Towards a style guide

Interface Style Guide

This guide defines the styles, icons, fonts and general UI control that should be used for any user interface we code. This creates a consistent look and feel - and saves time.

secondly, i would say we should define our style guide in terms of the css classes to use and for those that need to extend bootstrap, our style guide should basically be a reference to the classes in our own custom chaise.css (or whatever).

and thirdly, then we need to pick a set of non-bootstrap 3rd party ui components, such as which dropdown control to use (e.g., angular-ui-selector or whatever its called).

Interface Style Guide

Doctype

Include the HTML5 doctype at the beginning of all your projects.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  ...
</html>

Framework

The underlying framework for our interfaces is Bootstrap. We are currently using version 3.

To add Bootstrap to your project:

Click the "Download Bootstrap button" on the Getting Started page and unzip the download.
Add the folders ("css", "fonts" and "js") to your project (usually either at the root directory of your web files or under an "assets" directory there).

Update the <head> section to link to the stylesheet:

  ~~~~
   <link href="css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
  ~~~~

Update the bottom of your HTML code - right before the closing </body> tag - to import the Bootstrap javascript as well as jQuery:
```
  ~~~~
  
```
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.3/jquery.min.js"></script> <script src="js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
```
  ~~~~
```

Note, if you prefer, you can download jQuery, add it to your web files and link to that.

Custom Styles/css

The style of the Chaise application can be overridden by providing a custom CSS document that is loaded after the rest of the styles. See the above link for more information.

Normalize.css

For improved cross-browser rendering, we use Normalize.css, a project by Nicolas Gallagher and Jonathan Neal.

Basic example

The following is a basic example of an HTML page using Bootstrap (without a grid or any content yet):

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    <!-- The above 3 meta tags *must* come first in the head; any other head content must come *after* these tags -->
    <title>Bootstrap 101 Template</title>

    <!-- Bootstrap -->
    <link href="css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">

    <!-- HTML5 shim and Respond.js for IE8 support of HTML5 elements and media queries -->
    <!-- WARNING: Respond.js doesn't work if you view the page via file:// -->
    <!--[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>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello, world!</h1>

    <!-- jQuery (necessary for Bootstrap's JavaScript plugins) -->
    <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <!-- Include all compiled plugins (below), or include individual files as needed -->
    <script src="js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

Layout

Containers

Bootstrap uses two kinds of containing elements - one for fixed width and one for full-width.

In general, we use the full-width "container-fluid" tag so that the app takes the full width of the browser window:

<div class="container-fluid">
...
</div>

Grid System

Container tags contain rows (divs using the row class) and then the appropriate column classes.

In general, a row is made up of 12 possible columns. To make your grid, you 'chunk' the columns together to get the widths you want.

Further, the column classes use size terms to indicate breakpoints (points where columns will stack vertically instead of going all the way across horizontally) for different size viewports (phone, tablet, laptop, etc). There will be more discussion in the "Responsive" section but for now we'll use the medium version for examples in this document (col-md-#).

For example:

If you you want two columns of equal width, you would use two divs with the class col-md-6
For a left sidebar and a larger content area, you could use col-md-4 and col-md-8

Note: For one column, no column classes are needed, just the 'row' div. However, if you run into layout issues, use the col-*-12

Grid Layout example

Here's the bootstrap HTML tags for a full-width app with a left sidebar and main content area:

...
		<div class="container-fluid">
			<div class="row">
				<div class="col-md-4">
					Sidebar content
				</div>
				<div class="col-md-8">
					Main content
				</div>
			</div>
		</div>
...

Note that rows/columns can be nested as needed.

Typography

Fonts

Our preferred font is "Helvetica Neue".

Add it to the font-family CSS rule for the body tag as follows to allow graceful degradation if that font is not available:

body {
	font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
}

Headings

Use <h1> through <h6> in a hierarchical manner as appropriate. You can also include a secondary header within the heading tags using the <small> tag:

<h1>h1. Bootstrap heading <small>Secondary text</small></h1>
<h2>h2. Bootstrap heading <small>Secondary text</small></h2>

Body copy

Bootstrap uses a default font-size of 14px for the body copy but better practice is using 16px for improved readability. Add the following rule to your custom stylesheet:

body {
	font-size: 16px;
}

Lead class

Make a paragraph larger (good for opening paragraphs on a text-heavy page) by adding the lead class to a paragraph tag:

<p class="lead">...</p>

Inline text elements

Highlight:

You can use the mark tag to <mark>highlight</mark> text.

Strikethrough:

<del>This line of text is meant to be treated as deleted text.</del>

Underline:

<u>This line of text will render as underlined</u>

Small text:

<small>This line of text is meant to be treated as fine print.</small>

Bold:

<strong>rendered as bold text</strong>

Italics/emphasized:

<em>rendered as italicized text</em>

Alignment classes

<p class="text-left">Left aligned text.</p>
<p class="text-center">Center aligned text.</p>
<p class="text-right">Right aligned text.</p>
<p class="text-justify">Justified text.</p>
<p class="text-nowrap">No wrap text.</p>

Code

Inline code:

For example, <code>&lt;section&gt;</code> should be wrapped as inline.

User input:

To switch directories, type <kbd>cd</kbd> followed by the name of the directory.<br>
To edit settings, press <kbd><kbd>ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>,</kbd></kbd>

Code block:

<pre>&lt;p&gt;Sample text here...&lt;/p&gt;</pre>

Variables:

<var>y</var> = <var>m</var><var>x</var> + <var>b</var>

Tables

Use <table> HTML tags as usual but include the following classes to automatically style them.

At the very minimum, use the table class for a clean look without borders on all cells:

<table class="table">
  ...
</table>

For long tables that may be difficult to parse, add the .table-striped class to shade every other row:

<table class="table table-striped">
  ...
</table>

For long tables, you can also cut the cell padding in half with the .table-compact class.

Also use:

.table-bordered to add lines to all cells - for data tables
.table-hover so that rows are shaded when the mouse hovers over them (another good trick for long tables)
If you wrap the table in a div with the .table-responsiveclass, it will allow tables to scroll horizontally on mobile devices.

<div class="table-responsive">
  <table class="table">
    ...
  </table>
</div>

Style

Colors

For the default ("vanilla") application, we keep colors as neutral as possible. The default colors for the current chaise application are:

The navbar is very dark gray (#4D4D4D), as set in chaise's custom css file, appheader.css:

.navbar-inverse .navbar-collapse, .navbar-inverse .navbar-form {
    border-color: #4D4D4D;
}

Branding text (Chaise) is white, also set in appheader.css:
```
.navbar-inverse .navbar-brand {
  color: #FFFFFF;
}
```
Links and other elements use the default Bootstrap styles

Icons

Bootstrap includes icons (glyphicons), which is a decent collection of commonly used icons. You can find the available options and details on how to use them here.

These are font icons, which means you can use CSS to change their color, size, etc.

Here's the cheatsheet for icons used in chaise. It basically uses specific classes on an empty code or i tag:


  question mark (Help): <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-question-sign"></span>
  
  bookmark (Permalink): <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-bookmark"></span>
  
  left arrow (Go Back): <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-left"></span>
  
  magnifying glass (Search): <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-search"></span>

You can also adjust the size of a glyphicon TBD

Inconsistency alert - Material Design:

We sometimes use Material Design icons if we can't find what we want with glyphicons. These use i tags and the prefix "md".

You can also adjust the size using classes "md-lg", ""

  red circle with x (Close filter): <i class="md-cancel md-lg"></i>

App bar

Difference between toolbar and app bar?

System bars

?

Side nav / Filters sidebar

Hacked from http://codepen.io/zavoloklom/pen/dIgco and then integrated into Angular. The HTML and CSS could use some cleaning up.

The basic idea for the sidebar is that it's a fixed div that was originally designed to slide in and out. It always looks open, but the additional stages (ie, when you click on a top-level choice and see the options) are actually another sidebar overlaying the first one. We decided not to slide them in and out and the "swoop" aspect is irrelevent now.

There are actually 4 sidebars (in

tags) that represent:

"sidebar" - the top-level facets
"morefilters" - shows all available facets
"editfilter" - shows options of a facet that may be selected/de-selected
"collectionsTree" - shows available Chaise collections

Navigation controls for filters sidebar

Hovering shows gray background

Components for selecting options include:

Checkboxes (most common)
Slider (used for number/date ranges) - built on rzslider, a Slider directive for AngularJS: https://github.com/angular-slider/angularjs-slider
Text field (searching attributes)

Responsive UI

Responsive design basically creates a design that displays appropriately and is functional on various sizes, layouts and resolutions. The Bootstrap framework is inherently responsive - but you do need to consider the type of size classes you use (col-sm-, col-md-, col-lg, will collapse at different breakpoints.) See the Grid section of the Bootstrap site for more details.

For FaceBase chaise, we also needed to add a third-party style for extra wide columns so the layout used more real estate on larger, high resolution displays. At the end of the FB custom.css file, we appended the XL classes from https://github.com/marcvannieuwenhuijzen/BootstrapXL/blob/master/BootstrapXL.css within a media query that affects displays of 1600px and greater.

  @media (min-width: 1600px) {
      .container {
          width: 1570px;
      }
      
      <add -xl- classes >
  }

We also use some javascript to change which XL class is being used for certain breakpoints as the defaults weren't quite working for the layout:

    <script>
    $(function(){
      var content = $("#main-content");
      $(window).resize(function() {
          checkWidth(content);
      });

      checkWidth(content);
    });

    function checkWidth(content){
      var viewportWidth = $(window).width();

      if(viewportWidth >= 1696){
          if( content.hasClass("col-xl-9") ){
              content.removeClass("col-xl-9").addClass("col-xl-10");
          }
      }else{
          if( content.hasClass("col-xl-10")){
              content.removeClass("col-xl-10").addClass("col-xl-9");
          }
      }
    }
    </script>

Breakpoints

The default breakpoints for Bootstrap 3 are:

  /* Extra small devices (phones, less than 768px) */
  /* No media query since this is the default in Bootstrap */

  /* Small devices (tablets, 768px and up) */
  @media (min-width: @screen-sm-min) { ... }

  /* Medium devices (desktops, 992px and up) */
  @media (min-width: @screen-md-min) { ... }

  /* Large devices (large desktops, 1200px and up) */
  @media (min-width: @screen-lg-min) { ... }

Components

Buttons

Buttons indicate a user can take an action and are made up of text, image or both with a background color appropriate to the app.

Button types

Terms buttons Chiclets

Describe each type and then how to choose

Usage

When to use Buttons

Button styles

Typography (ie, capitalized or initial caps)

Accessibility - to ease reading: button height 27 px

Density - measurements between text and background: text size, button height, text left and right padding

Towards a style guide

Doctype

Framework

Custom Styles/css

Normalize.css

Basic example

Layout

Containers

Grid System

Grid Layout example

Typography

Fonts

Headings

Body copy

Lead class

Inline text elements

Alignment classes

Code

Tables

Style

Colors

Icons

App bar

System bars

Side nav / Filters sidebar

Navigation controls for filters sidebar

Responsive UI

Breakpoints

Components

Buttons

Button types

Usage

Button styles

Dropdown Buttons

Toggle Buttons

Chiclets

Dialogs

Lists

Lists controls

Menus

Pickers

Progress indicators

Selection controls

Sliders

Subheaders

Tabs

Text fields

Input

Labels

Style

Single-line text field

Multi-line text field

Full-width text field

Character counter

Auto-complete text field

Search filter

Required fields

Password input

Toolbars

Tooltips

Patterns

Date Formats

Empty states

Errors

Launch screens / Landing pages

Navigation

Navigation Drawer (ie Filter sidebar)

Navigational Transitions

Scrolling techniques

Search

Settings

Usability and Accessibility

Color and contrast

Motion

Layout

Writing

Hierarchy and focus

Implementation

General Guides

Dev Guides