Blueprint 0.6 Released
Posted on September 21, 2007. 48 comments.
Today marks the release of Blueprint, version 0.6.
This release is quite literally miles ahead of what 0.5 ever was, and is a giant leap towards what we’ll eventually call version 1.0.
Some of the highlights include:
- A much more sensible directory structure.
- A new plugin system.
- Lots of functionality extracted into plugins, keeping the core files sweet and nimble.
- New test suite for proper browser compatibility testing.
- We’re back to using em units for all vertical sizing, although with a much better implementation than what we had in 0.4.
- New ruby scripts for compressing and validating the CSS.
- Proper styling of forms.
- Tons and tons of bugfixes.
Check out the way too extensive changelog for more details.
I’ll write more about each change in future posts, but it’s just way too much ground to cover in one sitting.
For now, just head over to the Blueprint site to grab your copy. :)
(Also: Polar Bear)
Inspiration
Posted on September 07, 2007. 10 comments.
Virb
Apple
Swissmiss
A Brief Message
Theocacao
CSS 101: Opposing Floats
Posted on September 07, 2007. 16 comments.
One of the CSS techniques most prone to failing in Internet Explorer 6 is floating elements up against each other.
For instance, you might have a main-content div, and a sidebar div. You then float both of these to the left, and give one of them some margin on the left or right hand side.
Bad idea! This often induces one of IE6’s many CSS layout bugs, so here’s a better way:
Float the two divs to different sides. That is, give the first column a float:left, and the second column a float:right.
Apply a width to each column, so that the whitespace in between the columns is as wide as the margin you originally applied.
Now, the columns aren’t even touching, ensuring that IE6 won’t push one column down below the other.
Just like that you’ve accomplished the same exact layout, without the need to float divs up against each other, making for a much more robust layout.
See also:
Blueprint 0.6 stress test
Posted on September 06, 2007. 13 comments.
Before releasing Blueprint 0.6, I’d like to put it through its paces. If you have the time and ability, please check out the latest revision from our SVN repository, and try your utmost to brake it.
This release will be miles ahead of out current release, and is a giant leap towards version 1.0. If all goes according to plan, the versions between 0.6 and 1.0 will not bring any major changes, only subtle improvements, additions and bug fixes.
This also means that the release of 1.0 should not be too far away. :)
Here’s a quick list of the improvements in BP 0.6:
- We’re back to em units for vertical spacing, though with a much better implementation than what we had in 0.4.
- This release introduces a new plugin structure, keeping the core files light and nimble.
- Three plugins (two extracted from the 0.5 core, one new).
- A new IE stylesheet imported with conditional comments.
- A much cleaner directory structure.
- New compressor script for easy compression of core files.
- Compressed version of print.css.
- A CSS validation script.
- Greatly improved test files.
- Lots of improvements to the typography.
- .box, .clear, .append- and .prepend- 12 through 23 are back by popular demand. :)
- Loads and loads of small improvements and fixes.
This might seem like a lot of files, but while the number of bundled tools have increased, the use of plugins and a much better directory structure actually means that the CSS framework itself is lighter and more robust than ever.
Take a look at the full changelog for more details, though some changes might be missing from that as well. Also, the readme file in the SVN directory is of course the only updated documentation on 0.6.
Submit feedback in our Google Group, or by mail (olav at bjorkoy dot com).
I’ll be posting about who the people in the BP dev team actually are, and about all the new tools to use with BP in the near future.