Using Bootstrap the Semantic Way

http://www.ostraining.com/blog/coding/bootstrap-right-way/

by harishchouhan • 12 years ago

83 69 12 years ago

bliker• 12 years ago

I think this would be more semantic (with or without the classes)

     <section>
          <main> </main>
          <aside> </aside>
     <section>

alxprc• 12 years ago

Sure, but what if you have more than another section that should be styled differently? Classes can help differentiate same-name elements with different contexts, so you don't need unwieldy structure-specific CSS selectors like

  main > section > main

just

  main.semantic-class

mradmin2• 12 years ago

You'll also get major specificity issues when using element selectors with other class/id type selectors. My rule of thumb is classes and only classes for styling, it really makes life a lot easier. (Even if you have a unique element on the page, don't use the ID in your selector to style it.)

    <section class="body">
        <main class="content"></main>
        <aside class="sidebar"></aside>
    </section>

mcgwiz3• 12 years ago

Agree that structure-specific CSS is unwieldy. However, it's robustness is still a worthy benefit. If you use a white-space sensitive CSS preprocessor, it is not unwieldy, and actually quite maintainable and elegant, since it's structure reflects nicely-formatted HTML. E.g.

  main
    > section
      > main
        text-decoration blink

Thus, things that are easy to change in HTML structure (cutting, pasting, and changing indentation) are similarly easy to change in CSS.

woah4• 12 years ago

This deeply nested descendent selector stuff is a terrible idea. It's the css equivalent of jquery dom traversal spaghetti. Don't overthink things. Css should be good enough, and no better.

camus2• 12 years ago

The point of using bootstrap is a reusable set of classes. I really dont care wether class names are semantic or not,it doesnt change anything,except for pedantic people looking at your source code.

SEO doesnt care , users dont care, accessibility doesnt care either. Using new HTML5 tags is good enough and was designed for that specific purpose. If i want semantics I use nav,aside,section instead of div,and so on.

Not going to waste my time and wrap bootstrap mixins in more LESS mixins and loose theme portability and modularity,because semantics...

It's like inobstrusive javascript, trends that make little sense today in the webapp era.

kh_hk4• 12 years ago

You will start caring the day you want to update to Bootstrap 9000 and need to change the class names of all the properties that have changed. A counterargument could be that one could stick with the version already deployed, and that's fine too I guess.

For me it's about being in control of the situation. I will find myself changing things just for them to look as they are supposed to look like, and soon realizing that is not CSS anymore, just another framework being in between and making the work sometimes easier and sometimes harder. Using LESS at least gives you a bit more of control on the hidden spots, and opens room for sane customization.

I do personally prefer to not use a CSS framework at all, but if Bootstrap is a requisite on a project, using LESS is a no brainer.

dsego2• 12 years ago

Bootstrap already depends on the markup structure, which makes your point moot.

hugofirth3• 12 years ago

Couldn't disagree more with your statement. What if you have a sidebar that appears 20+ times throughout your application in different contexts. You might decide it is too wide. Are you going to go through all your templates and change class="col-md-blah" or are you going to change one mixin?

Also, if you are providing a theme, I don't see how you lose portability. Your mixins will be relying on base bootstrap anyway?

Touche4• 12 years ago

This is what is great about decorators (the most awesome part of Web Components that probably will never be implemented):

http://www.w3.org/TR/components-intro/#decorator-section

ryanbrunner3• 12 years ago

For pretty much anything anyone could describe as a "web application" if you have the HTML for your sidebar copied around 20+ pages instead of stored in a common template somewhere, you have bigger problems than whether your HTML is semantic.

jey2• 12 years ago

This sounds exactly like the complaints lodged against structured programming[1] by traditional GOTO-based programmers.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_programming

allendoerfer2• 12 years ago

Except, that the idea of semantic web is the traditional approach, whereas composable cross-browser classes controlled with LESS variables is the new and more pragmatic approach.

rimantas2• 12 years ago

Insert an anecdote about the carpenter and the quality of the back of the cabinet there. Except in this case it matters a bit more as others pointed out already.

dimal• 12 years ago

Perhaps the term "semantic" is overloaded, but there are good reasons why presentational classnames are bad, even though users don't care and machines don't care. Your fellow developers should care. When done well, semantic markup is much easier to maintain and reason about. There's far less duplicated template logic and design changes are much easier because it's easier to understand where your changes will have an effect. The generated CSS might be slightly heavier, but possibly not. Poorly architected CSS tends to get very bloated and heavy very quickly. And there are better preprocessors like Sass or Stylus give you more options for keeping you generated CSS to a minimum. Less is really the worst preprocessor out there.

Every non-semantic bootstrap site I've seen has far more templates than would be necessary the templates only spit out minimal markup with classes that say what each element is instead of what it looks like.

But now we have tons of developers whose primary skill is backend development that are able to mash together a reasonable looking site without understanding how to create maintainable front end code. When the design changes, they just keep piling on more markup and more classes. This works for a while, but as designs get iteratively tweaked and changed, and kludges pile on top of kludges, the markup and CSS become a huge tangled mess. Making changes can have unpredictable effects on other parts of the site.

And then the back end developers throw up their hands and say, "CSS is stupid." But users don't care if the code is a mess, right? Machines don't care either. But the front end dev -- the one who's tasked with getting the new design to work without breaking anything else on the site -- he cares. And he's gonna have a bad time.

grakic2• 12 years ago

What are current options to optimize LESS files and remove unused mixins? And for the generated CSS, what are current options to merge shared rules and remove unused classes reported against a sample HTML?

shadeless• 12 years ago

What are current options to optimize LESS files and remove unused mixins?

Kolega, use parametric mixins without parameters: http://lesscss.org/features/#mixins-parametric-feature

For unused css I'd try this: https://github.com/addyosmani/grunt-uncss

grakic2• 12 years ago

I got this recommended for handling shared rules: http://zmoazeni.github.io/csscss/

kh_hk4• 12 years ago

Be very wary, though, if you are using mixins to define these columns in a case-by-case basis, as this could lead to huge generated CSS (the properties of the column will be defined in each class the mixin has been used).

spellboots5• 12 years ago

Alternatively use SASS (and the bootstrap SASS port[1]) which doesn't has this problem, as it instead rewrites selectors.

i.e. if you have:

    .column {
      width: 100px;
      display: inline-block;
    }

And you do:

    .cool-sidebar {
      @extend .column;
    }

Then the generated css will be something like:

    .column, .cool-sidebar {
      width: 100px;
      display: inline-block;
    }

[1] https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap-sass

moretti• 12 years ago

Less has the same feature: http://lesscss.org/features/#extend-feature

mikewhy2• 12 years ago

a rule of thumb I've been following when using Sass/LESS: If your mixin doesn't take arguments, you probably want `@extend`

hiphopyo• 12 years ago

awhitty• 12 years ago

I appreciate the comparison to the ancient Web, but this article doesn't say much more that I can't find in Bootstrap's documentation.

Anyone who has used Bootstrap's mixins with semantics in mind knows there are some bigger issues to address than the layout. Some questions off the top of my head:

* How do you build semantic forms with Bootstrap without going to markup fluff hell?

* How can you avoid the unsemantic class names for components that are tied too closely with child components (I'm looking at you, .panel)?

* What is the semantic purpose of a row element? It seems purely presentational to me.

* How do I add icons without peppering span.glyphicon.glyphicon-X's all over my markup?

* How should I organize/maintain all of my LESS files as my stylesheets scale? I'm not looking for any one "right" way, but suggestions are always nice.

* Are there any optimizations I can consider when I'm only using a bit of Bootstrap's functionality?

* How can I extend Bootstrap's mixins for my own needs?

totallymike• 12 years ago

I'm hardly a pro at using bootstrap, but we have been dealing with a few of these things, and I can tell you how we've handled some of these questions:

* How do I add icons without peppering span.glyphicon.glyphicon-X's all over my markup?

This one's fairly simple--you still need to add a class to the span, but you can extend the glyphicon.glyphicon-X bit into a particular icon and call it a day:

    .foo-icon {
      &:extend(.glyphicon);
      &:extend(.glyphicon-foo);
    }

* How should I organize/maintain all of my LESS files as my stylesheets scale?

I'm not sure there is a "right" way, but I'd suggest keeping like things together. You're going to end up with a number of rules that are either dependent upon each other, or at least similar in goal, and they can live near each other. In theory, future refactorings will be easier that way.

* Are there any optimizations I can consider when I'm only using a bit of Bootstrap's functionality?

http://getbootstrap.com/customize/

^ Do that :)

Good luck. If you find answers to the rest of those questions, pass them to me!!

woah4• 12 years ago

questions 1-4: "Semantic" css is a waste of time. Either you're putting information into the html or you're putting it in the css. Use what works well.

question 5: I'll usually put bootstrap into its own folder, have a style.less outside of the folder that imports bootstrap.less, import stylesheets with custom mixins after bootstrap.less, and import straight up custom styles after that.

question 6: go into bootstrap.less and comment out the stuff you're not using. For the js, use something like gulp-include to concatenate.'

question 7: Load my-mixins.less after bootstrap.less, copy and paste mixins from bootstrap into there, and modify them.

hugofirth3• 12 years ago

This is one of the main reasons I like AngularJS directives. If used properly (huge caveat) they allow your template markup to take on far more semantic meaning.

I also agree with the idea that we should use Mixins to allow for more semantic meaning in our plain HTML. As an added bonus, this can make things a lot more maintainable down the road.

Touche4• 12 years ago

We do div soup because CSS is still not good enough to do all of your styling there. When you can trivially make an element 6 columns in CSS we'll all stop treating Bootstrap like this. Maybe Flexbox version 6 (or whatever we are on now) finally fixes this but who can keep up and find out.

spellboots5• 12 years ago

When you can trivially make an element 6 columns in CSS

As demonstrated in the article you can trivially make an element 6 columns in LESS (or SASS, which has a bootstrap port also)

Touche4• 12 years ago

Nicer looking div soup is still div soup. <div class="container"> != semantic.

ZeroGravitas3• 12 years ago

Still the most comprehensive rebuttal to this common (and I feel, badly mistaken) complaint:

"About HTML semantics and front-end architecture" (from March 2012):

http://nicolasgallagher.com/about-html-semantics-front-end-a...

It's all well worth reading, but the conclusion is particularly to the point:

"The experience of many skilled developers, over many years, has led to a shift in how large-scale website and applications are developed. Despite this, for individuals weaned on an ideology where “semantic HTML” means using content-derived class names (and even then, only as a last resort), it usually requires you to work on a large application before you can become acutely aware of the impractical nature of that approach. You have to be prepared to disgard old ideas, look at alternatives, and even revisit ways that you may have previously dismissed.

...

When you choose to author HTML and CSS in a way that seeks to reduce the amount of time you spend writing and editing CSS, it involves accepting that you must instead spend more time changing HTML classes on elements if you want to change their styles. This turns out to be fairly practical, both for front-end and back-end developers – anyone can rearrange pre-built “lego blocks”; it turns out that no one can perform CSS-alchemy."

rimantas2• 12 years ago

That's no rebuttal, just an opinion. Oh we got this huge app and are to lazy to do everything properly.

ssorallen2• 12 years ago

Saying "do everything properly" is an opinion too. Why is semantic markup more "proper" than Bootstrap's <div> and class names? The idea that semantic markup is a beautiful paradise is unsubstantiated. If you want non-humans to understand your markup you can use microformats, http://schema.org/ markup, or another form of microdata. Making "semantic" class names doesn't change how your users or search engines parse your content.

ZeroGravitas3• 12 years ago

I'm not convinced you read the link, rather than just the bits I quoted.

Also, laziness is one of the three great virtues of a programmer according to Larry Wall. People are getting things done with Bootstrap every day.

iambateman• 12 years ago

Here is a LESS mixin that will go a long way in making semantic Bootstrap easy to actually do:

.make-column(@large, @medium, @small, @tiny: 12) { .make-xs-column(@tiny); .make-sm-column(@small); .make-md-column(@medium); .make-lg-column(@large); }

Then use it with: section#main-content { .make-column(8,8,9,12); }

droob2• 12 years ago

We need a better word for this than "semantic". We're just passing the complexity back and forth between the HTML and the CSS, and the only "semantics" or meaning that arise are to the author/editor. Users don't care, machines don't care, and I've never, ever seen a large-scale site design that doesn't involve some reworking of both the HTML and the CSS.

giulianob• 12 years ago

Exactly. I think web devs want to believe that their HTML is purely content and CSS should fully drive appearance but that's never the case. It makes sense to create classes when you can come up with patterns and want to make sure that you aren't repeating yourself everywhere but simply moving the grid system into CSS just adds an extra layer of abstraction that makes it more difficult to read. Also, CSS doesn't support mixins (yet) so you end up with a lot more generated CSS than if you just use the classes.

rubiquity2• 12 years ago

That's because you aren't blind.

droob2• 12 years ago

In this case we're not talking about ARIA or native elements vs. styled ones, though, we're talking about CSS classes.

mcgwiz3• 12 years ago

Fair point. "Abstract" might be better. It embodies the information-/implementation-hiding goal of this technique.

Abstractions still require names, and the names should be meaningful (not easy: "naming things is one of the hardest things to do in software development"), at least to the development team (hate to keep rattling off platitudes, but "you should write code for humans first, computers second"). Rather than "semantic", "descriptive" seems to fit the bill.

"Abstract and descriptive". Doesn't quite roll off the tongue, but I tried :)

mgr86• 12 years ago

I was at Balisage this summer, a markup conference (XML). The opening talk was on semantics. The summary basically read, what the hell does this word even mean anyway.

(paper - http://www.balisage.net/Proceedings/vol10/html/Usdin01/Balis...)

ZeroGravitas3• 12 years ago

I just noticed that this article is laid out with a table, with a single td. Glasshouses, stones etc.

daigoba66• 12 years ago

I build web "apps". I don't treat HTML and CSS like a semantic document; it's just a declarative layout engine. Yes, I often use HTML elements and structure to define layout instead of CSS classes. My CSS class names often have little "semantic" meaning outside their single purpose, that is to define layout and style. Am I doing something wrong? We don't have these discussions when building native GUIs.

Perhaps if I were building a CMS or some other document-oriented site I would approach things differently.

rubiquity2• 12 years ago

I've used Bootstrap and been forced to use it on existing projects already engulfed in it. It isn't pretty on a large project. I've sworn off using Bootstrap in any new project that isn't a prototype for a hack day. The only things I borrow from Boostrap these days are some of the JavaScript niceties like modal, tooltip, and scrollspy. And when I do that I'm very explicit in what code I pull in to use those.

Build the CSS for your next project using mixin libraries like Bourbon/Neat or Compass/Susy. You'll be glad you did.

goblin89• 12 years ago

I've sworn off using Bootstrap in any new project that isn't a prototype for a hack day.

I believe initially Bootstrap was intended for just this use case—make it easier to do a quick mock-up in markup. Once your design is relatively stable, you would naturally spend some time custom-fitting markup and stylesheets (enhancing source code readability, accounting for those who can't see, basic SEO optimization, etc.). This whole ‘front-end framework’ thing seems to me like a wrong direction to take.

woah4• 12 years ago

Frontend is my bread and butter, and I used to be such an artiste that I shunned Bootstrap too.

But you know what's worse than Bootstrap? The hand-rolled framework that rises out of the muck on a large project. At least Bootstrap is always the same. It's a lingua franca, and a decent one at that.

jbraithwaite• 12 years ago

One of the strengths of BS is mobile-first responsive design. You can chain classes like this: class-name="col-xs-6 col-md-3"

If you try this with the method outlined by the OP, you'll end up with a giant css file.

cheriot• 12 years ago

This increases the number of css styles dramatically, which affects page speed on large sites.

ssorallen2• 12 years ago

Nicolas Gallagher addresses and deflects this point specifically with real numbers: http://nicolasgallagher.com/about-html-semantics-front-end-a... The link came from an earlier poster. Once you compress the HTML, the savings are insignificant compared to the likely 10s or 100s of kilobytes of images and JavaScript on a modern web page. Given how tiny the savings are, there are other places more worth your time to save bytes.

Using Bootstrap the Semantic Way

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