Elm Bootstrap []

Elm Bootstrap is a comprehensive library package that aims to make it pleasant and reasonably type safe to use the upcoming Twitter Bootstrap 4 CSS Framework in Elm applications.

Twitter Bootstrap is one of the most popular CSS (with some JS) frameworks for building responsive, mobile first web sites. At the time of writing, version 4 is in alpha-6 and apparently the plan is to move into beta soon. Version 4 is fully embracing flexbox, which will provide much better control and flexibility.

What's in it for me?

A reasonably type safe API for using Bootstrap
Some boilerplate is being handled for you
Interactive elements like Navbar, Dropdowns, Accordion, Modal and Tabs
Horizontally AND vertically center stuff without tearing your hair out

Documentation

For user documentation, check out the Docs Site.
The latest API documentation is up on Elm Package.

It also helps to read through the relevant Twitter Bootstrap documentation.

Getting started

Add rundis/elm-bootstrap to your elm-package.json
Start simple by using elm-reactor

module Main exposing (..)

import Bootstrap.CDN as CDN
import Bootstrap.Grid as Grid


view : Model -> Html Msg
view model =
    Grid.container []         -- Responsive fixed width container
        [ CDN.stylesheet      -- Inlined Bootstrap CSS for use with reactor
        , navbar model        -- Interactive and responsive menu
        , mainContent model
        ]


-- ... etc

Raison D'être

Twitter Bootstrap is something that I have been using in non-Elm projects extensively. I researched what was out there for Elm, but couldn't find anything that was quite as ambitious as I was looking for.

To a large extent, Twitter Bootstrap is just a bunch of CSS classes that can be applied to appropriate elements. Though Bootstrap can be used with just the vanilla Elm HTML library, it is very easy to get class strings wrong, apply the wrong classes to the wrong elements, or even nest elements in ways that will break the styling. This package aims to alleviate these issues by providing a higher degree of type safety.

This API tries to balance the wish for type safety with factors like

usability
need for flexibility / escape hatches
limitations in the type system (and/or just my lack of experience/knowledge about it)?

Twitter Bootstrap also consists of a few interactive elements. The interactivety is provided through the use of JavaScript. Elm Bootstrap can't have any of that obviously so the package will provide similar interactivity through the use of pure Elm.

To be completely honest, the main reason I created this was probably to learn Elm more deeply and to see what it would take to design a library and an API using it. You got to start somewhere right?

Alternatives

elm-bootstrapify - Supports Bootstrap 3, not as extensive but might suit your needs.
There are a few other Bootstrap related libraries, but they haven't been updated to Elm 0.18.
elm-mdl is of course the most obvious alternative, if you aren't fond of Bootstrap. It's very impressive and has been a great source of inspiration for elm-bootstrap.

Source of inspiration

Contributing / Collaborating

This package is still in its early stages and I would greatly appreciate feedback on usability, design, features, etc.

There's a bunch of work left to do, especially when it comes to documentation and examples. If anyone is interested in helping out, either by submitting pull requests or maybe even joining me in making this a top-notch and useful package, don't hesitate to get in touch. (@mrundberget on the Elm slack btw)

Stuff TODO

Ensure responsive behavior is fully supported
Encourage or automate screen reader support
Provide a nice API for all the utility classes
Proper test coverage
etc...

Release history

2.0.0
- New Feature: Support for radio buttons and checkbox buttons (tx to @folkertdev )
- New Feature: Support for Input groups
- New Feature: Experimental support for Popovers (and tooltips)
- Improvment: Support for HTML.Keyed in Grid, Table and List groups
- Minor improvement: Button onClick shorthand, input placeholder shorthand
- Varios doc fixes and removal of unused CardBlock type. (Tx everyone that contributed !)
- Made some progress on adding regression tests
1.1.0 - Doc fixes and a grid col class bug
1.0.0 - Initial release with most of TWBS core components covered

License

The BSD 3 Clause License

clouddie/elm-bootstrap