Bootstrap is a popular web development framework that specialises in responsive web design. Its responsive CSS is highly effective at adjusting to smart phones, tablets, laptops and desktops.
Over the past few decades we’ve seen technology rapidly develop. The advancements of the internet and mobile devices are prime examples of this. No longer are people limited to sitting at their desks in front of a computer screen, they’re browsing the internet while on the move through their mobile smart phones. In our modern day world it should be obvious that a website needs to be multi-platform ready.
If your website is not optimised for mobiles and tablets, as well as a desktops, you could be missing out on a large chunk of your target demographic. Bootstrap is an ideal choice if you want your website to maximise it’s functionality and usability across all devices.
What is Bootstrap?
As one of the leading front-end development platforms, Bootstrap’s framework is ideal for responsive websites and web applications. It is unique in the sense that it prioritises the mobile site over the desktop site. This ethos fits in well with today’s world and the ever-growing use of mobile devices to browse the internet.
The Bootstrap framework utilises HTML, CSS and JavaScript effectively, making the platform fast and easy to use. It is exclusively a front-end development system and is designed to suit rookie and experienced developers. It’s flexible layout enables Bootstrap to be an ideal website framework for all types of projects, no matter the size of the website or the niche industry.
Bootstrap is an open-source platform providing a powerful tool for web development and a superb support team. It is hosted on GitHub and is the second most starred platform on the website.
Bootstrap History
Bootstrap, previously known as Twitter Blueprint, started as a framework developed originally for the popular social media company, Twitter. Mark Otto and Jacob Thornton created Twitter Blueprint to improve the consistency across Twitter’s internal tools. Before this, there were a lot of inconsistencies within their interface libraries and this was a pain to maintain.
During the development of Twitter Blueprint, they found it became a great way to share and document design patterns within the company. The potential was obvious and they renamed the tool Bootstrap. It was released as an open source project in 2011.
Otto, Thornton and a small development team still maintain the platform, with a growing community contributing to it through themes and templates.
Great for responsive websites
Whatever framework your website is built on it should have responsive technology. Your website needs to display correctly on a variety of different screens and it needs to be comfortable to swipe and tap.
The Bootstrap framework is designed to work well across all devices seamlessly and is compatible with all the major browsers: Safari, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.
Fluid layout
The Bootstrap platform includes a grid layout with 12 columns that automatically scale up or down depending on the device or screen size. It gives you different layout options, so that you can easily change the layout to suit your business. Bootstrap creates the layout through rows and columns that contain your content.
The responsive web design comes with a default width of 1170 pixels, but the developer can use a variable width layout. The toolkit gives you control over four different resolution settings: mobile phones (portrait and landscape), tablets, high resolution PCs and low resolution PCs.
Highly customisable technology
Bootstrap is fully customisable. The platform allows you to customise elements such as layout, colour, padding, typography, buttons, navigation, forms and other graphical elements. You can utilise various themes and templates that are available through the online community. These themes and templates enable you to tailor your website or even your admin dashboard. Bootstrap also includes hundreds of top quality graphic icons from the Glyphicon Halflings free of charge.
Through HTML elements and CSS components, Bootstrap gives you a huge amount of influence over the look, feel and layout of your website. It utilises JavaScript through its jQuery plugin, which helps to simplify your scripting of HTML. You can also make use of JavaScript extensions, giving you control over specific features, such as disabling the zooming capabilities on mobile devices.
The framework’s source code uses Less and Sass. Less and Sass are style sheets that can be interpreted into CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). With Bootstrap you can use the precompiled CSS or build on the source code.
If you would like us to take care of developing and designing your website with Bootstrap, get in touch.
Quick and simple to use
Bootstrap is designed to help you create websites faster and easier. It’s simple to set up and quick to design. A customisation wizard is included in Bootstrap, which generates a version of your website based on your requested settings and components, making it even faster to create and set up your website.
You do not need to be an expert in HTML and CSS to do the basics. It’s not complicated to change the layout type or to customise how your web site displays specifically on your phone or tablet.
A set of stylesheets are provided for all the main HTML elements, making it easier for you to format text and graphic elements. Through jQuery plugins Bootstrap utilises JavaScript to provide additional elements and functions, such as dialogue boxes, image sliders and auto-complete for input fields.
While Bootstrap is a good starting point for beginners, you’ll need a developer to handle the more advanced aspects of your design. If you want a more dynamic and innovative web design, we can help. Our developers will be able to customize your web site to the fine detail, making your site stand out from other Bootstrap sites. We can also customise your user interface giving you a tailor made dashboard for you to monitor and update your web site.
Bootstrap’s tech support
Bootstrap’s core developers are a strong team that understand the importance of backwards compatibility and consistency. Their updates will always remain highly compatible, similar to other popular platforms like WordPress and Magento. They are constantly resolving any cross browser issues and correcting any specific device issues. With each major version release they address issues and consider functionality throughout all aspects of their platform.
Bootstrap is a framework service with a vision to make design and development more simple and efficient. If you let them know of an issue or suggest a feature through their issue tracker, they will look into to it right away and take it on board.
Bootstrap: A solid choice for your website
If you want a website that is fully responsive, has up-to-date technology and is set to stay up-to-date then Bootstrap is a solid choice. We can design you a stylish bespoke website using the Bootstrap framework and you will be set going forward.
You can contact us here to discuss the right package for you. You can also find out more about our other content management systems here.
