What is Bootstrap?

Question

There are a lot of questions here related to Bootstrap. I see a lot of people using it. So I tried to research it, and I found the official Bootstrap site, but there was onl

Answer 1

Bootstrap is an HTML, CSS, JS framework with many components that let you create beautiful and modern web sites or web applications very fast.

The following websites contain examples, elements and reusable components that you can integrate into your project using bootstrap framework

bootsnipp.com

startbootstrap.com

bootdey.com

Answer 2

Bootstrap, as I know it, is a well defined CSS. Although using Bootstrap you could also use JavaScript, jQuery etc. But the main difference is that, using Bootstrap you can just call the class name and then you get the output on the HTML form. for eg. coloring of buttons shaping of text, using layouts. For all this you do not have to write a CSS file rather you just have to use the correct class name for shaping your HTML form.

Answer 3

It is an HTML, CSS, and JavaScript open-source framework (initially created by Twitter) that you can use as a basis for creating web sites or web applications.

• More information and links to download

• Getting started

• Examples

• Themes

• Bootply - Bootstrap Editor and Builder

Update

The official bootstrap website is updated and includes a clear definition.

"Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web."

"Designed and built with all the love in the world by @mdo and @fat."

Answer 4

Disclaimer: I have used bootstrap in the past, but I never really appreciated what it actually is before, this description comes from me coming to my own definition, today. And I know that bootstrap v4 is out, but I found the bootstrap v3 documentation to be much clearer, so I used that. The library is not going to fundamentally change what it provides.

Briefly

Bootstrap is a collection of CSS and javascript files that provides some nice-looking default styling for standard html elements, and a few common web content objects that are not standard html elements.

To make an analogy, it's kind of like applying a theme in powerpoint, but for your website: it makes things look pretty nice without too much initial effort.

What does it consist of?

The official v3 documentation breaks it up into three sections:

• CSS
• Components
• Javascript

These roughly correspond to the three main things that Bootstrap provides:

• Plain CSS files that style standard html elements. So, Bootstrap makes your standard elements pretty-looking. e.g. html: <input class="btn btn-default" type="button" value="Input">Click me</button>
• CSS files that use styling on standard html elements to make them into something that is not a standard html element but is a standard Bootstrap element (e.g. https://getbootstrap.com/docs/3.3/components/#progress). In this way Bootstrap extends the list of "standard" web elements in a visually consistent way. e.g. html: <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-align-left"></span>
• The CSS classes are designed with jQuery in mind. Internally, Bootstrap uses jQuery selectors to modify the styles on the fly and interact with the DOM, and thus provides the user the same capability. I believe this requires more explanation, so...

Using Javascript/jQuery

Bootstrap extends jQuery quite a bit. If we look at the source code, we can see that it uses jQuery to do things like: set up listeners for keydown event to interact with dropdowns. It does all of this jQuery setup when you import it in your <script> tag, so you need to make sure jQuery is loaded before Bootstrap is.

Additionally, it ties the javascript to the DOM more tightly than plain jQuery, providing a javascript class interface. e.g. toggle a button programmatically. Remember that CSS just defines how a thing looks, so the major job of these operations will tend to be to modify which CSS classes apply to the element at that moment in time. This kind of change, based on user input, can't be done with plain CSS.

There are other standard interactions with a user that we denizens of the internet are used to that are not covered by CSS. Like, clicking a link that scrolls you down a page instead of changing pages. One of the things that Bootstrap gives you is an easy way to implement this behaviour on your own website.

Standards

I have mentioned the word "standard" a lot here, and for good reason. I think the best thing that Bootstrap provides is a set of good-looking standards. You're free to modify the default theme as much as you want, but it's a better baseline than raw html, css and js. And this is why it's called "framework".

Different web browsers have different default styles and can act differently, and need different CSS prefixes and things like that. A major benefit of Bootstrap is that it is much more reliable than writing all that cross-browser stuff yourself (you will still have problems, I'm sure, but it's easier).

I think that Bootstrap was preferred more when gulp and babel weren't as popular. Looking at Bootstrap it seems to come from a time before everyone compiled their javascript. It's still relevant, but you can get some of the benefits from other sources now.

_{More recent versions of CSS have allowed you to define transitions between these static lists as they change. The original version of Bootstrap actually predates wide-spread adoption of this capability in browsers, so they still have their own animation classes. There are a few bits of Bootstrap that are like this: that other stuff has come up around it and makes it look a bit redundant.}

Answer 5

In simpler words, you can understand Bootstrap as a front-end web framework that was created by Twitter for faster creation of device responsive web applications. Bootstrap can also be understood mostly as a collection of CSS classes that are defined in it which can simply be used directly. It makes use of CSS, javascript, jQuery etc. in the background to create the style, effects, and actions for Bootstrap elements.

You might know that we use CSS for styling webpage elements and create classes and assign classes to webpage elements to apply the style to them. Bootstrap here makes the designing simpler since we only have to include Bootstrap files and mention Bootstrap's predefined class names for our webpage elements and they will be styled automatically through Bootstrap. Through this, we get rid of writing our own CSS classes to style webpage elements. Most importantly Bootstrap is designed in such a way that makes your website device responsive and that is the main purpose of it. Other alternates for Bootstrap could be - Foundation, Materialize etc. frameworks.

Bootstrap makes you free from writing lots of CSS code and it also saves your time that you spend on designing the web pages.

Answer 6

By today's standards and web terminology, I'd say Bootstrap is actually not a framework, although that's what their website claims. Most developers consider Angular, Vue and React frameworks, while Bootstrap is commonly referred to as a "library".

But, to be exact and correct, Bootstrap is an open-source, mobile-first collection of CSS, JavaScript and HTML design utilities aimed at providing means to develop commonly used web elements considerably faster (and smarter) than having to code them from scratch.

A few core principles which contributed to Bootstrap's success:

• it's reusable
• it's flexible (i.e: allows custom grid systems, changing responsiveness breakpoints, column gutter sizes or state colors with ease; as a rule of thumb, most settings are controlled by global variables)
• it's intuitive
• it's modular (both JavaScript and (S)CSS use a modular approach; one can easily find tutorials on making custom Bootstrap builds, to include only the parts they need)
• has above average cross-browser compatibility
• web accessibility out of the box (screenreader ready)
• it's fairly well documented

It contains design templates and functionality for: layout, typography, forms, navigation, menus (including dropdowns), buttons, panels, badges, modals, alerts, tabs, collapsible, accordions, carousels, lists, tables, pagination, media utilities (including embeds, images and image replacement), responsiveness utilities, color-based utilities (primary, secondary, danger, warning, info, light, dark, muted, white), other utilities (position, margin, padding, sizing, spacing, alignment, visibility), scrollspy, affix, tooltips, popovers.

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By default it relies on jQuery, but you'll find jQuery free variants powered by each of the modern popular progressive JavaScript frameworks:

• React-Bootstrap - React powered Bootstrap
• BootrapVue - Vue powered Bootstrap
• ng-bootstrap - Angular powered Bootstrap

Working with Bootstrap relies heavily on applying certain classes (or, depending on JS framework: directives, methods or attributes/props) and on using particular markup structures.

Documentation typically contains generic examples which can be easily copy-pasted and used as starter templates.

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Another advantage of developing with Bootstrap is its vibrant community, translated into an abundance of themes, templates and plugins available for it, most of which are open-source (i.e: calendars, date/time-pickers, plugins for tabular content management, as well as libraries/component collections built on top of Bootstrap, such as MDB, portfolio templates, admin templates, etc...)

Last, but not least, Bootstrap has been well maintained over the years, which makes it a solid choice for production-ready applications/websites.