CSS Frameworks

[CXLink]

June 29th, 2009, 6:42 pm

So since I am not a hardcore coder (I would much prefer be playing in Photoshop or Illustrator or reading Smashing) I am always looking for ways to cheat and or speed up my coding times. Does anyone here use a CSS framework like Blueprint, YAML, Elastic or 960? I just started playing around with Blueprint last week and while I think its got some really good structural ideas I see some things that I am going to have to relearn.

Basically I am just wondering if someone else has used them before and found them awesome, good , useful, or just so full of shortcomings not really worth the time.

Thanks

[graphixboy]

July 12th, 2009, 11:03 am

I love how nobody answers these kind of posts... Anyway I've used both Blueprint and 960 a few times. I discovered that I really like the PSD templates that come with 960 but as soon as I start using the framework it gets pretty messy. The main issue is that I feel like the framework forces me to do more work to fit its structure than it would take to code something on my own.

My solution has been to create my own mini framework that consists of a "default" css file that I always use to start a project. It has things like a reset, clear, left, right, etc predefined so it takes me less time to write in all the features I uses in every site. That said I've never found it useful to include any real structure in my default file since every site seems to end up being very different from all the others.

[CXLink]

July 12th, 2009, 6:40 pm

Yeah I played with the Blueprint again and felt like I had to relearn stuff to get it to work. I went back to using the premade templates on sites like Dynamic Drive and Code Sucks.

[graphixboy]

July 13th, 2009, 11:29 am

yeah those templates are the easiest solution if they work for your design.