• Axa Mei Liauw, aliauw@princeton.edu, Princeton University Library
  • Kevin Reiss, kr2@princeton.edu, Princeton University Library

Bootstrap is awesome! It allows for quick and easy front-end development without demanding too much time with the design of the user interface. A framework like Bootstrap can also help libraries address one of our top usability problems: wild inconsistency of styles and layouts across our own in-house applications and websites.

However, what if you do not want to compromise your creativity and make your project visually stand out? With enough Sass or Less knowledge it is possible to highly customize Bootstrap to fit your needs, but in the end you still end up with your design and code buying into Bootstrap’s markup and design conventions, which are not always what you want. Sometimes you simply want to start with a clean slate and not fight the framework and use only the components and features you need.

In that case, build your own Bootstrap! In this talk we will discuss techniques for using some of the emerging tools from the front-end development and design communities to create a maintainable, modular in-house Sass toolkit that we are implementing within a variety of tools including Drupal, Rails applications, in house PHP applications, as well as within vendor solutions like Libguides and ILLiad. Some specific tools we will discuss are Grunt, Bower, and Sass tools like Singularity, Breakpoint, and Bourbon.

Slides Repo README