Top 10 Mistakes Developers Often Make When Using Bootstrap

When first considering it, Bootstrap appears deceptively straightforward. And to be fair, getting started with Bootstrap isn’t particularly challenging. There’s a very well-written Bootstrap documentation packed with numerous HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code snippets. This resource highlights most of the major pitfalls, yet some errors remain rather subtle or have ambiguous origins. Because Bootstrap presents an image of simplicity and ease of use, many developers dive in headfirst, leading to avoidable mistakes.

Let’s examine 10 frequent Bootstrap errors, issues, and misunderstandings encountered by developers new to the framework.

Common Bootstrap Mistake #1: Fundamental Misconceptions About the Framework

There are some fundamental misunderstandings about the Bootstrap framework. This might stem from unclear messaging on Bootstrap’s website or developers not thoroughly reviewing the documentation. The reality is that developers sometimes find themselves painted into a corner by incorrect usage and then shift blame to the framework. So, let’s clarify some basics.

Bootstrap is comprehensive but not excessively large. It bundles basic HTML and CSS design templates encompassing many common UI components. These include Typography, Tables, Forms, Buttons, Glyphicons, Dropdowns, Buttons and Input Groups, Navigation, Pagination, Labels and Badges, Alerts, Progress Bars, Modals, Tabs, Accordions, Carousels, and many others. You can selectively employ a few of these and, using default configurations, quickly generate a UI that gracefully adapts to multiple browsers, devices, and resolutions.

While Bootstrap won’t handle everything for you, it provides a set of sensible defaults and assists developers in focusing more on development than design worries, enabling them to launch a visually appealing website swiftly. It facilitates rapid prototyping without restricting developers.

It’s extensible enough for customization to individual needs. Initially, Bootstrap had limitations, and extending default styles was complex. However, as the framework matured, so did its extensibility.

Common Bootstrap Mistake #2: Assuming No CSS Knowledge or Designer is Needed with Bootstrap

Believing that Bootstrap negates the need for CSS knowledge is a misconception. Every front-end developer must grasp CSS and HTML5. Bootstrap alleviates developers of many intricate CSS aspects (like vendor-specific prefixes) and provides basic default styling, but CSS understanding remains crucial. While you may not need to delve into media query intricacies, comprehending responsive design is essential. Bootstrap doesn’t aim to teach you CSS but can be a learning aid. Examining its source code in LESS or SASS is a good starting point.

Similarly, while not a designer, you might think one is unnecessary with Bootstrap. However, leverage a designer’s expertise if possible. A frequent criticism is the visual homogeneity of Bootstrap sites. Ending up with a website indistinguishable from countless others is easy. This, however, isn’t inevitable. Millions of websites leverage Bootstrap, showcasing diverse designs, as seen on the Bootstrap Expo, a collection of Bootstrap-built sites. Explore, find inspiration, and embark on crafting your design variations.

Common Bootstrap Mistake #3: Modifying the Bootstrap CSS File

To put it simply: Never directly alter the bootstrap.css file.

Modifying the bootstrap.css file quickly complicates matters. Your entire design will crumble when upgrading Bootstrap files. You can override default Bootstrap colors, styles, margins, paddings, and more within your stylesheet—there’s no need to touch the bootstrap.css stylesheet directly.

Unfamiliar with LESS or SASS? No problem. Create a separate CSS file to override desired aspects of the original bootstrap.css stylesheet. As previously mentioned, CSS knowledge is non-negotiable. Define your CSS selector, apply it in HTML, and ensure your CSS classes are declared after Bootstrap styles, allowing your definitions to override Bootstrap defaults.

Eager to learn more and delve deeper? I strongly encourage you to do so. Utilize Bootstrap’s LESS source code for a clearer understanding of its workings and structure compared to static CSS.

Common Bootstrap Mistake #4: Utilizing Every Feature Bootstrap Offers

As highlighted before, Bootstrap is comprehensive, providing numerous UI components, HTML and CSS design templates, and JavaScript plugins. However, exercise selectivity. There’s no need to incorporate every Bootstrap feature.

This especially holds true for plugins. Choose only the plugins that make sense for your project, and avoid using everything just because it seems appealing. Your website can easily become bloated. Consider initially excluding the bootstrap.js file altogether and building your site using plain HTML and CSS. Then, add components one by one, only as needed for specific functionalities.

Bootstrap modals offer versatile dialog prompts with minimal required functionality and intelligent defaults. Despite their ease of use and customization, keeping a few things in mind is important to prevent common misuses.

Bootstrap doesn’t inherently support overlapping modals. Only one modal can be visible at a time. Achieving simultaneous display requires custom code to manage this behavior effectively.

If the modal container or its parent element has fixed or relative positioning, the modal won’t display correctly. Always ensure no special positioning is applied to the modal container or its parent elements. The best practice is to place the modal’s HTML immediately before the closing </body> tag, or even better, at the top level of the document, right after the opening <body> tag. This minimizes interference from other components on the modal’s appearance and functionality.

Modals on Mobile Devices

Developers should be mindful of certain caveats when handling modals on mobile devices with virtual keyboards](http://getbootstrap.com/getting-started/#virtual-keyboards). This is particularly relevant for [iOS devices, where a rendering bug hinders the position update of fixed elements when the virtual keyboard is triggered. This issue isn’t addressed by Bootstrap, leaving it to the developer to handle these situations programmatically in a way best suited for their application.

Common Bootstrap Mistake #6: File Input Button Component Issue

Bootstrap lacks a designated component for a file upload button. A clean and elegant solution using only HTML and CSS can be achieved with the following code snippet:

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<span class="btn btn-default btn-file">
  Browse <input type="file">
</span>

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.btn-file {
  position: relative;
  overflow: hidden;
}
.btn-file input[type=file] {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    right: 0;
    min-width: 100%;
    min-height: 100%;
    font-size: 100px;
    text-align: right;
    filter: alpha(opacity=0);
    opacity: 0;
    outline: none;
    background: white;
    cursor: inherit;
    display: block;
}

Many examples demonstrate how to achieve a similar effect. This particular example is courtesy of Cory LaViska, and his website provides a more detailed explaination of this problem. An extended example with additional functionality utilizing JavaScript code is also available.

Common Bootstrap Mistake #7: Overcomplicating with JavaScript and Neglecting “data-” Attributes

Designers or novice JavaScript developers venturing into web development might lean heavily on HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap. Without strong coding skills, they risk misusing JavaScript or overcomplicating their code. It’s crucial to emphasize that all Bootstrap plugins can function solely through the markup API, without writing a single line of JavaScript. This is Bootstrap’s primary API and should be your first consideration when using plugins.

For instance, activating a modal dialog without JavaScript is possible by setting data-toggle="modal" on a controller element like a button or anchor, and passing additional parameters through data- attributes. In the code below, we target the HTML element with the ID #myModal. Using the data-backdrop option, we prevent the modal from closing when a user clicks outside of it, and we disable the escape key event that typically closes a modal using the data-keyboard option. All of this is achieved in a single line of HTML:

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<button type="button" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#myModal" data-backdrop="static" data-keyboard="false">Launch my modal</button>

Common Bootstrap Mistake #8: Disregarding Tools That Simplify Bootstrap Development

Mistakes are inevitable in development, and every developer makes them. What matters is how you address them. The Bootstrap team, observing the issue tracker, recognized the recurrence of certain errors. To address this, they sought to automate the development process, resulting in Bootlint, an HTML linting tool for Bootstrap projects. Bootlint functions both in-browser and from the command line via Node.js, automatically scanning Bootstrapped webpages for common usage errors. Integrating Bootlint into your workflow can significantly reduce common mistakes that hinder project development.

If you’re interested in contributing to the Bootstrap project, exploring Rorschach is worthwhile. Rorschach, a Bootstrap pull request sanity checker bot, performs checks on every new pull request. Upon detecting a problem, it provides a helpful comment on the pull request outlining the error and suggesting a fix, subsequently closing the pull request.

Common Bootstrap Mistake #9: Compatibility Issues with IE8 and Older Browsers

Bootstrap is optimized for modern desktop and mobile browsers. While older browsers might render components and elements differently, functionality should remain intact. Support includes Internet Explorer 8 and 9, with the caveat that some CSS3 properties and HTML5 elements lack full support in these browsers.

To ensure compatibility with Internet Explorer 8 and other older browsers, utilize a polyfill for CSS3 Media Queries Respond.js, HTML 5 shim to enable HTML5 elements, and include the appropriate IE <meta> tag in the HTML head to prevent IE from running in compatibility mode. Your HTML head should ultimately resemble this:

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<head>
  ...
  <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
  <!--[if lt IE 9]>
    <script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/html5shiv/3.7.2/html5shiv.min.js"></script>
    <script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/respond/1.4.2/respond.min.js"></script>
  <![endif]-->
</head>

When using Respond.js, be aware of the following caveats in development and production environments.

Common Bootstrap Mistake #10: Neglecting Best Practices

A frequent question on Stack Overflow is how to make Bootstrap’s menu dropdown activate on hover instead of click. While the solution is straightforward, achievable with CSS alone, it’s not recommended. This feature’s omission from the framework is a deliberate design choice by the development team. Again, while achievable, understand the implications and acknowledge the existence of best practices, especially for mobile-first frameworks. The rationale behind this specific decision is that hover-based interactions are incompatible with touch devices, which rely solely on touch events. Consequently, this approach won’t function correctly on any touch-enabled device.

Bootstrap Mistakes Conclusion

Hopefully, this concise Bootstrap guide helps you avoid common pitfalls, clarifies typical misunderstandings, and empowers you to maximize the framework’s potential. Remember, Bootstrap isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, nor is it suitable for every project. When choosing a framework, invest time in reading the documentation and experimenting with it to gain a better understanding of its workings. This applies to Bootstrap as well.

Consult the documentation, experiment with the provided samples, master the fundamentals, and enjoy crafting innovative and visually appealing designs.