The Joomla!^® User Experience Portal

Recently, there have been discussions (and work by Kyle) around using Twitter Bootstrap in the next major version of Joomla.

twitter.github.com/bootstrap/

There are many different options out there in varying stages of development. I'd like to get a consensus on whether or not this is the right solution for Joomla.

A few popular alternatives are:


Skeleton: www.getskeleton.com/

HTML Kickstart: www.99lime.com/elements/

Boilerplate: html5boilerplate.com/

Foundation: foundation.zurb.com/

There's also the option of putting together the components used (e.g. LESS is a separate product) and adding them to Joomla. Most of these are full-featured, support mobile devices, and have scaffolding, etc.

Please tell us the following:

1. Do you use a framework? Is so what is it?

2. What are the top three things you look for/use in a framework?

3. Have you used any of the above frameworks? What was your experience?

4. Which frameworks do you recommend staying away from?

5. If you had to choose one framework for Joomla, what would it be?

Thank you very much for your feedback!

1. Do you use a framework? Is so what is it?
I hope you are asking if we use a CSS Framework
Yes, I do use a framework, I use Bootstrap from twitter, but I should even I'm experienced front end developer it is not the most simple thing to use, I had a better first contact with foundation than bootstrap.

2. What are the top three things you look for/use in a framework?
1 - Easy to use.
2 - Support
3 - Compatibility

3. Have you used any of the above frameworks? What was your experience?
Like I said before, I used foundation for a while, it was really nice, but I had to change to bootstrap because of a large adoption of it.

4. Which frameworks do you recommend staying away from?
I haven't used other so, I can't say much.

5. If you had to choose one framework for Joomla, what would it be?
Even that I like foundation more than bootstrap, I would say bootstrap, because of the large adoption...

I withdraw all my comments on this thread in protest at the censorship by Ron Severdia. I have seen the deleted comments as they are emailed to any one who is subscribed. They were perfectly valid points. Shame on you.

one web is also very interesting: internet-inspired.com/blog/css-and-html/one-web-template

I recently had the author build a very awesome set of highly responsive form elements for a pet project. You can preview it here:

forms.wisconsinrfu.org/incident-reports.html

It even nicely hides things like upload fields that would not be appropriate for iPhones for example or large file transfers from a weak cell tower.

lol

1. Do you use a framework? Is so what is it?

We are in the process of adopting Twitter Bootstrap as a basis for an updated template framework.

2. What are the top three things you look for/use in a framework?

1. Is it well developed
2. Is it well supported
3. Does it have continued development

3. Have you used any of the above frameworks? What was your experience?

Have used Skeleton, Boilerplate, and Bootstrap .... Experience with all has been good. The thing about Bootstrap that is most appealing is the creation of many tools aside from just a responsive grid layout. A grid system is a grid system - not much difference between any of them. It's the other tools / elements that are available in Bootstrap that make it most appealing.

4. Which frameworks do you recommend staying away from?

I don't recommend staying away from any of them, if the community should decide as a whole that a particular one is best, then so be it.

5. If you had to choose one framework for Joomla, what would it be?

Bootstrap, for the reasons mentioned above.

Having worked with it, and a couple other CSS grid frameworks, plus developing our own, Bootstrap is a pure joy to work with. It's well developed, well supported, and continues to have development (where it makes sense .. they don't just develop for the sake of developing).
It's a solid solution developed and supported by a solid team of developers, and would, imo, make a great foundation for Joomla.

Thanks for starting this discussion Ron

Personally, I see a few issues with Bootstrap. Primarily my concern is with it's size and usability; it's a toolkit, a very large and complicated one. It isn't really intended to be implemented en masse but rather to provide a selection of tools from which an experienced developer can select that best fitting the job at hand. Secondly, it wasn't intended to be just rolled out as is. Each of it's components are there to provide some default basic styling with the intention that it be customised. If that doesn't happen we simply add to the growing number of 'bootstrappy' clone sitres already in existence.

Is Joomla an awesome standalone CMS, or a platform for implementing bootstrappy sites?

Absolutely no disrespect to Kyle for getting the ball rolling with Bootstrap, but I personally would rather not see Joomla go Bootstrappy, I think it is strong enough to promote an image of it's own. Sure, there are many issues with Joomla's styling, but it is recognisably Joomla. I want it to remain recognisably Joomla.

1. I roll my own, taking what best fits the job from available toolkits if appropriate. This is the approach I would like to see Joomla take. We have some amazingly talented developers, more than enough skill to build a kick-ass toolkit of our own, one that intended to be Joomla from the start and best fits Joomla's requirements.
2. Standards, accessibility (in both senses of the word) and lightness of code.
3. Bootstrap and HTML5BP. I greatly prefer the latter.
4. Anything that includes code you will never use
5. I think we should roll our own. Let's not call it Joomstrap.

I withdraw all my comments on this thread in protest at the censorship by Ron Severdia. I have seen the deleted comments as they are emailed to any one who is subscribed. They were perfectly valid points. Shame on you.