Outdated IPS CSS Framework

[Shariq Ansari]

If you supported a Bootstrap 4 theme OOTB (either as replacement default, or a streamlined & officially-supported secondary option), would people complain if/when it doesn't support Bootstrap 5?

Probably, but... who cares? In other words, some people will always complain about certain things, right?

What it WOULD allow access to is:

1. A gigantic body of themes, free & commercial...
2. Easier integration of third-party widgets/components which themselves offer default theming in bootstrap (often multiple versions)
3. An exhaustive number of developers intimate with the core CSS classes and their application...
4. More devs might then be more interested in theming and developing for the IPS platform because at least one component - the CSS framework - is familiar to them, and is thus one less thing to learn... also even potentially increases overall confidence in the platform, for some.

Sounds pretty good to me?

In other words, based on the level of adoption & familiarity with Bootstrap specifically, is it at least possible that this proposal deserves re-evaluation?

Here, I'll write some copy for your FAQ/documentation, so it's one less thing to do, and "BS_VERSION" as a substitution variable makes me smile:

Q: "It's FANTASTIC that you now support Bootstrap {BS_VERSION} for front-end themes, but why don't you support a more recent version? Eh?"

We want to focus our development efforts more on functionality, and less on constantly maintaining compatibility with third-party components which have different needs & release schedules. While we eventually decided to move to Bootstrap for theming the IPS platform front-end, we did so knowing that we would need to follow a stable/conservative upgrade reconciliation/compatibility cycle in order to not divert our emphasis from core responsibilities.

[AlexWright]

On 5/31/2018 at 12:28 PM, Rikki said:

Oh good! I can use Lindy as my rubber duck!

[Aetherdan]

I look forward to seeing what IPS5 brings in regards to themeing. It's certainly been rather messy for me with the current styling scheme and conventions.