I am a new user as of two days ago, happy to be onboard and eager to dive into BSS as it looks really nice. I was curious is there an existing resource to see what others have built with Bootstrap Studio? Like a Showcase section in the forum for people to post sites, (old and new) that were built with Bootstrap Studio. I think it would be a good resource to see what others are accomplishing and inspirational as to what can be done in Bootstrap Studio, it may also be useful for marketing the app to new users.
Does something like this exist, or do people think its a useful and viable thing to have? Thoughts, feedback?
I've only completed one site that's online to the public now (was in a test area, but will be removing that soon so those links in here will be dead soon). I've also got 2 more that I'm working on a the moment and one possibility that may start soon as well. These will all be done in BSS, I can't think of any other app that can do with this one does with ease. Here's the one that is currently live and running today:
I LOVE that website. You've managed to capture an old school feel with a modern technique. The wallpaper? The slight transparency, it's beautiful. I wish I had this on my portfolio wall.
It 100% suits the brand. I bet they're happy clients for sure.
Thanks much Andrew, it was definitely a great one to do. I had pretty much free reign on the design once they told me the basic structure and colors they wanted to work with. I find it very strange that so many people are making all these single column responsive websites for people and I've yet to have a client that didn't want a sidebar lol. I have to say, structuring this website in BSS was amazingly simple (hopefully I've done it correctly too! haha, had a little help from Saj on the structure a little bit ago and I believe I have most of that corrected now). I have a tendency to overthink, so I'm told by many haha, so I tend to want to add things that aren't always necessary. I've since gone back and cleaned up some of the areas that had extra rows or columns that weren't needed and so on.
BSS has made the creation of this website and the 2 I'm working on now extremely pleasurable, easy (once you get the hang of how it all works), and it's soooo powerful. I still think the most amazing part is that so far (knocks on wood lol) I have yet to have to remove a site fully from this app. I'm doing my best to take this app all the way and plan all the updates using the app as well. Not a single other app I've used to date can boast that ability with the ease of this one. I used another editor that has since fallen extremely out of date on their updates and that one was only a layout maker. It couldn't make the full site so you had to finish it in code. Of course that meant having to do all edits after that in the code not the app. Doable yes, but more cumbersome.
One nice thing is small updates can still be done by hand, yet easily done within the app as well so if it's something that is a 2 sec change I usually update the file itself in my ftp app's editor and then edit it in BSS so that when I export it next it will already have those changes, quicker than exporting for little tiny things. I don't foresee (so far anyways) the need for using an external editor other than for testing things. Might actually be able to lose the subscription to Dreamweaver that I've had since they started that system, and I used DW for years before that. I think I've fired up DW 3 or 4 times in the past month, and that was for sites that needed updates that I didn't build in BSS. Makes me want to redo those sites just so they are all in the app lol.
I too have thoroughly enjoyed using this app since oruchasing. Even got a chap I work with to get t aswell.
I'm still learning new things each day and now am trying to teach myself how I can design in BSS and the translate the designs into a Wordpress theme so I can offer cms solutions for clients.
But here is the first site I built using BSS for my uncle: http://www.hackwoodfabricatedsolutions.co.uk
Great looking site Chris! Nicely formatted, seems to go right from one area to the next without looking like it's the end of the site on every section. That I think is the biggest pet peeve I have with these new single column responsive designs. Half the time I think I'm at the end of the site because so many people design them to not flow nicely, they create sections that look like footers instead of content. Personally I feel like it may hinder people from realizing that they missed half the site because they assume it's the end and don't look further than the top of what they thought was the footer. Well done!
Linked are a few examples of an app that I'm prototyping via BS Studio. There is almost no custom HTML or CSS on these layouts (which is to say... "strict bootstrap component usage" following the conventional bootstrap theme methods).
The app is for a donor management system (a "CRM" for nonprofits).
This is a concept for a donor's profile:
https://networkforgood.box.com/shared/static/2ghu4bfd8iwybzni6v7rd0dkwdktldjn.png
A concept for the application dashboard:
https://networkforgood.box.com/shared/static/pfn3mnxsqtgn29ozf9845j9suns7k48r.png
Two concepts for a campaign overview page:
https://networkforgood.box.com/shared/static/r3db2w2zyx2xsus29bz3yfok4vq4zpos.png
Yep! This is a static prototype. My parallel development team absorbs the code and turns everything into dynamic, db driven information. The export process is pretty straight forward: I export the project from BS Studio, move the static code over to my ruby on rails prototype app / environment and run a HTML2HAML command in terminal (using the HTML2HAML gem)... which does a quick conversion of all of the HTML files to HAML... from there, I convert object oriented components (e.g.: the user's contact details, etc) into rails partials that are pre-positioned for development.
The only real difference to my workflow is that I have a basic conversion process that moves the static HTML over to HAML. Otherwise, I would normally build this out by hand (in HAML) which takes significantly more time. Happy to discuss tactics outside of this thread if you find yourself in a similar app-dev environment. This tool has saved me days and days of time every time i start a new initiative.
Well, since everyone's sharing I feel like I should too.
This is my site, it's not 100% yet because I want to add a few cool features but it's workable...
http://www.studio7direct.com/
Thanks for all the feedback and discussion everyone, so I guess the answer is no, that no formal showcase already exists. ;-)
I am specifically interested in seeing example / sites that push beyond the vanilla Bootstrap look and feel overall. Again thanks everyone for sharing your own experiences, examples and feedback. Keep up the great work BSS users.
BSS_User... this is a project I made in BS Studio... but it's rather unstable as a coded / clickable page, so I setup a preview in Invision. You can scroll up and down on this preview (this is a "long scroll" design)... this, to me anyways, is a BS Studio / Bootstrap design that doesn't look like vanilla bootstrap -- this is a portfolio site / lead generation site for a local tattoo artist that I'm supporting (free tattoos!): https://invis.io/9M8CA11R5#/182574631_Kinsey
@JonathonNFG - that tattoo site looks fantastic - I really like the clean look of the site and how its laid out. its a beautiful design too. Well done sir
@Andrew: Nice and colorful without being Gaudy looking. I think you or your client should have come up with a better name than Wow for the product as to me it sounds extremely... gimmicky... , but that's just my preference haha. Nicely rounded site though, looks great!
@Andrew - super cool. Initially, I checked this out on my phone; good ol' bootstrap :) looks great on mobile -- just checked it out on my desktop and equally great. Good stuff!