Introduction to Bootstrap Framework

An introduction

 Originally named as Twitter Bootstrap, is one of the most popular projects on GitHub of all time. It is an open source framework for front end web designing. In simple words, it is a prepared software framework that is created to make the designing friendly and more standard-compliant using HTML, CSS, SASS and JavaScript and is free to use. Mark Otto and Jacob Thornton were the creators of Bootstrap at Twitter.

Unlike many frameworks, it is not just a simple library of predefined elements and styles but is a framework that provides a structure. It includes predefined classes and powerful mixing for generating the minor layouts. It includes a responsive, mobile first fluid grid system that appropriately scales up to 12 columns as the device or viewport size increases.

But Bootstrap also have its own limitations and cons .Here is some of the main advantages and disadvantages of Bootstrap which will help you to decide whether use or not use Bootstrap in your projects.

 Let’s start with the advantages:

Compatibility with all the latest Browsers: No matter it is mobile or desktop browser, Bootstrap works in all the latest browsers, while the display might differ in old browsers.

Friendly customization: Bootstrap can be customized easily and with fewer efforts as it provides web based customization.

Mobile first attitude: Since Bootstrap version 3.0, it has been mobile first and thus it is a need of time when mobile internet users have outnumbered the desktop users. 

Fortifies Sass usage :  Bootstrap is written in Sass that provides it, a lot of flexibility. Also, the Sass users will surely get an edge. 

Important jQuery plugins supported: Bootstrap has lots of useful jQuery plugins that are useful in many situations and work best if not customized.

Some disadvantages:

Hard to customize jQuery plugins: The quality of the jQuery plugins is not good and is often hard to customize.

Bootstrap websites are similar: Bootstrap websites looks pretty much similar but it can be avoided by creating custom theme or a self-developed theme.

Hope you have now developed a rough sketch of Bootstrap in your mind. Now we will proceed for the Environment Setup in this Bootstrap tutorial.

It is very easy to setup and download Bootstrap as it weighs only few MBs. Just open the official website of Bootstrap; where you will get the latest version of Bootstrap.

Now after hitting the button download you can see three options that are as follows

Download Bootstrap

This will download you the pre-compiled and minified version of Bootstrap CSS, JavaScript, and fonts without original source code and documentation. This is a standard download go for it if you are new to Bootstrap.

Download Source

This will download you the Bootstrap Sass and JavaScript source code directly from GitHub. Actually it is the precompiled CSS, JavaScript, and font assets, along with source Less, JavaScript, and documentation.

Sass

Bootstrap has been now ported from Less to Sass. It eases its inclusion in Ruby on Rails, Compass, or Sass-only projects. It’s ready to drop right into your Sass powered applications.

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