Bootstrap 2.1 released
blog.getbootstrap.com
blog.getbootstrap.com
Couple thoughts:
Maybe its just me but I think the docs site a huge step backwards in usability. The dark blue <-> red graphics offset by the blue of their primary buttons is a little...gross. I am also not at all a fan of the left hand navigation panel, I get that they are trying to show off the affix component but I'd rather have the content be full width as its all I am really there for. I found the sliding top sub navbar far less obtrusive and easier to navigate. Also: so white is the default for the navbar but the demo site is still using black?
Like you, I still appreciate the new functionality and continued development.
EDIT: Went back and the styling of the docs changed again (was I hitting a cached page?). The subtopic navigation is back and on the left now. Still takes a while to scroll but it's an improvement.
Edit: Also, the side nav came first, then the affix plugin. Originally I was proposing a fixed, independently-scrolling left sidebar, which we may still get to, but it felt decidedly un-Bootstrap-like for the time being.
For example skimming through the table css options, you see a lot less on one screen.
2.1 seems solid though, invaluable tool at my job.
It make me close it in 10s and I use TB in 2 of my projects and I love it, but that layout is simple terrible for people with smaller than 20" screens... please provide us another site with more reading area and minus menu.
Anyway thanks a lot for this, I love TB it's great and you guys are my heroes :D
Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/pSDOo
+--------+
| parent |
| +--------+
| /|submenu |
| / | |
|=====/==| |
|=====\==| |
| \ | |
+------ \| |
+--------+
Also, if in the parent there's another menu item with submenu somewhere on the path of mouse inside this triangle, ignore this item.
For best results, if mouse was inside the submenu for a moment, keep the submenu open until clicking away from it or moving over a different item in the parent menu. So many details!
Just requires a timeout for the onmouseover event. jQuery's hover intent would work wonders.
Basically show the submenu onmouseover of parent and if no mouseover is detected on the submenu within 400ms => hide the submenu.
It gives the user a slight bit of time to move the mouse to the submenu rather than relying on perfect mouse movements.
In addition, given how Twitter's bootstrap's look & feel is starting to influence web design at large, I wonder if there is a case for other large web-players to make their own css framework to impact the look and feel of sites to their favor. Think of it as disguised propaganda.
Either way, huge prop for the awesome work! The new doc is simply excellent and the whole framework is just remarkable, particularly if one considers how far you guys have pushed it in less than a year.
If the most common use case involves many quick jumps across the page hierarchy, fixed header can be a good fit (though an affixed side-nav might be better for wide screens). But if the most common case is drilling down to a specific page and spending a little time there, then fixed headers just create noise and get in the way.
tl;dr on your average blog I agree, but in a web app I don't.
Why LESS?
One of Bootstrap's creators wrote a quick blog post [2] about this, summarized here:
- Bootstrap compiles faster ~6x faster with Less compared to Sass
- Less is written in JavaScript, making it easier to us to dive in and patch compared to Ruby with Sass.
- Less is more; we want to feel like we're writing CSS and making Bootstrap approachable to all.
I'm in the optional semi-colons camp, and it is a bug in the minifier :)
How can that possibly be not obvious?
It's inconceivable we are having this discussion on HN.
It's not so much about cost but about polluting the Google index with obsolete information. For example, look up a Java API and it's very likely that the first link you will get will point to Java 5. Google is not wrong, that API link is most likely the most linked to, but it's very often not the one you are looking for and certainly not the one that the author of the API wants you to find first.
Probably relatedly, some/much of the docs rely on javascript, so they won't run unless you're running through a server. Instead of forcing everyone who wants or needs to see an older version of bootstrap docs to wrangle this non-working stuff in to a server and configure that, massive amounts of time would saved by simply having versioned docs online.
EDIT: the short answers is not to open the index.html file but any of the other .html files (examples, etc) and you should be able to at least navigate around some.
EDIT2: At least some of the javascript stuff is working without loading from a server - not sure why yet, but it's working. The index page still needs to be fixed.
I'm not sure what you're talking about with the JavaScript. JavaScript runs on the client, not the server. Twitter hosts these docs on Github Pages already... static files, no server-side code.
I know where JS runs. I was conflating embedded javascript references as <script src="http....> style javascript. Typically when I am doing JS, the JS is marked up as being served from a domain - an initial assumption would be that it would be trying to pull the js from a server, but it's not (or not caring, or my stuff is cached).
I still side with the others who want/expect hosted and versioned docs from a project of this size/influence.
Edit: the point being that we can point links at pages from previous commits, branches, and tags Shouldn't this help?
[1] that URL was slightly bastardized but I'm sure someone could very quickly whip this up
The latest version of bootstrap only just got released. I think a majority of users will still find the old docs relevant, even weeks later.
Yes, I realise I can still download the docs. But it's more convenient for some people to have it hosted online.
Yes, sometimes people need to be reminded of basic common sense. I do feel entitled to that.
First, it means you can navigate to it by googling "bootstrap 2.0 documentation". If you are using five JavaScript libraries, it can be annoying to have to find the folder for documentation for each library.
Also, you might not even have the documentation locally. Another developer might have set things up and they might not have checked the documentation into version control.
While it would be great if everyone could just magically upgrade, if you've spent a lot of time wrangling some content management system to the "old" bootstrap, you're more likely better off fixing bugs in that site, than upgrading and hoping nothing breaks.
If it's supposed to be used as a framework, I'd say it's common courtesy to provide the old documentation for at least a short period. It's not that hard, see eg:
BTW, I found almost all Bootstrap-powered websites I visited uses sticky top navigation, which wastes considerable amount of my precious vertical screen estate.
Another wide-screen wasting example is the new Gmail and Google Groups - and what's even worse is that they force you to use the new UI.
I find sticky top navigation is annoying and nothing else, I just don't get it, aren't many people using width screens nowadays? Or is it just me?
Maybe Bootstrap's nav should be non-sticky by default?
If the team making it reads this, thank you. I owe you many beers for what you've given us.
Thank you for handing out coloring papers to the devs. Seriously, this will make the entire web 10% more unique.
That aside, thanks for creating this. Bootstrap makes prototyping a pleasure.
i.icon-blend { opacity:0.8; }