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Groundwork - A Responsive HTML5, CSS and JavaScript Framework

155 points| Brajeshwar | 13 years ago |groundwork.sidereel.com | reply

96 comments

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[+] sgdesign|13 years ago|reply
This is not a criticism of this project specifically, but I feel like when you come out with a framework like this you should have a big "Why you should use Framework XYZ instead of Boostrap" section somewhere, because this is the main question most people will have.
[+] Noxchi|13 years ago|reply
>but I feel like when you come out with a framework like this you should have a big "Why you should use Framework XYZ instead of Boostrap" section somewhere

This is true for any product whatsoever, not just a framework.

Answer this question, and make it the headline of your landing page:

If I am your ideal prospect, why should I say yes to you rather than any of your competitors?

[+] acoyfellow|13 years ago|reply
I think it's fairly obvious as to what the benefit is, considering how many times an app idea that's too "bootstrappy" gets railed on.

This seems like a decent alternative for out of the box design. Once/if this becomes popular then it too could become too standard- but for now, it's very different. That's good.

As far as design is concerned, I think more frameworks in the market is a good thing. The saturation could make the bad designers worse, but it gives good designers just more tools to explore with.

[+] baby|13 years ago|reply
more like instead of Foundation since it uses Compass+Sass.

I just glanced at it and it seems extremely close to Foundation, it even uses orbit. I like the tooltips and the forms, the documentation is actually better than the Foundation one. I don't particularly like the grid system as it works in ratio (feels like you have to do more math).

[+] joeblau|13 years ago|reply
That is the first thing that crossed my mind after I bookmarked the site.
[+] ghepting|13 years ago|reply
Great point! I will work on drafting something to this effect. Thanks for the feedback! :)
[+] wslh|13 years ago|reply
May be we need a new layer: a lib to handle different frameworks! like Haxe but for HTML.
[+] przemoc|13 years ago|reply
Why I should use Bootstrap?
[+] tomelders|13 years ago|reply
Using Safari 6.0.2, clicking on the first input on this page crashes Safari with a speed and efficiency that can only be admired.

http://groundwork.sidereel.com/?url=tooltips-js

I wish Safari could shut down that quickly when I manually quit.

No problem with Chrome.

[+] taf2|13 years ago|reply
Just bookmark that and open it to close it
[+] publicfig|13 years ago|reply
I thought you were exaggerating. I barely finish clicking the mouse before the entire program gives up.
[+] RutZap|13 years ago|reply
I can confirm that.. it's amazingly fast in its demise :)
[+] ghepting|13 years ago|reply
I thought that was pretty bad ass, too. You've gotta give me credit for exposing such a huge bug to Apple. :)
[+] chromedude|13 years ago|reply
Too bad... seems they've fixed it ;P.
[+] marknutter|13 years ago|reply
What I would like to see is an html/css/js framework like bootstrap or groundwork that is completely generic, with no styling at all; just a wireframe that lays everything out as it should. Then provide the ability to customize the look either manually or by some gui on the web. Otherwise you get a raft of "bootstrap" sites out there that all look the same unless a front-end dev goes through the painstaking process of overriding the default styles of the framework.
[+] ericcholis|13 years ago|reply
The screen size simulator at the top is a nice touch. It's also amusing that they use the Orbit slider from Zurb, not bad...just amusing.
[+] ghepting|13 years ago|reply
hehe, I <3 Zurb, I've followed them and the cool stuff they post on their Playground and have been inspired with what they've done with Foundation over the years, too. Orbit seemed like a great component to include in Groundwork to achieve a MVP. I plan to write a fresh alternative or enhance and contribute to Orbit moving forward. The current version isn't quite as flexible as I want it to be (it needs to properly support content-only sliders with no images, have less image dependencies -- possible utilize SVG/font icons for controls, etc.)
[+] wheaties|13 years ago|reply
Similar name, too. Foundation from Zurb...
[+] a_m0d|13 years ago|reply
This framework is quite broken on the iPad (in Chrome).

- The dropdown menu doesn't work well. It triggers on hover, but trying to do "hoverintent" on the iPad simply fires the click event on the button, causing the menu to appear briefly before the page navigates. - I can't even scroll at all on the demo pages. Dragging the page (to scroll) just drags the whole tab rather than actually scrolling.

[+] ghepting|13 years ago|reply
Thank you very much for the feedback. If you would post the issues you're experiencing on the Github page, that would be really helpful in getting any bugs resolved! :)
[+] nkozyra|13 years ago|reply
Some notes:

As mentioned, one of the first things that should be addressed when you're building a competing framework is what yours offers that the "big boys" don't. I don't really see that; indeed, what I'm first hit with is something that doesn't look as polished as Bootstrap.

As I poke through it, the whole framework looks like an analog to Bootstrap; I have to ask ... why? Is responsive text the only thing not available on Bootstrap?

Also the grid designations of .two.thirds versus .span9 makes me vomit all over myself.

[+] ghepting|13 years ago|reply
I appreciate and respect your opinion on this, but can you explain what about these semantic class names you find is causing you nausea? I've considered having them be chained (i.e. .two-thirds) instead of seperated, but find myself thinking that "<aside class="one mobile third"></aside>" and "<article class="two mobile thirds"></article>" is more natural for me to type
[+] jongold|13 years ago|reply
Not wanting to be too critical, but there's lots of talk about "not wanting to look Bootstrappy" (or to a lesser extent, "Foundationy") — in that without customisation sites using them can look cookie-cutter.

This is ugly - I'd rather see sites using Bootstrap or Foundation than this, however solid the codebase is.

Sorry!

[+] x3ord|13 years ago|reply
Trying not to be excessively critical as building a framework like this is a big undertaking, but the aesthetics are bad, it doesn't differentiate itself, and it managed to crashed my browser. All very troubling, especially for a front-end framework.
[+] ghepting|13 years ago|reply
Sorry! Not sure what the deal is with the Safari issue related to the tooltips plugin yet. :/

However, as stated in big superscript on the brand name, Groundwork is in Beta and was just published on February 5th (15 days ago). If you would all submit issues and contribute to the project on Github, I bet these bugs will quickly become a thing of the past! :D

[+] goldfeld|13 years ago|reply
Well I found this framework quite interesting, I don't want Bootstrap's visuals and baggage so I found this very appealing, the grid system is robust and appears to solve my problem which Bootstrap doesn't easily. As for the visuals, well I'm of the opinion that they don't need to look good to be good. Visuals designers usually aren't good at making generic frameworks, it is more of a programmer's undertaking to distill HTML & CSS into it's reusable parts, so for a framework to look good out of the box it needs both skill sets from it's developers.
[+] subpixel|13 years ago|reply
Because I'm also shopping-around: what are your thoughts on Foundation? What's your problem that Bootstrap doesn't solve?
[+] Belhor|13 years ago|reply
Is it just me or their website is laggy?
[+] Swizec|13 years ago|reply
Parts of the site look a bit blurry on a retina :(

That's really not the best first impression for this sort of site ...

[+] ghepting|13 years ago|reply
I think -webkit-filter is to blame here. Webkit must not support different pixel densities with these yet :(
[+] kumarharsh|13 years ago|reply
given that the site is a showcase for the framework, I find their choice of colours and layouts very unappealing.

Also, yes, I'd like them to answer the question "Why Us" somewhere on their site.

[+] ghepting|13 years ago|reply
The intention here is to encourage customization of the color/radius variables in the _variables.scss partial :)
[+] ckluis|13 years ago|reply
Modal design (full screen button) & responsive text are the only things I notice at first glance that might be missing from other more established frameworks.
[+] orensol|13 years ago|reply
The on-page device width emulator is cool.
[+] rgj|13 years ago|reply
Site doesn't even scroll properly on an iPad, everything off-screen seems simply cut off.
[+] ghepting|13 years ago|reply
This issue is most likely related to the resizer -- if you close the resizer are you still experiencing this issue on the iPad? Also, if everyone can please post issues on the Github Issues that would be very helpful! Thank you! :)
[+] rip747|13 years ago|reply
my biggest problem with all of these framework is using them on an existing site. it would be great if all of them wrapped there styles in a parent class that way it wouldn't breaking existing styling.
[+] instakill|13 years ago|reply
Nice looking, but those boxes look exactly like buttons. Very confusing.
[+] ghepting|13 years ago|reply
Hey, thank you for the feedback. Just to be sure, are you referring to the Messages and Callout UI elements? If so, I totally see your point, that may be something we'll want to change.
[+] antonwinter|13 years ago|reply
i like the look, seemed to work fine on my laptop. will try on a few more devices