What Is Bootstrap? How to Use Bootstrap

If you have ever designed a website or used any web design serviceplatforms, you have surely heard the term "Bootstrap" more than once. And for an expert in software design or web design, Bootstrap is a very familiar word. When a developer says they will build your website on "Bootstrap technology", you may still not picture what that means, or how it works and how to use it. So let's find out what Bootstrap is and how to use it Bootstrap in the article below from us.

What is Bootstrap?

Put simply, Bootstrap is the HTML, CSS and JavaScript framework most widely used to build responsive, mobile-first websites. If you want to have a a fully responsive websitethat works in every browser and on mobile devices, this technology is certainly an ideal ingredient not to be missed.

Bootstrap includes ready-made CSS + HTML code for typography, grids, forms, tables, buttons, navigation and many other components, all gathered in one website. This saves designers from repeatedly writing the same CSS classes and HTML snippets when building a website. It may sound odd, but the styling of Bootstrap's HTML elements is quite elegant and simple. Examples include shadows on inputs, CSS for warning messages, highlighted table rows, tabs, pagination and more.

• You may also be interested in: Top 5 most used front-end frameworks

Why use Bootstrap?

With technology advancing so fast, there are now many website design tools giving users more choice. Even so, Bootstrap still holds the upper hand and its own place thanks to these strengths:

Easy to use

Bootstrap works in line with the trend of open-source platforms HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Users need basic knowledge of these three languages to use Bootstrap well. The code is fairly simple and easy to change and customize.

Easy to customize

Because it is built from open-source code, Bootstrap is highly flexible. This is an advantage, since users can easily change properties and elements to suit their needs. The Bootstrap CDN also saves some space, because you don't have to download the source code to your computer.

High-quality output

Bootstrap has been researched and tested on many kinds of devices, and it is the "pet project" of some of the world's top programmers. Choosing Bootstrap for your website design is a sound decision, because you are using a good tool to build high-quality products.

High compatibility

Another plus for Bootstrap is its high compatibility with every browser platform. Thanks to the Less and Sass preprocessors and the Grid System, Bootstrap supports responsive design by default. It also puts mobile first, which any user will appreciate given how the phone has become an inseparable companion for people around the world.

Bootstrap also has some smart features, such as automatically adjusting the website's display size to the browser window. This suits laptop screens, desktops and even tablets.

What is Bootstrap's structure and what features does it have?

Bootstrap contains JavaScript, CSS and fonts font files that have been compiled and compressed. It is also designed as modules, so it integrates easily with most open-source platforms such as WordPress, Joomla, Magento and others. Bootstrap brings many outstanding functions.

• Bootstrap gives users access to a huge library of the building blocks of a complete website interface, such as fonts, forms, typography, tables, grids and more.
• Bootstrap also lets you customize the framework before downloading it to fit your needs, and use it on the framework's site
• You can reuse components that repeat across the website
• Bootstrap integrates with jQuery to form a perfect pair. You just need to declare the right features while designing your website.
• Defining glyphicons reduces the use of images as icons and helps pages speeding up page loads load faster.

The 3 main Bootstrap files

Bootstrap brings together syntax for specific functions, which only appears when the framework includes different file types. These are the 3 main files that manage the site's functions and the user interface.

Bootstrap.css

CSS functions are not limited to text styles. They can also format other parts of a web page, such as tables and image layouts.

CSS has many declarations and selectors, and remembering them all can take a while.

Bootstrap.css is a CSS framework that manages and arranges a web page's layout. HTML handles the content and structure of the site, so both need to exist together to carry out a given action.

CSS lets you create a consistent look across as many web pages as you like. You can say goodbye to sitting for hours adjusting something like border width by hand.

With CSS, all you need to do is point your web pages to the CSS file, and any change you need can be made in that file alone.

Bootstrap.js

This file is the core of Bootstrap. It holds the JavaScript files responsible for the site's interactivity. To cut the time spent writing JavaScript over and over, developers came up with jQuery. jQuery is a popular, open-source, cross-platform JavaScript library that lets you add all kinds of functions to a web page as needed. Some typical examples of what jQuery can do:

• Run Ajax requests flexibly, such as pulling data from another location
• Use a collection of JavaScript plugins to build utilities
• Create custom animations with CSS properties
• Make website content more dynamic.

In practice, Bootstrap's CSS properties and HTML elements work fine on their own. But it still needs jQuery to build a responsive design. Without it, you can only use the static parts of the CSS.

Glyphicons

Some icons can be restyled with CSS, while others keep their default look. Choose the icons you think fit your website best.

On a web interface, icons always play an essential role. They are usually linked to specific data and actions in the user interface. Bootstrap uses Glyphicons to meet that need.

Bootstrap includes the Halflings set of Glyphicons, unlocked and free to use. The free version looks standard but is limited to a few essential functions.

If you want more stylish icons, Glyphicons also sells different premium sets, which of course look much better on a given website.

You can also download individual icons by theme for free from other sites such as Flaticon, Icons8 and GlyphSearch.

How to use Bootstrap

The Bootstrap home page is at: getbootstrap.com and the version used in Vietnam is at: getbootstrap.com.vn

Most reviews say Bootstrap 3 is the stable version, and the beta version is called Bootstrap 4. You can read more at: v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com

There are 2 ways to start using Bootstrap quickly: download it or use it through a CDN

Download: Click to download Bootstrap 3 at: bootstrap-3.1.1.zip and Bootstrap 4 at: bootstrap-4.0.0.zip

After unzipping, you will see 3 folders, css, fonts and js, as in the picture above. Bootstrap 4 has only 2 folders, css and js

Inside each folder you will see the files shown above. To use them, you need to include these files in your HTML.

Basic template

The template above is a basic one that already includes files such as bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap.min.js and the jQuery library.

Note: To use Bootstrap's JavaScript library, you must include jQuery first and place it above Bootstrap's JS. Also, if you use relative paths, check that they are correct.

Use it through a CDN.

This way is easier, because you don't download Bootstrap at all. You just include it through BootstrapCDN.

<!– Latest compiled and minified CSS –> <link rel=”stylesheet” href=”//netdna.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.1.1/css/bootstrap.min.css”> <!– Optional theme –> <link rel=”stylesheet” href=”//netdna.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.1.1/css/bootstrap-theme.min.css”> <!– Latest compiled and minified JavaScript –> <script src=”//netdna.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.1.1/js/bootstrap.min.js”></script>

A CDN has more advantages than downloading and including the files as in the first method. The biggest one is that if a site you visited earlier used the same CDN, your page won't need to load those files again, which also makes your website load faster.

It works the same way for Bootstrap 4.

Conclusion

Bootstrap is a free front-end framework, so it is popular and widely used among front-end developers. Programmers can save a great deal of time by not writing code by hand.

This framework is also quite flexible and meets almost every front-end web development need. If you are a developer, especially a front-end one, or simply exploring web design and programming, now is the perfect time to add to your knowledge of Bootstrap through what this article has shared above.