Migration from Bootstrap v3.x to v4.x
When Bootstrap was first launched, it has gained popularity in the web design and development world. From entirely CSS-driven style sheets to a powerful, mobile-first, responsive, front-end framework with lots of new features added including host of JavaScript plugins, tools and icons that go hand in hand with forms and some more components, it’s safe to say that Bootstrap has come a long way. As of this writing, we have Bootstrap 4 with an alpha version which is an incomplete release and not suitable for production. With this version there are major changes in store. Lots of new features are added and customization options will be available
WHY DESIGNERS LOVE BOOTSTARP
Powerful Grid System: Bootstrap has the best responsive, mobile first grid system available. It’s easy to use and flexibility that allows you to produce prototype layouts and make customization easy.
Customization: Bootstrap is completely customizable. That means you can create a different design from it, abandoning the basic look of bootstrap templates.
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Excellent documentation: Bootstrap has exceptional documentation which can help you understand any part of the framework whether you are a beginner or pro.
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Rapid Development: Bootstrap offers reusable CSS and JavaScript components that can help designers to easily create the functionality and elements they need for their designs.
Migrating to Bootstrap 4
Bootstrap 4 is a major rewrite of almost the entire project. It has been a massive undertaking that touches nearly every line of code. Here are major changes to Bootstrap are discussed.
Improved grid system: We’ve added a new grid tier to better target mobile devices and completely overhauled our semantic mixins.
Opt-in flexbox support is here: The future is now—switch a boolean variable and recompile your CSS to take advantage of a flexboxbased grid system and components.
Dropped wells, thumbnails, and panels for cards: Cards are a brand new component to Bootstrap, but they’ll feel super familiar as they do nearly everything wells, thumbnails, and panels did, only better.
Brand new customization options: Instead of relegating style embellishments like gradients, transitions, shadows, and more to a separate stylesheet like v3, we’ve moved all those options into Sass variables. Want default transitions on everything or to disable rounded corners? Simply update a variable and recompile.
Rewrote all our JavaScript plugins: Every plugin has been rewritten in ES6 to take advantage of the newest JavaScript enhancements. They also now come with UMD support, generic teardown methods, option type checking, and tons more.
Improved auto-placement of tooltips and popovers thanks to the help of a tool called Tether.
Improved documentation: We rewrote it all in Markdown and added a few handy plugins to streamline examples and code snippets to make working with our docs way easier. Improved search is also on it’s way.
Things need to know about Bootstrap 4 As a designer, it is worth studying the news features and updates. To design websites for Bootstrap you might think differently, but I don’t think it’s a waste of time to know and understand the things you need to consider when designing Bootstrap-based websites. ď ľ
Color: Bootstrap 4 comes with five major colors inside. These colors comes with their respective classes and prefixes which can be reused across different components such as buttons, links and alerts.
Grid System is Not in Pixels Anymore: In Bootstrap versions 1-3, grids are measured via pixels. However, in Bootstrap 4, grids are measured via ems and rems. So if you are working on a Photoshop layout design of a website it’s quite helpful if you are going to see what the equivalent measurement of ems to pixel.
The Gutter: Bootstrap usually comes with 30 width gutter, 15px on each side of a column. This means padding left and right for column will be 15px each side, where as margin left and margin right for row is 15px. That gives you an idea how you will put spaces on each columns on your designs. One good thing about Bootstrap 4 is that allows you customize and compile your own build based on your needs. This includes color, container sizes and gutter padding.
Improved Navbar : The hardest and most tricky thing about using Bootstrap 3 is the navbar. It’s tough to figure out because you need to add a lot of classes just to create it. Moreover, you also need to go to your CSS to customize the colors and some styles.
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Optimize Styles Using SASS Instead of LESS : Bootstrap 3 used LESS as its main CSS pre-processor, but due its popular front-end developers contributor it has switch to SASS via Libsass Sass Complier written in C/C++ Bootstrap 4. Now you can customize styles such as color, spacing, link styles, typography, tables, grid breakpoints and containers via _ variables.scss file.
Conclusion Although Bootstrap is only one of many available frameworks for creating responsive, mobile-first websites, it offers a lot of possibilities for designers. Knowing about updates and new components will make these builds that much easier.