Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Bootstrap Designs?

If you want to make the most of your web design, then it’s time to hop on the Bootstrap bandwagon. With Bootstrap you can search for content blocks from all kinds of categories to create stunning web pages you are proud of. Every professional website needs intuitive design blocks to list business details, display visuals, post about events, or showcase products. 

From header to footer, you can implement these responsive blocks for both your own and your client’s websites. With beautiful WYSIWYG Design Blocks that allow drag and drop templates, or some light code editing, you get a fully-functional website in no time. 

There are also many themes available in the Bootstrap library:

• Blogging
• Ecommerce 
• Software
• Real estate
• Restaurant
• Education
• Startup

Let’s go over what makes this open-source library one of the best picks for innovative front-end development. 

Why is Bootstrap an excellent framework for developing mobile sites? 

It isn’t surprising that Bootstrap is a favorite among front-end developers who work on a variety of dynamic web applications. This is because it follows a mobile-first concept where standalone themes are backed by powerful tools and abundant features. Custom templates empower developers to build open-source libraries that automate content uploading, by packing it into neatly organized blocks. 

It’s safe to say that even someone with a basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can set up a picture-perfect site within minutes. Bootstrap is aware of what device the user is browsing on – it quickly adapts to the screen size but does not require you prepare multiple layouts in advance. Instead, it positions elements onto a grid-based format. 

Bootstrap layouts are a step up from classic HTML/CSS block editing tools. They scale media content scaled to relative units, preventing them from cutting outside your page bounds. As an added benefit, Bootstrap resolves the issue of media queries by taking CSS styles and only including them when they meet the right conditions. 

A Bootstrap framework gets rid of repetitive code with reusable snippets that provide you with pre-built layouts that follow mobile design best practices. By pairing graphic design with web coding, Bootstrap saves you time and effort testing to see how well your site performs. In other words, there are a lot of key factors attributed to Bootstrap’s success as a web dev shortcut. 

Bootstrap outperforms traditional frameworks in several ways: It not only preserves a consistent environment but also ensures your code is reusable on other markups. For this reason, it is easy to implement on a CMS like WordPress or Magento. 

What are some good practices for developing faster on Bootstrap?

Many web devs try to shave seconds off their development process in order to deliver a quality product more quickly. Although you’re probably well-versed in many Bootstrap resources, you still need to understand how components should be pieced together, especially when adding to long stylesheets or while refactoring to remove duplicate lines of code. 

Handy tips and tricks for updating your source code 

1. Learn the ins and outs of class names and when to use them. These use cases will become a valuable asset as you work alongside existing components. 
2. Be careful handling the UI design. Stick to the style guide for building navigation tools. Otherwise, you can break pages just by introducing new CSS. 
3. Avoid tampering with the core files in Bootstrap. Instead, expand on the library by configuring your mockup through plugins, custom elements, or override styling. 
4. Debugging is a time-consuming issue to tackle. You have to discover how your layouts are organized before you can add new classes. Inspect elements to get their position on different browsers.
5. Take advantage of the resources available to you. A few code snippets are great substitutes for basic content blocks with the same functions. If you ever want inspiration, extensions, theme files, and templates are where it’s really at. 

Even though Bootstrap seems simple on the surface, it does have a huge collection of HTML, CSS, and JS examples that can overwhelm less experienced developers. But, as long as you research the default models, they will serve you well when you transform templates into top-notch websites that impress your clients. 

Which Bootstrap layouts are the most common?

As a front-end developer, you’re expected to be familiar with HTML5 and CSS–languages that represent the backbone of responsive design. Moreover, you should have a thorough understanding of UI components and their default configurations. 

These include things like dropdowns, accordions, tables, contact forms, and navigation buttons. While it’s fine to incorporate these elements, try to put your own spin on the actual design instead of copying from defaults. Search for theme showcases built with Bootstrap to get an idea of what constitutes a professional business site. 

Bootstrap is filled with tons of layouts: You can have a flexible grid system, draggable containers, carousels, card decks, collapsable menus, custom typography, and much more. When arranged in a consistent style, they leave a positive impression on visitors, convincing them to progress to another page. 

Say you are creating a landing page. Think about what will make it most engaging to the viewer. Maybe you need a photo and description to introduce your company. Or perhaps you need a set of icons for the features block for skimmable content. You can also include a call to action to encourage the final decision to purchase. 

At the end of the day, content block libraries are a valuable asset in any web designer’s toolkit. They save you precious development time with code-ready templates. One of the best Bootstrap content block libraries is Froala design blocks, a series of simple snippets extracted from the Bootstrap Library.

Froala currently supports these basic layouts: 

• Call to action
• Contacts
• Contents
• Features
• Footers
• Forms
• Headers
• Pricings
• Teams
• Testimonials

The best part is, they are open-source or practically free to download. See the preview in action here.