Awesome

Flaw{LESS} CSS Framework takes a completely new approach in webdesign by providing a truly modular system with all the power of LESS at its core but using the Javascript variant LESS.JS to be completely server‑agnostic.

This means that you can take advantage of variables, function calls, mixins and operations / calculations in your stylesheets, together with a full stack HTML5 CSS framework that leverages all these exciting new technologies!

New Features:

Flawless UI Menu

New in version 1.2 is the jQuery interface which allows to quickly access the compressed CSS, enable YUI profiling from html5boilerplate and see the HTML5 outline of your document with the help of HTML5 Outliner! You can find the menu opener at bottom left in the browser window—click the button to open the dialog! You can disable the menu in the index.html near the bottom.

HTML5 Outliner

The outliner shows your current document’s structure with the new HTML5 algorithm to structure documents. This is important for website semantics! Just follow the HTML5 Outliner links to navigate around your document.

Best Features

View changes without refreshing the browser!

During development you can keep your browser window open beside your code and as you make changes and save your .less file in your coding environment—the browser refreshes to show you the changed layout!

Thanks to Dmitry Fadeyev’s great article for this.

CSS3 like a PIE!

Yes you can use CSS3 today even in IE6—the integrated PIE script makes it possible to render rounded corners, background gradients and drop shadows with Internet Explorer! The best part is, you don’t have to mess with the settings. It’s just one “function call”:

	.css3_border_radius(10px, 10px, 0, 0);

Go Cutting Edge with HTML5 today!

**Completely based on HTML5 Boilerplate ** to provide the most professional starting point available for HTML5 today together with other great projects like Modernizr which are included! This way you can write HTML5 today in all browsers!

Media Queries and Responsive Designs

Modern browsers and most mobile versions understand media queries, so you can take advance of responsive design that changes appearance according to smaller screen sizes! Things like Less Framework are trivially easy to achieve!

See css/style.less for an example.

Content First. Layout on Top

Pure semantic HTML is one of the most important goals I had in mind when designing the Flaw{LESS} CSS Framework. That way, you can completely divide markup and presentation.

For example, if you need to change column positions, there are nice helpers like:

	// first column in markup -> shift it 2 columns to the right
	#my-content {
		.grid_span(4); // this is 4 columns wide
		.grid_shift_right(2); // shift 2 cols -> width of sidebar
	}

	// Second columns in markup -> the sidebar
	#my-sidebar {
		.grid_span(2); // this is 2 columns wide
		.grid_shift_left(4); // swap position with content (4 cols)
	}

Yeah, you read that correctly. You can swap column positions—just with CSS!

Smallest Framework Ever!

You start with 0 KB, and simply add only what your website needs. A basic grid is smaller than 1 KB!

How can I use this?

Download the complete package and look at index.html and css/style.less. There's plenty of inline documentation to get you started.

To fully understand how the framework works, you should also take a look at LESS and LESS.JS

What exactly makes this framework different?

Most CSS frameworks provide a set of CSS files that make up the rules. You have to include many things you might not need for your custom layout. And often, it’s not easy to change basic things like the number of columns in the grid system.

With Flaw{LESS} CSS you begin with no rules at all. You add every feature you need via mixins that the framework provides.

Here’s an example:

    .grid_setup(80%, 8, 1.5em, center, 740px, 960px);

This sets up an 8 column grid with 80% width and gaps of 1.5em between columns. The grid will be centered and has a min-width of 740px and max-width of 960px. This works cross browser down to IE6 and you don’t have to exhaust yourself again to find out how to make IE6 listen for min-width or max-width. All the dirty stuff is already in the framework. Flaw{LESS} privdes you with elegant abstractions of the wilderness that is CSS today.

This was accomplished in just one “function call” that sets up the grid exactly how you need it.

Now, let’s define some markup for the grid:

    <body>
    <section id="grid">
        <header></header>
        <article></article>
        <aside></aside>
        <footer></footer>
    </section>
    </body>

This is the markup we could use for a basic two column layout with header and footer. We don’t have to put any classes about the layout or design here. This is pure semantics, and it’s beautiful.

Here’s the CSS needed to build the complete grid:

     #grid {
        .grid();       /* make this element the grid */
     }

     header {
        .grid_span(8); /* span all 8 columns */
     }

     article {
        .grid_span(6); /* the content 6 columns wide */
     }

     aside {
        .grid_span(2); /* sidebar fills the rest */
     }

     footer {
        .grid_span(8); /* footer has full span of 8 cols */
     }

The best part about this is that you’re not locked into any rules from the framework. You can change the complete layout any time! Just change a few arguments in .grid_setup() or adjust element sizes by changing how many columns they span.

Cutting Edge Webdesign

Maybe you have heard of all the talk about liquid, elastic and device responsible websites. You know what? You can do all this with Flaw{LESS} CSS!

Above you already saw a liquid layout (width: 80%). But you can change your mind any time. If you decide to change to a flexible layout, just change your .grid_setup call to this:

	.grid_setup(90em, 8, 1.5em, 740px, 960px);

Or, if you prefer a rigid layout, you can easily declare a fixed 960px and the framework does the rest for you:

	.grid_setup(960px, 8, 1.5em);

Responsive Layouts

Oh yeah—this is the holy grail! All over the world, there are CSS frameworks growing like Less Framework 4 that seem to offer you flexible layout possibilities.

Look at this:

	@media only screen and (max-width: 767px) and (min-width: 480px) {

		article {
			.grid_span(8); /* make the article span the full 8 columns */
		}
		aside {
			.grid_span(8); /* and also the sidebar gets full width */
		}
	}

This is the way you decide how your columns change in response to the screen size. See how simple that is? These rules just apply to the layout on screen sizes between 480px–767px. And we said: “If the screen is that small, change the width of my columns so that they both span the full width.” This results in a one column layout that’s perfect for small devices or screen sizes!

Okay, that’s nice…but I want real CSS on my server!

Just add #compress to the end of the URL in your development browser and reload the page. This will give you an <textbox> at the end of the page with the complete CSS code, compressed and optimized for production. Copy this into a “normal” CSS file and link it in your HTML.

You’ve just finished your first development cycle.

The first CSS framework with real ADDONS

The best thing about Flaw{LESS} is its modularity. Each core module is located in the /core subfolder where you can find all components that make up the modules. Components are files that add small functionality to the big picture and together they form great systems like the grid.

Want to make your own module?

It’s really easy:

• Create first_module.less under /addons
• Open /addons/install.less
• Add @import "first_module.less"; at the end of the install.less

You’ve just installed your first Flaw{LESS} module. :)

Visions for the Future

If anyone is interested in collaborating: I’m planing a website (ala jQuery’s) for people to upload custom modules along with some docs and advice. I think this could become the next big movement toward pleasant webdesign (much like jQuery opened up Javascript to new audiences).

And of course, I’d love to see you in the team for making the framework better!

Kind regards,

Dominik Guzei

Contact

Drop me a line at my blog Wizzart or tweet me a msg at Twitter

Contributors

• Dominik Guzei
• Anna Frey
• Isaac Johnston
• Israel D. Canasa
• Tony Rogers

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2010—2011 Dominik Guzei

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.