Jesus this is ugly. The whole point of Bootstrap is that it's super easy for anyone to make a visually non-jarring website. Bootstrap effectively democratises good design basics on the web. What this is doing is precisely the opposite.
I'm always intrigued by the concept but then I visit the site and want to have nothing to do with it. Awful colors, fugly fonts, can't read some of the gray type, weird space between "Using LESS" and "Examples", undisclosed Bootswap usage, barely disclosed HTML5Boilerplate usage, unclear WrapBootstrap relationship, etc.
Don't forget the "Kickstrap Only" OLCG on the Scaffolding page. It misses the point of Bootstrap's fluid nesting that does a much better demo of the same functionality halfway down the page.
Another tip to add to this is to create snippets or keyboard shortcuts for this. So "textfield" expands into the HTML code for "text input" on tab key, "submit" expands to "form action submit", etc. If you work with notepad++ then Fingertext works great with this. Saved me a so much time and typing!
The CS3 animations and the Chosen form input plugin look pretty slick. I don't see the new icons being that big an upgrade over Glyphicons. The performance stuff seems like stuff I'd rather set up on its own rather than as part of my design framework.
These guys should provide instructions for "Kickstrap-izing" existing bootstrap sites rather than just how to create a Kickstrap site from scratch. Having already invested a bunch of time into getting a bootstrap site set up, I'm more likely to cherry pick from this than use the whole thing.
Also, an observation about marketing copy: The main headline for Kickstrap describes it as Twitter bootstrap with "with themes, enhancements, and other goodies."
This doesn't tell me how I benefit from using it over bootstrap or another framework. I had to spend 15 minutes reading their site trying to figure that out.
A better line might be "Twitter bootstrap with more icons, animations, and 5x the page performance."
>These guys should provide instructions for "Kickstrap-izing" existing bootstrap sites
They do, on the github README.md [1], under Install:
If you already have a Bootstrap installation running, drop the /extras folder into your Bootstrap root. Drag the sample_index.html file in /extras to your Bootstrap root and /extras/css/bootstrap(.min).css wherever you have your existing bootstrap.css file. It should be linked and ready to go. (If you already have HTML files you want to use, see "Advanced Setup" below.
OLCG: "For example, you may want to split a div with a "span8" class into three. However, 8 is not cleanly divisible by three."
Kickstrap has implemented One Line CSS Grid for this case which could just as easily be handled by making the row fluid with three span4s. Or am I missing something?
Themes with Twitter Bootstrap are a double-edged sword. On one hand, the themes add diversity to the visual design of bootstrap sites, which tend to rely on the default styles. You can frequently spot a bootstrap site a mile away because it features the black gradient header bar and Helvetica for the body copy. On the other hand, themes provide more options for being lazy with your site's look, as opposed to taking the time to tailor styles to your match your product/brand/content. Bootstrap is supposed to help you get a decent site up faster, but it shouldn't do all of the styling for you.
I like the idea a lot. I'm not a fan of most of the themes, especially the one being used for the site itself. But the classic Bootstrap theme is starting to look quite plain (which is a good thing to be able to say about the web, mind you), and I'd like to see a few other solid options emerge.
Hi folks, thanks for all the comments and helpful criticisms. In order to best respond to this, I've published a document answering many of your questions for now.
The fact that they've included HTML5 Boilerplate is nice. I use them together so frequently that I rolled my own solution not too long ago: https://github.com/brianchitester/hotplate
