have a table that has 10 columns and for an advanced user, there would be 20 columns. So the column width would change based on the user. I was using 'px' to specify the size of each column. Is 'px' best way of doing it? The programmer before me used '%' for another grid (unlike mine, it had fixed number of columns).
This application would run on IE8/ IE9.
Intent of question: Is 'px' best way to specify width in situations where the column numbers might change frequently.
To be honest you are overcomplicating matters for yourself. Its true that vanilla frameworks are bloated but you can cut out what you don't need and use the rest.
Por ejemplo:
Foundation 4 Grid Framework
http://foundation.zurb.com/develop/download-f4.html
Patch for IE8+
https://gist.github.com/hatefulcrawdad/5068210
To answer you original question however, there is no right answer. You can have a column framework using pixel widths using the older methods of floating and clearing
You could also have a percentage based framework which uses a pixel based container to simulate pixel widths.
In Short
I recommend you study the CSS on grid systems such as Bootstrap, 960Grid and Foundation (my personal recommendation) and how they work for you.
Then develop your own based off the system you prefer. You'll also gain a better understanding of Grid System development.
I had experience with Twitter Bootstrap and Foundation, and I personally think the only thing I want to use is their grid system. Other features are just bloated.
So I read about the prospect of a grid layout. All of the articles I found are oriented toward an 'artistic' explanation (golden ratio ect). I am a coder at heart, I need a clear & logical reason to use a grid layout (for example: 'columns can be easily stacked on top of each other on mobile screen, and expand horizontally on larger screens'). Can someone give me the pros and cons of applying a grid system to my website? Personally do you think using a grid system is good?
If the answer is yes, should I use a premade grid system like from Twitter Bootstrap/Foundation or just make one for my own? All of the other features are unnecessary for me an irrelevant to my problem.
Thanks! :D
I agree with #kunalbhat that this might not be the best area to ask this but since you did I will try to answer it.
The grids are designed allow for speed and adaptability. Speed in multiple senses. The first part of the speed is the speed of writing the code. You can easily get the layout you want when you are using the grid system and everything aligns correctly. You don't have to remember your tables and columns and col-spans, etc.
The second speed is modifying your code. Inevitably you will need to go back and make changes, with a grid this is easily to do. Changing a col-md-7 to a col-md-6 easily makes a little tweak in the layout of your page that can easily be tracked and performed.
You mentioned responsive design, both Bootstrap and Foundation have responsive grids. The grids will snap to different sizes based on the viewport size. However you have control as well. For example if you want something to take 1/12th the screen in desktop, 1/4th on a tablet, and 100% on a phone that is easily done with Bootstrap and Foundation, both have grid classes that target specific viewports.
The also provide visibility classes based on those viewports.
For the "bloated" part that is easily solved. Using SCSS you can easily only import portions of a library. For example for one project I was on I only imported the Grid and it was considerably smaller.
I happen to think that this is a SO question, simply because of one of the main cons of CSS grid systems: semantic.
I think semantic is important for a web developer and having a class named col-md-7 is not the most semantic thing to do.
But I like grids, because they are easy and quick to use, so I started to use LESS. Because it allows me to use variables and functions(mixins) in CSS, I can build my own grid system on my CSS rather then on my HTLM.
You can start on Frameless and customize your own 'classes'.
Are there any existing plugins/extensions/methods to maintain vertical rhythm for Twitter's Bootstrap project?
It is quite a laborious task to create good vertical rhythm templates, I would rather use a pre-baked solution. I am open to creative suggestions, I just want my pages nicely aligned in the end.
Edit: To clarify what I am after...
Vertical rhythm is a technique used to ensure that every element on a page lines up according to a horizontal grid. This is achieved by setting the height, padding and margin of every item to conform to a standard unit line size. If a line of text in a paragraph is 20px high (including margin and padding) then maybe a heading 4 will also be 20px high, and a heading 1 might be 40px high. This maintains the rhythm of the text across columns.
I want to use this technique in combination with bootstrap (from twitter), but it would be quite a lot of work to get everything looking nice. For example, all the buttons would need to conform to the same vertical height definition as paragraph text etc... There are other standard controls used in bootstrap which would also all need rules to define their height appropriately.
I could start with a generic solution for vertical rhythm, which would go a long way to achieving what I want, but I wanted to know if anyone else has started this, or has any idea of another way to achieve this.
Edit: Assuming there is nothing like what I want...
Maybe just a good vertical-rhythm based css template would be a good starting point. Preferably something that is continuing to be developed, is already usable, well thought out, and adaptable.
Since no one has linked to an actual vertical rhythm boilerplate as you suggested, I took the one I use, commented it, and created a github repo for it here https://github.com/jonschlinkert/vertical-rhythm
As it says in the readme, this is a starting point for your own project.
I think what you're going after is understood. Problem is: you're looking for a grid schema in one dimension (a "vertical rhythm" set in accordance with, for example, proportional line heights...which, in a manner of speaking, measures and aligns things along a given page's Y axis)...but doing things in that manner might potentially be at odds with Bootstrap's pre-existing 12-column grid system (which, in contrast, measures and aligns things along the page's X axis). You want to "proportionalize" the height of each "row" in the framework. BUT: keep in mind, Bootstrap's design is intended to promote not just proportionality via columns solely for the sake of looking nice, but to also make pages responsive--i.e., to allow page elements to "flow" around one another vertically, and to nest fluidly. And, in that sense, issues pertaining to the height of elements measured along the Y axis may already be accounted for... I recall that most of the typographic elements in the base CSS file have proportional em sizes, and/or likewise proportional top and bottom padding, etc. Generally speaking, things are not so arbitrary that the framework screams a need for additional styling in the manner you're considering.
Even so: Bootstrap's base CSS file isn't so intolerably extensive that it'd be impossible for you to tweak the height of various element classes and IDs yourself without too much trouble. In any case, it's highly unlikely you're really going to need to do that with every styled element, right? In fact, as a framework, Bootstrap includes styling for many elements which may not even be in the app for which you're designing the front end. (EXAMPLE: Does your app have drop down menus? Great. You can style the "vertical rhythm" of drop down menus. BUT: are you also using pills or tabs in your nav bar? No pills, you say? Well, you can just delete a couple hundred lines of code in the stylesheet and save yourself the effort of having to apply your "vertical rhythm" to those unneeded elements.) Elsewise, for the elements that remain and that you do in fact need, just use a text editor to find-replace the values for line height, top and bottom padding, margins, font-size, etc...and test it out. As a CSS framework, it's pretty clear how Bootstrap is laid out; relevant elements are well sorted, and grouped together within the stylesheet's code for the most part. Once you do complete tweaking of the base CSS file, just minify your revised stylesheet...to replace the pre-existing minified version...or, perhaps, just serve it up from CloudFront if you want to optimize.
The Compass CSS Authoring Framework has explicit support for vertical rhythm based typography. For starters you can check out this short video tutorial.
Have you looked at the Square Grid CSS framework?
http://thesquaregrid.com/
A simple CSS framework for designers and developers, based on 35
equal-width columns. It aims to cut down on development time and help
you create beautiful-structured websites.
Square Grid provides a standard horizontal grid, but it also maintains a vertical grid, using a standard "square" of 28px. It is really just a grid, not a full CSS library like Bootstrap (i.e. no buttons, menus, etc).
I used to for one project and found it to be pretty intuitive, though I ultimately decided that it was too hard for me to keep track of both the vertical and horizontal grid, especially when thinking about responsive design.
You may be able to combine the two, or at least take a look at the square grid source code which is pretty simple CSS to get some ideas on how to adapt Bootstrap to meet your needs.
For example, in a 12-column grid, I want to have a 9-grid-wide and another 4-grid-wide . The divs will have an overlap 1 grid wide in the middle. This is useful for some fancy effects.
Of course I can just use one div and then create more divs inside accordingly (not using the Grid System), but is there a better way?
Or you could organize your layout by yourself with all custom DIVs, that just follows the guidelines the 960GS gives you. There's nothing that tells you that you have to use the premade HTML template to benefit from the concept of the grid system. It's just there as a guide to make sure all widths on the page look good and fit together.
I believe that grid CSS systems were designed to enable quick and easy table-less layouts. They were not designed for this kind of thing. However, there is a third party tool that may interest you. You can find it here: http://gridder.andreehansson.se/
You may however find it easier to just use CSS to layout your DIV elements, overlap them using negative margins and use the z-index property to determine which of the overlapped DIV elements should be on top.
How to make custom CSS grid framework for custom widths? In my company i get design (PSD) in different sizes in width site like 900px, 920 px, 915px, 973 px etc. and different gutter sizes like 10 px on right, 20 px on left etc. in this type of condition how can i use and take benefir of grid based framework
http://www.gridsystemgenerator.com/
This will generate the CSS based on the values defined in the form.
Everybody seems to have missed the point: if your gutters are not regular, then you can't use a grid system. You just create custom classes for each column and use them as needed. The grid systems use regular gutters so you can stack them (the columns) in a any order you like.
-- Jason
The 960 generator ?
You could also use http://www.960.gs. There are a number of online options to create a grid system. Its pretty simple!
If your widths and gutters are arbitrary sizes, you can't use one grid system for them all.
To create a different grid system for each design, there needs to be a common divisor between the widths - which is what the link provided by dr.squid does - but with widths such as 973, you'll struggle.