Pattern Libraries (or Style Guides) are a helpful tool in developing websites. Read more about Creating Style Guides at this A List Apart article.
Maintaining a static Pattern Library (in HTML/CSS) is hard work and errorprone. There are, however, various tools that help us generate a dynamic Pattern Library or 'Living Style Guide'.
This page aims to list these tools. If you know of other tools or have other feedback, please let me know or submit a PR. Thanks, David Hund @valuedstandards
NOTE: This should list generators only: no Bootstrap, Foundation, Topcoat, etc. but tools to generate a Living Style Guide.
Table of Contents
- PHP
- Ruby / RAILS
- NodeJS
- Jekyll
- CSS (parsing CSS source)
- Grunt / Gulp Tasks
- Online Services
- Other
- Articles
Generating styled markup from a folder of markup snippets.
Demo | Source | PHP, HTML patterns
Pears is an open source WordPress theme, enabling people like you to get your own pattern library up and running quickly.
Demo | Source | PHP, Wordpress Theme
Pattern Lab is a collection of tools to help you create atomic design systems.
Demo | Source | PHP, Static Generator, Grunt Task
Provides a visual testing page for Drupal themes.
A starting point for crafting living style guides.
Demo | Source | PHP, HTML patterns
A starting point for crafting living style guides for Bootstrap-based projects.
Demo | Source | PHP, HTML patterns, Bootstrap
An initial directory setup, style guide and pattern primer. Intended as a starting point for […] projects…
Demo | Source | PHP, HTML patterns
Source | Ruby, HTML patterns
The easiest way to create front-end style guides with Sass and Compass
Demo | Open source demo | Source | Ruby, Markdown, Sass
Source | Ruby, Rails, Components
Create a live style guide that can easily expand into a documentation hub. Store all kinds of documentation, from design rationale, to CSS, JS, and API docs.
Demo | Source | NodeJS, Markdown, Custom Tags, Static Site Generator
Front-end documentation engine
Demo | Source | NodeJS, Grunt, RequireJS, LESS
A free app that gives you an interface to store and manage your front-end patterns.
Demo | Source | NodeJS, Gulp, Angular, Markdown/YAML
Yeoman Generator for Style Prototypes
Source | NodeJS, Yeoman, Ruby, Git
Source | NodeJS, HTML patterns
Source | NodeJS, Static Site Generator, Mustache patterns
Source | NodeJS, Gulp, Markdown, Static Site Generator, Mustache patterns
A tool for building website UI toolkits
Demo | Source | NodeJS, HTML & Handlebars patterns
Simple styleguide framework
Using Jekyll Styleguide you can generate a Pattern Library and add patterns by simply adding new files to the
_postsfolder. Includes a GulpJS workflow that compiles Sass auto-builds Jekyll and refreshes your browser :)
Demo | Source | Jekyll, Static Site Generator, Markdown, Gulp
Source | Jekyll, Static Site Generator
These tools define a documenting syntax for CSS. You would e.g. write your components' HTML in a comment above the component's CSS and the tool would generate a Styleguide from it.
KSS is intended to help automate the creation of a living styleguide. A styleguide serves as a place to publish KSS documentation and visualize different states of UI elements defined in your CSS.
Demo | Source | *CSS, NodeJS, KSS
Source | *CSS, Ruby, MiddleMan, KSS
Source | *CSS, Ruby, MiddleMan, KSS
StyleDocco generates documentation and style guide documents from your stylesheets.
Source | *CSS, NodeJS, Markdown
DSS, Documented Style Sheets, is a comment styleguide and parser for CSS, LESS, STYLUS, SASS and SCSS code.
Source | *CSS, NodeJS, Grunt, Sublime Plugin
Generates bootstrap-like documentation for your own CSS!
Source | *CSS, JS, Backbone, Underscore, Markdown
Hologram is a Ruby gem that parses comments in your CSS and turns them into a beautiful style guide.
Demo | *CSS, Ruby, Markdown
Generate a styleguide from your CSS, by adding YAML data in the comments. It generates a self-contained html file. Works great for component based CSS.
Demo | Source | *CSS, NodeJS, Coffeescript, YAML
YSS is styleguide framework written in PHP and jQuery. It display nicely all your commented CSS […]
Demo | Source | CSS, PHP, jQuery, Markdown
PostCSS plugin. CSS comments will be parsed through Markdown and displayed in a generated HTML document.
Source | CSS, NodeJS, GruntJS, GulpJS, Markdown
CLI, gulp/grunt task to create style guides from stylesheets using KSS notation.
Demo | Source | GruntJS, GulpJS, *CSS, NodeJS, KSS, Gulp, Grunt
Grunt plugin for building living styleguides with Handlebars from Markdown comments in CSS, SASS and LESS files.
Source | GruntJS, Handlebars, Markdown
Build and Document Your Interface. Then Share the Code.
Source | GruntJS, Markdown
Source | GruntJS, HTML patterns
These services provide a web-app to generate your styleguide. Some require an account
You can create design, brand or UI guidelines with the Frontify Style Guide editor. Use existing templates or start from scratch by choosing from over 20 smart blocks (like colors, media, typography, UI elements, & more) - For Non-coders and coders =)
Service | Service, Login, Free (“Powered by Frontify”), Commercial ($9/$49)
Service | Service, Login, (Commercial)
Stylify Me extracts the styles of a given website and displays them in a styleguide
Demo | Extract, Example
Yeoman Generator for Style Prototypes
Yeoman Generator | Templates, Sass, Compass, Yeoman, Grunt,Bower, Styletiles
- 24ways.org/2011/front-end-style-guides/
- styletil.es/
- maban.co.uk/66/
- gimmebar.com/.../front-end-styleguides-and-pattern-libraries
- alistapart.com/article/creating-style-guides
- patternlab.io/resources.html
- kippt.com/asiermartinez/style-guides
- bradfrost.github.io/this-is-responsive/
- docs.google.com/spreadsheet/
- medium.com/daily-ui-ux-inspirations/
- speakerdeck.com/.../style-guide-driven-development
- speakerdeck.com/.../improving-your-responsive-workflow-with-style-guides
- paulrobertlloyd.com/about/styleguide/