[DISCUSS] Bootstrap CSS customizations

["Drozdetski, Stan A." <dr...@mitre.org>]

Marijan has kicked off the effort to introduce the Bootstrap<http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/> front-end framework to Rave, and MITRE folks will try to help out with that. The promise is that relying on Bootstrap UI controls, layouts, and typography will a) make Rave look better, and b) save us work on the frond-end side of things.

Here's a question to the group: how would you like to customize Bootstrap's CSS?

There are two main approaches:

1)      Using LESS. LESS is a CSS processor: you specify variables, compile the .less file, and generate your CSS. That's how the core Bootstrap CSS files are built (see a more involved description<http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/less.html>). This is a "cleaner" way to do it (for instance, you would specify the link color once - not in a million style definitions), but has the overhead of learning/using LESS.

2)      Using the out-of-the-box Bootstrap files, and appending Rave customizations in a separate stylesheet (which will override Bootstrap style definitions).

Personally, I'm leaning towards the LESS approach for the core - but that doesn't preclude individual designers from using approach 2 if they choose. Thoughts? Anyone has experience customizing Bootstrap one way or another?

Stan Drozdetski
MITRE