UI-Frameworks
06 Oct 2022Everyone likes a nice UI
But not everyone knows the pain invovlved in creating a decent looking webpage. This is even more true when attempting to create a webpage with pure CSS and HTML. If you have a decent understanding of CSS and HTML, you could probably create a webpage from 2002 in a reasonable amount of time. However, if you were to create a website that doesn’t look like a relic of the past, by the time you finish your website, it will be out of date. Fortunatley, there are tools out there that can speed up the creation of a decent looking website. Using a UI framework like Bootstrap 5 can speed up the process of creating a responsive modern looking website, and the best part is that it’s free!
The learning curve
Unfortunaltey, putting a link to Bootstrap 5 into your HTML file is not enough to modernize it. Bootstrap 5 is a tool box that you need to know how to use to get the most out of it. Knowing CSS and HTML is a prerequisite to learning Bootstrap, but it is pretty simple to learn. A lot of the utility of Bootstrap comes from the suite of CSS classes that streamline the process of making things like a navbar with drop down menus and links or a background image for the entire page. Adding in these features is as easy as adding a class to a tag. The shear number of classes is a little overwhelming on trying to pick the right one, but with enough practice you begin to see the patterns for different things you want to do on the webpage. There is also incredible documentation available here.
Is it worth it
The time required to learn a new framework may make it seem not worth it to learn Bootstrap or the fact that you are using a framework and because of that your website will look like a pallete swapped version of another website created with the same framework. These are valid points, but the benefits of using a UI framework far outweigh the cost. Learning Bootstrap does take time, but that time is still shorter than the heat death of the universe which is how long it would take me to create a good looking website with just CSS and HTML. The cookie cutter websites is true if you use all the Bootstrap classes out of the box, but you can customize all the Bootstrap classes to look the way you want it to. As someone who is not aesthetically inclined I would rather have a good looking website that looks similar to others than a bad looking website that is unique its own special way.
With Bootstrap
Without Bootstrap
