I'm trying to get as much feedback from developers who use UI kit on daily basis and I thought that HN would be a great place to do so.
So, what are the biggest pains when it comes to using such tools in your work?
Thank you in advance for any help.
- How do you manage the updates in your ui-kit if base framework is changed [bootstrap, foundation, jquery, other plugins.]
- Modularity: If i need only a few components i should have the option to include only those and not any unnecessary bloat.
- Availability as package [npm etc.]
- Example apps and landing pages. Some UI kits give email ui, todo list ui etc.
- The kit should be lightweight + clean css [sass/less] + clean html.
- Browser compatibility.
- Easy customization.
If you are looking to develop something collaboratively I would be willing to participate.
I hope this helps you.
- Modularity: If i need only a few components i should have the option to include only those and not any unnecessary bloat. - Check
- Availability as package [npm etc.] - Check
- Example apps and landing pages. Some UI kits give email ui, todo list ui etc. - Check, but this will surely be introduced later
- The kit should be lightweight + clean css [sass/less] + clean html. - Check
- Browser compatibility. - Still to be tested, but works fine on most browsers
- Easy customization. - Check
Yes people do want to collaborate on things like this. I'd also like collaboration on a page/email builder, so all of us mugs building SaaS can include something well tested and not reinvent the same software (again).
Good work!
It's such a pain to have to fork a UI library or include the source code into my build pipeline just to make a small change.
One of the easiest and most helpful techniques for library authors to do this in JS is to make your public methods optionally accept functions that resolve to whatever data type you are expecting.
if(typeof arg == "function") { arg = arg(); }
Ideally, I'd like to be able to include the modules and see no immediate effect — completely opt-in. I could first opt-in to the basic styling via a class on the body tag. Then I could opt-in to other components via classes and specific structures. Namespacing the CSS classes would be great, too, so there's little chance of colliding with my custom CSS [first-party, first-class] classes [that I shouldn't have to namespace].
The web UI kit I'm using now that comes closest to this ideal for me is https://getuikit.com/.
On the other hand, I've tried somewhat- or very-opinionated UI kits and if there was something I didn't like or want to use, I had to find a way to opt-out, which was always ugly and not sustainable.
Additionally, this helps semantics and readability, and helps keep things scoped. What if I want to use your UI kit in a subsection of my document but not the whole thing?
To me, that is the holy grail of UI kits.
I've asked the same question on some of the other forums and was surprised how people want to help each other with such project. Seems like it's the same case here.
I do not have anything to show to the public yet, but I've prepared a waiting list for all the people who would like to see the final effect - https://www.nespero.com/ Please, feel invited to join. Thank you!
Also, I'm curious to see how you are applying the MFD to web. I'd be interested to see that.
This two questions really made me think about those two crucial parts. I'll surely let the users know about those with the first release. Thank you.
As for the MFD - I'm following the Microsoft guidelines all the way in hope to keep it a faithful re-creation, but simplified.
It looks good (even if people think material is outdated) and is broken out into components. It does most everything we need and is based on Bootstrap.