Bootstrap: Super Smart Features to Win You Over

The first stable release of Bootstrap 4 is here. And it's pretty cool. This article looks at some of its best features.

It was on 19th August, 2015, that Bootstrap 4 alpha was finally out. This was after months of anticipation, anxious tweets asking for the disclosure of a release date, and a few scattered scraps of news by Mark Otto and Jacob Thornton, having the effect of intensifying rather than quenching our curiosity. More than two years later, the wait for the first stable release is finally over.

As a designer, I love crafting my own CSS. However, I confess that I find Bootstrap a well thought out and strongly supported front-end framework that I’ve immensely enjoyed using — both for building my projects and for learning more about writing better, modular CSS.

As soon as news of the latest release was out, I downloaded the source files for Bootstrap 4 and spent some time going back and forth between reading the docs and digging into the code to find out more.

Here are the latest Bootstrap features I like the most. I hope you find them awesome too!

#1 New Interactive Documentation

The Bootstrap documentation has been exemplary since the framework’s early days. It’s always had the crucial role of being a living document — that is, a tool in sync with the collaborative effort of building the framework and communicating it to others:

Abstracting and documenting components became part of our process for building this one tool and Bootstrap in tandem. — Mark Otto in 2012

Mark himself is quite a fan of great documentation. His Code Guide by @mdo is evidence of his attitude that high-quality documentation is part and parcel of writing high-quality code.

The documentation for version 4 has been rewritten from scratch using Markdown, and its appearance has been revamped with a new layout, color palette, and the use of system fonts.

The Bootstrap docs:

• are a pleasure to navigate, both using the traditional sidebar navigation and the brand new search form
• structure information in a logical manner; content is never overwhelming or confusing
• include instructions and how-tos covering all areas of the framework, from different ways of installing Bootstrap to using each component and dealing with browser quirks.

Finally, if you’d like to run the Bootstrap docs locally on your computer, follow these instructions.

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by Maria Antonietta Perna via SitePoint