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Overview

Fluid Project has adopted the following recommendation for using CSS Frameworks:

Reccomendation	Application: Infusion Components	Application: Integration
Use CSS framework	No	Yes
Use own / default styles	Yes	Yes*
Recommended framework		Zurb Foundation
Use CSS framework with contrast themes	No	Maybe*

*see notes below

For Fluid Infusion Components: 

Summary and Background

Up to version 1.5, Infusion shipped with a built-in CSS framework called the Fluid Skinning System. When the FSS was first designed, there were few viable production-scale CSS frameworks available to developers. As a community, we felt a need to provide something that had been designed with accessibility and flexibility in mind. Since then, we've experienced a massive shift in the way websites are designed and implemented. Responsive Web Design is now widely practiced, enabling web pages to adapt to different screen sizes and device form factors. CSS preprocessors such as Less and Sass have changed the way style sheets are developed and reused. Mature and widely-used CSS frameworks such as Bootstrap and Foundation are available to help ease the effort of styling responsive layouts, grids, and widgets.

Unfortunately, the Fluid Skinning System hasn't kept pace. As a result, we chose to deprecate it in version 1.5. We recommend that users of Infusion choose from any of the available third-party frameworks based on their own needs and requirements. As of Infusion 2.0, we will remove FSS entirely.

Infusion components currently don't rely on any CSS framework, and we will continue to ensure that they are styled in a way that is unlikely to conflict with popular tools like Bootstrap and Foundation. For the foreseeable future, we don't plan to include any third-party CSS framework with Infusion, nor to require that our users select a specific framework.

Who is this document for?

Recommendation Summary

Fluid Infusion components do not use a CSS framework out of the box. The motivation for this is to ensure Infusion components play nicely in whatever application is used. Integrators may choose to add their own CSS framework to Infusion components if they wish.

Using a CSS Framework within an Infusion component

• Components shipped as part of the core Infusion package do not use a CSS framework for their styling.
   
• Some CSS frameworks don't use namespaced or prefixed class names, which creates the possibility of collisions that can cause styling problems. Infusion component styles are always namespaced, which reduces the potential for Infusion to cause conflicts with non-namespaced frameworks. See Infusion Class Name Conventions for more information.
  
• Because Infusion components do not use a CSS framework by default, component creators will need to create good default styles and leave it to the integrator to customize with their own CSS framework if they choose to.We will not create contrast themes for CSS frameworks. Creating a theme is non-trivial (lots of values to adapt) and s high maintenance (each major or minor release will need to be tested - occurs roughly once a month).
  

For websites, demos, etc.

Using a CSS Framework within Fluid-related demos, websites, etc.

• A CSS framework is fine to be used for websites, demos, and other integration / non-component scenarios.

Recommended CSS framework:

• Zurb Foundation is the recommended CSS framework to be used We recommend Foundation because of its use of REM sizing throughout.

Using a CSS Framework for contrast themes in UI Options and the Preferences Framework

• At this time it is difficult to create contrast themes for CSS frameworks despite the availability of custom builders. Custom builders may not be an appropriate tool as they do not cover all possible styling rules we want to affect.

• Creating a theme manually is non-trivial (lots of values to adapt)
• Themes would have to be tested with each major and minor framework release to ensure compatibility. This adds a maintenance burden.

Future possibilities

• There may be an opportunity to add new features to Learner Preferences that can transform CSS framework components (like navigation bars and button links). Further discussion is encouraged.
• Contrast theme generation using a CSS pre-processor to be investigated. Possible pre-processors include: Less, SASS, and Stylus. This will be a separate discussion.

Appropriate Use of

Using a framework for styling purposes in an Infusion component is not recommended because of the lack of class name spacing. Without a good way to namespace Infusion's use of a framework, there is a likelihood that Infusion's choice framework may collide with integrator's existing styling causing undesired results. In order to ensure that Infusion components play nicely with the integrator's application regardless of their styling, Infusion components will use their own default styling following the recommended classname convention to reduce the occurrence of collisions.

• Also see: Infusion Class Name Conventions

CSS frameworks are fine to be used within the context of demos, websites, and other integration scenarios.

We will re-evaluate the use of CSS frameworks for Infusion components if a good method for name spacing becomes available.

a CSS Framework

Example: Metadata component

• The Metadata component for the Floe project has two major pieces: the component , and the demo.
  • See the project source code here: https://github.com/fluid-project/metadata
  • See the project designs here: FLOE Metadata Authoring Design
• The metadata component is styled using a "good default" style which is intended to be usable in most applications. The metadata component itself does not use a CSS framework.
  
  • See the component's styling here: https://github.com/fluid-project/metadata/blob/master/src/css/style.css
• The metadata demo itself uses Foundation as a CSS framework as it is an integration scenario.
  
  • See the demo's styling here: https://github.com/fluid-project/metadata/tree/master/demos/css
• If both the metadata component and the metadata demo used the same CSS framework, the styling of the demo would have collided with the styling of the component since the styles would have shared the same namespace and scope. Fixing this issue would have involved adding many styling overrides to restore the Metadata component to its original state.

Choosing a CSS Framework: Why Zurb Foundation?

In deciding which framework to recommend for the Fluid project, many criteria were considered including: documentation, community support, accessibility, and scalability.

• Also see: CSS Framework Research Notes

After researching and comparing 6 different CSS frameworks, Zurb Foundation is the recommended framework for the following reasons:

• Foundation uses REMs as units which ensures scalability across clients and devices.
• Foundation's grid system is flexible - it's fluid width and has a cleaner structure which makes integration and customization easier.
• We typically work in highly customized environments and Foundation is light weight and doesn't get in the way (mostly).

Findings

Recommendation

Can I use a

 Recommend the use of CSS framework for websites, demos, and other integration situations

 Foundation is the recommended CSS framework primarily because:

Other interesting notes:

• Common CSS framework features (such as navigation bars, link buttons, progress bars, breadcrumbs) can lead to some new Learner Preferences transformations. Also see "Possible new Learner Prefs transformations with CSS Framework" in the Criteria Evaluation table in the next section. 
  • It is conceivable that Learner Preferences need not adopt a CSS framework, but instead rely on the integrator to supply an adapter that links Learner Preferences to specific CSS classes. 
  • For example, Learner Prefs has a new feature which transforms navigation bars into vertical lists. The integrator writes an adapter that tells Learner Prefs which classes in their website correspond to navigation bars.

Criteria Evaluation

• Bootstrap uses fixed width containers that "snap" across breakpoints
• Grid layout needs to follow a container-row-column hierarchy. Otherwise 15px paddings / margins don't align properly.

• Foundation uses fluid width containers that stretch and shrink depending on the size of the client, with relevant breakpoints.
• Foundation has a row-column hierarchy with paddings on the columns only. Row is only for containment.

• uses normalize.css in Bootstrap CSS.

• normalize.css is included in default package, but optional whether or not it is used in your markup.

Current release (v3) uses pixels and not EMs. However, v4 (unreleased) will support EMs. See Mark Otto's January 9th response in this thread on Github.

• Note: EMs will be supported. Unclear if REMs will be used.
• UIO works well with Bootstrap's pixel units, although EMs are more desirable.

• REMs are desirable and easier to use for CSS styling than EM because REMs always refer to the root EM and not the parent EM as with EM units.
• REM units currently do not scale properly in UI Options. See

  Jira
  server Fluid Project Issue Tracker key FLUID-4698

• +/-15px margin and padding on container, rows, and columns dictate a hierarchy and usage pattern. Customizing this or deviating from this pattern causes unintentional and unwanted alignment issues which can be hard to correct (involves overriding).
• This hierarchy is required to ensure good scalable layouts.

• Working with Foundation within a heavily customized application seemed very straight forward. Some styles needed to be overridden, but that was expected.
• Foundation button has !important for font weight

• important used for print media styling, visibility of collapsing navbar, and visible and hidden elements.
• no use of !important on html elements

• Bootstrap uses generic classnames which may cause classname collisions.
• A work-around is to use LESS or Sass to add a named container. See this as a possible solution: https://coderwall.com/p/uiwcow

UIO Theme generation

• Themes can be created using the online tool but it is not a quick process and error prone: http://getbootstrap.com/customize/
• Themes can also be created by modifying the variables.less file
• There are a lot of variables to configure, experimentation will be needed to determine the effect of each variable and which variables should be modified for a theme.

• Background colour can not be changed using the online customization tool: http://foundation.zurb.com/develop/download.html#customizeFoundation
• Themes can be created by modifying the _settings.scss file
• There are a lot of variables to configure, experimentation will be needed to determine the effect of each variable and which variables should be modified for a theme.

different framework?

Yes, you can use any framework you prefer. For Fluid-related websites and demos, we prefer frameworks that are:

• Accessible and scalable
• Mature and widely supported
• Open source

Future Considerations

Better namespacing

• At this time it is very difficult to namespace CSS framework classes. Most solutions are a manual process, or a manual process that is automated by a script. This is fragile and requires constant testing with each new framework release.
• If a CSS framework or tool emerges to support custom name spacing easily, and satisfies our needs (i.e. scalable, accessible, widely supported, etc.) - we should revisit the topic of using a framework for Infusion components.

Add CSS framework support to the Preferences Framework

• Since CSS frameworks share common features (such as navigation bars, link buttons, progress bars, breadcrumbs), this can lead to some new preferences.
• For example:
  • Linearize / stack content by changing the grid layout
  • Navigation bar preferences: make tabs look like pills, make navigation pills stack
  • Pager: size, appearance, spacing
  • Alerts: change the way alerts are positioned or styled (i.e. make them bigger, put them in a floating panel etc

• • .

• • )

Issue: REM sizes may not behave as intended if the root element has existing font-size

Description:

It is possible that the document in which an Infusion component is being added to already have a root font-size specified. In which case any REM sizes used in the Infusion component will size itself relative to that existing root font-size. If the font-size is not an expected value, the Infusion component may not look as expected.

Example:

Bootstrap specifies font-size: 62.5% on the HTML element, and a font-size: 14px to the Body element. Adding an Infusion component (which is using Foundation) with a font-size: 1rem to this document would have the Infusion component appear smaller since 1rem is relative to the 62.5% font-size value on the HTML element.

Conclusion:

This issue would occur if using Foundation in a Infusion component. To avoid this problem, Infusion's use of CSS framework should have a name space.

Issue: Without proper name spacing, it is difficult to mix two frameworks

Description:

If the integrator wants to customize an Infusion component using their own framework, style collisions may be unavoidable due to the use of generic classnames (like "row") or conflicting styles on HTML level elements (like "h1"). Therefore if Infusion's uses a CSS framework, it should be properly name spaced to ensure it doesn't get in the way of an integrator's customizations.

Discussion:

• it is possible to add a prefix to Bootstrap classnames by using a Python script: https://gist.github.com/macanderson/6128137
• here is a discussion about prefixing Foundation classnames: https://github.com/zurb/foundation/issues/546

Conclusion:

At this time, name spacing a CSS framework is not feasible. The common approach is to use a post processor (like Python) to add name space information, but this approach is fragile since new versions of the CSS framework may break the script.

There are currently some unresolved user questions:

• In order to support multiple CSS frameworks, consider using an adapter model where the Preferences framework supports a generic definition and adapters are created to map CSS framework definitions to the framework. i.e. Framework 1 may use divs for breadcrumbs, and Framework 2 may use a list. The adapter would define this configuration so that the framework can use both.