joshuaclayton / blueprint-css

A CSS framework that aims to cut down on your CSS development time

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62d5cb34 » joshuaclayton 2008-08-11 Migrated text files to Text... 1 h1. Blueprint CSS Framework Tutorial
2
3 Welcome to this tutorial on Blueprint. It will give you a thorough intro to what you can do with the framework, and a few notes on what you shouldn't do with it. Let's get started.
4
5 h2. About Blueprint
6
7 Blueprint is a CSS framework, designed to cut down on your development time. It gives you a solid foundation to build your CSS on top of, including some sensible default typography, a customizable grid, a print stylesheet and much more.
8
b881bf59 » shlomif 2009-07-17 Fixed some typos in TUTORIA... 9 However, BP is not a silver bullet, and it's best suited for websites where each page may require its own design. Take a look at existing BP pages before deciding if the framework is right for you. You may also check out the test files in the @tests@ directory, which demonstrates most of the features in Blueprint.
62d5cb34 » joshuaclayton 2008-08-11 Migrated text files to Text... 10
11 The word "framework" may be a bit misleading in this context, since BP does not make suggestions on how you should organize or write your CSS. It's more like a "css toolbox" with helpful bits and pieces, from which you may pick and choose based on your needs.
12
13 h2. Structural Overview
14
15 From the bottom up, here are the CSS layers in Blueprint:
16
17 # *CSS reset*: Removes any default CSS rules set by each browser.
18 # *Typography*: Gives you some nice default typography and colors.
19 # *Grid*: Provides a set of CSS classes for making grid layouts.
20
b881bf59 » shlomif 2009-07-17 Fixed some typos in TUTORIA... 21 The second part of Blueprint are the scripts, which let you customize most
62d5cb34 » joshuaclayton 2008-08-11 Migrated text files to Text... 22 aspects of the framework, from column count and widths, to output paths and
23 CSS class namespaces. We have two scripts:
24
25 # *Compressor*: For compressing and customizing the source files.
26 # *Validator*: For validating the Blueprint core files.
27
28 That's the quick overview, so now we can finally get into the details. First, we'll take
29 a look at the CSS in Blueprint. We'll then move on to the scripts, where I'll show you
30 how to customize the framework.
31
32 h2. Setting Up Blueprint
33
34 To use Blueprint, you must include three files in your HTML:
35
36 * @blueprint/screen.css@: All CSS for screen, projection viewing.
37 * @blueprint/print.css@: A basic stylesheet for printing.
38 * @blueprint/ie.css@: A few needed corrections for Internet Explorer
39
40 To include them, use the following HTML (make sure the href paths are correct):
41 <pre>
42 <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/blueprint/screen.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection">
43 <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/blueprint/print.css" type="text/css" media="print">
3980cbee » Montoya 2009-05-28 Updated conditional comment... 44 <!--[if lt IE 8]>
62d5cb34 » joshuaclayton 2008-08-11 Migrated text files to Text... 45 <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/blueprint/ie.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection">
46 <![endif]-->
47 </pre>
48 Remember to add trailing slashes if you're using XHTML (" />").
49
50 h2. Using the CSS in Blueprint
51
b881bf59 » shlomif 2009-07-17 Fixed some typos in TUTORIA... 52 As mentioned before, there's basically three layers of CSS in Blueprint. The first two layers, the browser CSS reset and the default typography, apply themselves by changing the CSS of standard HTML elements. In other words, you don't need to change anything in these files. If you, for instance, want to change the font size, do this in your own stylesheet, so that it's easy to upgrade Blueprint when new versions arrive.
62d5cb34 » joshuaclayton 2008-08-11 Migrated text files to Text... 53
54 h3. Classes for Typography
55
56 While the typography of Blueprint mainly applies itself, there's a few classes
57 provided. Here's a list of their names and what they do:
58
59 <dl>
60 <dt>@.small@</dt><dd>Makes the text of this element smaller.</dd>
61 <dt>@.large@</dt><dd>Makes the text of this element larger.</dd>
62 <dt>@.hide@</dt><dd>Hides an element.</dd>
63 <dt>@.quiet@</dt><dd>Tones down the font color for this element.</dd>
64 <dt>@.loud@</dt><dd>Makes this elements text black.</dd>
65 <dt>@.highlight@</dt><dd>Adds a yellow background to the text.</dd>
66 <dt>@.added@</dt><dd>Adds green background to the text.</dd>
67 <dt>@.removed@</dt><dd>Adds red background to the text.</dd>
68 <dt>@.first@</dt><dd>Removes any left sided margin/padding from the element.</dd>
69 <dt>@.last@</dt><dd>Removes any right sided margin/padding from the element.</dd>
70 <dt>@.top@</dt><dd>Removes any top margin/padding from the element.</dd>
71 <dt>@.bottom@</dt><dd>Removes any bottom margin/padding from the element.</dd>
72 </dl>
73
74 h3. Styling Forms
75
76 To make Blueprint style your input elements, each text input element should
77 have the class @.text@, or @.title@, where @.text@ is the normal size,
78 and @.title@ gives you an input field with larger text.
79
80 There's also a few classes you may use for success and error messages:
b881bf59 » shlomif 2009-07-17 Fixed some typos in TUTORIA... 81
62d5cb34 » joshuaclayton 2008-08-11 Migrated text files to Text... 82 <dl>
83 <dt>@div.error@</dt><dd>Creates an error box (red).</dd>
84 <dt>@div.notice@</dt><dd>Creates a box for notices (yellow).</dd>
85 <dt>@div.success@</dt><dd>Creates a box for success messages (green).</dd>
86 </dl>
87
88 h3. Creating a Grid
89
90 The third layer is the grid CSS classes, which is the tool Blueprint gives you to create almost any kind of grid layout for your site. Keep in mind that most of the CSS behind the grid can be customized (explained below). In this section however, I'm using the default settings.
91
92 The default grid is made up of 24 columns, each spanning 30px, with a 10px margin between each column. The total width comes to 950px, which is a good width for 1024x768 resolution displays. If you're interested in a narrower design, see the section on customizing the grid, below.
93
94 So how do you set up a grid? By using classes provided by Blueprint. To create a column, make a new @<div/>@, and apply one of the @.span-x@ classes to it. For instance, if you want a 3-column setup, with two narrow and one wide column, a header and a footer here's how you do it:
95
96 <pre>
97 <div class="container">
98 <div class="span-24">
99 The header
100 </div>
101
28c8aa9a » joshuaclayton 2008-09-07 Updated column example to u... 102 <div class="span-4">
62d5cb34 » joshuaclayton 2008-08-11 Migrated text files to Text... 103 The first column
104 </div>
105 <div class="span-16">
106 The center column
107 </div>
28c8aa9a » joshuaclayton 2008-09-07 Updated column example to u... 108 <div class="span-4 last">
62d5cb34 » joshuaclayton 2008-08-11 Migrated text files to Text... 109 The last column
110 </div>
111
112 <div class="span-24">
113 The footer
2d17d151 » joshuaclayton 2009-01-09 Fixed div element that wasn... 114 </div>
62d5cb34 » joshuaclayton 2008-08-11 Migrated text files to Text... 115 </div>
116 </pre>
117
118 In addition to the spans, there are two important classes you need to know about. First of all, every Blueprint site needs to be wrapped in a div with the class @.container@, which is usually placed right after the body tag.
119
120 Second, the last column in a row (which by default has 24 columns), needs the class @.last@ to remove its left hand margin. Note, however, that each @.span-24@ don't need the @.last@ class, since these always span the entire width of the page.
121
122 To create basic grids, this is all you need to know. The grid CSS however, provides many more classes for more intricate designs. To see some of them in action, check out the files in @tests/parts/@. These files demonstrate what's possible with the grid in Blueprint.
123
124 Here's a quick overview of the other classes you can use in to make your grid:
125
126 <dl>
127 <dt>@.append-x@</dt><dd>Appends x number of empty columns after a column.</dd>
128 <dt>@.prepend-x@</dt><dd>Preppends x number of empty columns before a column.</dd>
129 <dt>@.push-x@</dt><dd>Pushes a column x columns to the left. Can be used to swap columns.</dd>
130 <dt>@.pull-x@</dt><dd>Pulls a column x columns to the right. Can be used to swap columns.</dd>
131 <dt>@.border@</dt><dd>Applies a border to the right side of the column.</dd>
132 <dt>@.colborder@</dt><dd>Appends one empty column, with a border down the middle.</dd>
133 <dt>@.clear@</dt><dd>Makes a column drop below a row, regardless of space.</dd>
134 <dt>@.showgrid@</dt><dd>Add to container or column to see the grid and baseline.</dd>
135 </dl>
136
137 In this list, @x@ is a number from 1 through 23 for append/prepend and 1 through 24 for push/pull. These numbers will of course change if you set a new number of columns in the settings file.
138
139 Here's another example where we have four columns of equal width, with a border between the two first and the two last columns, as well as a four column gap in the middle:
140
141 <pre>
142 <div class="container">
143 <div class="span-5 border">
144 The first column
145 </div>
146 <div class="span-5 append-4">
147 The second column
148 </div>
149 <div class="span-5 border">
150 The third column
151 </div>
152 <div class="span-5 last">
153 The fourth (last) column
154 </div>
155 </div>
156 </pre>
157
158 You may also nest columns to achieve the desired layout. Here's a setup where we want four rectangles with two on top and two below on the first half of the page, and one single column spanning the second half of the page:
159
160 <pre>
161 <div class="container">
162 <div class="span-12">
163 <div class="span-6">
164 Top left
165 </div>
166 <div class="span-6 last">
167 Top right
168 </div>
169 <div class="span-6">
170 Bottom left
171 </div>
172 <div class="span-6 last">
173 Bottom right
174 </div>
175 </div>
176 <div class="span-12 last">
177 Second half of page
178 </div>
179 </div>
180 </pre>
181
182 Try this code in your browser it it's difficult to understand what it would look like. To see more examples on how to use these classes, check out @/tests/parts/grid.html@.
183
184 h2. The Scripts
185
186 Blueprint comes with two scripts: one for compressing and customizing the CSS, and one for validating the core CSS files, which is handy if you're making changes to these files.
187
188 h3. The Validator
189
190 The validator has a fairly simple job - validate the CSS in the core BP files. The script uses a bundled version of the W3C CSS validator to accomplish this. To run it, you'll need to have Ruby installed on your machine. You can then run the script like so: @$ ruby validate.rb@.
191
192 Note that there are a few validation errors shipping with Blueprint. These are known, and comes from a few CSS hacks needed to ensure consistent rendering across the vast browser field.
193
194 h3. The Compressor
195
196 As the files you'll include in your HTML are the compressed versions of the core CSS files, you'll have to recompress the core if you've made any changes. This is what the compressor script is for.
197
198 In addition this is where you customize the grid. To customize the grid, a special settings file is used, and the new CSS is generated once you run the compressor. The new compressed files will then reflect your settings file.
199
200 To recompress, you just have to run the script. This will parse the core CSS files and output new compressed files in the blueprint folder. As with the validator, Ruby has to be installed to use this script. In the @lib@ directory, run: @$ruby compress.rb@
201
202 Calling this file by itself will pull files from @blueprint/src@ and concatenate them into three files; @ie.css@, @print.css@, and @screen.css@. However, argument variables can be set to change how this works. Calling @$ruby compress.rb -h@ will reveal basic arguments you can pass to the script.
203
204 h3. Custom Settings
205
b881bf59 » shlomif 2009-07-17 Fixed some typos in TUTORIA... 206 To learn how to use custom settings, read through the documentation within @lib/compress.rb@