Bootstrap - An Open Source Framework!

If you are a business-monger and have a web presence, you will need to create a larger and more dynamic consumer base, and responsive mobilization holds the key to your unrestrained success. Twitter Bootstrap is the most effective open source, front-end framework that drives development of astounding responsive websites faster and easier. It has easy recourse to Vanilla CSS, Sass and Less, and together with JavaScript and font-files, Bootstrap can scale your website in a responsive manner, making it suitable for being viewed on mobiles and tablets.

The Prerequisites

Before you start off with the implementation Bootstrap, ensure that you have downloaded Twitter Bootstrap 3 and a jQuery-JavaScript library. Now keep these files in a folder 'bootstrap3' and create a sub-folder called 'Includes'; create two more sub-folders inside and name them 'bootstrap' and 'jquery'. Place the downloaded Bootstrap 3 into 'bootstrap' folder and the jQuery-JavaScript library into 'jquery' folder. Now, create a CSS file (style.css) within the 'includes' folder. Finally, create a blank index.html file within the folder 'bootstrap3'.

Create A Responsive HTML Document

Now, set-up the index.html document containing the required files and myriad appropriate meta-tags. This shall create bootstrap CSS files and the required bootstrap JavaScript-jQuery plugins.

A browser loads contents in a top-down approach, hence it is important to save the JavaScript files towards the end, so that it loads the last, even after the CSS has loaded! This ensures better web viewing experience.

It is important to set a proper character encoding, so as to prevent issues pertaining to texts displayed, first. Then, you need to code aptly so that the mobile or tab gauges and understands how to display a web-page!

Creating Header and Navigation Bar With BootStrap

Twitter Bootstrap 3 comes with predefined CSS classes that help in creation of Navigation menus and bars. In the code, you must use HTML5 tags for header and navigation tags. A navbar-toggle class is present that helps to toggle a menu, thus saving space! Moreover, there is a container class that wraps the holistic header content is resized with accordance to the variable widths obtained through the queries, based on the detected viewport sizes.

Coding the container class in apt ways helps in adding banners to the web-templates, quite easily.

Generating Responsive Content Areas Using Bootstrap

Twitter Bootstrap deftly uses a 12-column-grid system, allowing the developer to create a wide gamut of responsive grids and column-designs. The Container class keeps contents inline.

Screens are created using 'md-medium for narrower desktops';'sm-small for tablets'; 'xs-extra small for phones'; 'lg-large for desktops larger than 1200px' grid options.

Stacked navigation menus can be produced using nav, nav-pills and nav-stacked classes.

Using this grid system, responsive three-sectioned footers can be added to the template.

You can also add your own style or theme to the style.css file and use it to generate stunning responsive designs using Twitter Bootstrap.