Bootstrap -
Environment Setup
You really do not need to set up your own
environment to start learning Bootstrap. Reason is very simple, we already have
set up Bootstrap environment online, so that you can execute all the available
examples online at the same time when you are doing your theory work. This
gives you confidence in what you are reading and to check the result with
different options. Feel free to modify any example and execute it online.
Try the following example using Try
it option available at the top right corner of the below sample code
box −
<!DOCTYPE
html>
<html lang = "en">
<head>
<meta charset = "utf-8">
<meta http-equiv =
"X-UA-Compatible" content = "IE = edge">
<meta name = "viewport" content =
"width = device-width, initial-scale = 1">
<title>Bootstrap 101 Template</title>
<!-- Bootstrap -->
<link href =
"//maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.1/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel = "stylesheet">
<!-- HTML5 shim and Respond.js for IE8 support of
HTML5 elements and media queries -->
<!-- WARNING: Respond.js doesn't work if you view
the page via file:// -->
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src =
"https://oss.maxcdn.com/html5shiv/3.7.2/html5shiv.min.js"></script>
<script src =
"https://oss.maxcdn.com/respond/1.4.2/respond.min.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
</head>
<body>
<h1>Hello, world!</h1>
<!-- jQuery (necessary
for Bootstrap's JavaScript plugins) -->
<script src =
"https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<!-- Include all compiled plugins (below), or
include individual files as needed -->
<script src = "//maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.1/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
For most of the examples given in this
tutorial, you will find Try itoption, so just make use of it and
enjoy your learning.
It is very easy to setup and start using Bootstrap.
This chapter will explain how to download and setup Bootstrap. We will also
discuss the Bootstrap file structure, and demonstrate its usage with an
example.
Download Bootstrap
You can download the latest version of Bootstrap fromhttp://getbootstrap.com/.
When you click on this link, you will get to see a screen as below −
If you click on DownloadBootstrap
button, The page will redirect to another page. Here
you can see Three buttons −
·
Download Bootstrap − Clicking this, you can
download the precompiled and minified versions of Bootstrap CSS, JavaScript,
and fonts. No documentation or original source code files are included.
·
Download Source − Clicking this, you can get
the latest Bootstrap LESS and JavaScript source code directly from GitHub.
·
Download Sass − Clicking this, you can get the latest
Bootstrap LESS to Sass for easy inclusion in Rails, Compass, or Sass-only
projects.
If you work
with Bootstrap's uncompiled source code, you need to
compile the LESS files to produce usable CSS files. For compiling LESS files
into CSS, Bootstrap officially supports only Recess, which is Twitter's CSS hinter based on less.js.
For better understanding and ease of use, we shall use
precompiled version of Bootstrap throughout the tutorial. As the files are complied and minified you don't have to bother every time
including separate files for individual functionality. At the time of writing
this tutorial the latest version (Bootstrap 3) was downloaded.
File structure
Precompiled Bootstrap
Once the compiled version Bootstrap is downloaded,
extract the ZIP file, and you will see the following file/directory structure −
As you can see, there are compiled CSS and JS
(bootstrap.*), as well as compiled and minified CSS and JS (bootstrap.min.*).
Fonts from Glyphicons are included, as it is the
optional Bootstrap theme.
Bootstrap Source Code
If you have downloaded the Bootstrap source code then
the file structure would be as follows −
·
The files under less/, js/, and fonts/ are the
source code for Bootstrap CSS, JS, and icon fonts (respectively).
·
The dist/ folder
includes everything listed in the precompiled download section above.
·
docs-assets/, examples/, and all *.html files
are Bootstrap documentation.
HTML Template
A basic HTML template using Bootstrap would look like
this −
<!DOCTYPE
html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Bootstrap 101 Template</title>
<meta name = "viewport" content =
"width = device-width, initial-scale = 1.0">
<!-- Bootstrap -->
<link href = "css/bootstrap.min.css"
rel = "stylesheet">
<!-- HTML5 Shim and Respond.js IE8 support of HTML5
elements and media queries -->
<!-- WARNING: Respond.js doesn't work if you view
the page via file:// -->
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src =
"https://oss.maxcdn.com/libs/html5shiv/3.7.0/html5shiv.js"></script>
<script src =
"https://oss.maxcdn.com/libs/respond.js/1.3.0/respond.min.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
</head>
<body>
<h1>Hello, world!</h1>
<!-- jQuery (necessary
for Bootstrap's JavaScript plugins) -->
<script src =
"https://code.jquery.com/jquery.js"></script>
<!-- Include all compiled plugins (below), or
include individual files as needed -->
<script src = "js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
Here you can see the jquery.js, bootstrap.min.js and bootstrap.min.cssfiles that are included to make a
normal HTM file to the Bootstrapped Template. Just make sure to include jQuery library before you include Bootstrap library.
More details about each of the elements in this above
piece of code will be discussed in the chapter Bootstrap CSS Overview.
This template
structure is already included as part of the Try it (online
compiler) tool. Hence in all the examples (in the following chapters) of this
tutorial you will only see the contents of the <body> element. Once you
click on the Try it option available at the top right corner
of example, and you will see the entire code.
Example
Now let's try an example using the above template. Try
the following example using Try it option available at the top right corner of
the below sample code box on our website −
<h1>Hello, world!</h1>
In all the
subsequent chapters we have used dummy text from the