It has been far too long, friends. Nearly three months has gone by since we pushed out a new version of Bootstrap, but fret not, for that void comes to a most excellent halt tonight. After numerous delays, including a bout with the flu, we’re happy to announce the release of Bootstrap 2.3.
Oh shit what
Bootstrap 2.3 includes some new features, as well as the standard bunch of bug fixes and docs improvements. Here are the highlights:
Repository changes:
Local instead of global dependencies for our makefile and install process. Now getting started is way easier—just run npm install.
Upgraded to jQuery 1.9. No changes were needed, but we did upgrade the included jQuery file to the latest release.
Moved changelog to be within the repo instead of as a wiki page.
New and improved features:
Added carousel indicators! Add the HTML and it automagically works.
Added container option to tooltips. The default option is still insertAfter, but now you may specify where to insert tooltips (and by extension, popovers) with the optional container parameter.
Improved popovers now utilize max-width instead of width, have been widened from 240px to 280px, and will automatically hide the title if one has not been set via CSS :empty selector.
Improved accessibility for links in all components. After merging #6441, link hover states now apply to the :focus state as well. This goes for basic <a> tags, as well as buttons, navs, dropdowns, and more.
Added print utility classes to show and hide content between screen and print via CSS.
Updated input groups to make them behave more like default form controls. Added display: inline-block;, increased margin-bottom, and added vertical-align: middle; to match <input> styles.
Added .horizontal-three-colors() gradient mixin (with example in the CSS tests file).
Added .text-left, .text-center, and .text-right utility classes for easy typographic alignment.
Added @ms-viewport so IE10 can use responsive CSS when in split-screen mode.
As always, you can see a more complete list of changes by viewing the 2.3.0 milestone or 2.3.0 pull request on GitHub. Most of the issues not mentioned above are minor CSS tweaks and documentation typos.
When we released 2.2.2, we changed the insertion strategy for tooltips and popovers. Instead of appending to the <body> by default, they used insertAfter. This change fixed number z-index issues and ultimately makes controlling and styling tooltips much easier for folks.
Unfortunately, this also resulted in a few bugs, namely breaking input groups by interfering with adjacent CSS selectors. Instead of reverting the insertion method, we’ve added a new container option. If you run into a situation where insertAfter doesn’t work for you, go ahead and set that option to whatever element works best for you.
Bootstrap 3 update
As we’ve previously mentioned, v2.3 is our last planned release before moving onto v3 fulltime (pending any catastrophic fuckups). For the latest, follow the Bootstrap 3 pull request. Otherwise, here’s the lowdown:
Bootstrap 3 will be mobile first.
No more separate responsive CSS file—all in one now, baby.
Dropping support for IE7 and Firefox 3.x.
Grids have been overhauled—now simpler and fluid by default.
Modals are all responsive and shit now.
Dropping submenu support.
Carousel has been redesigned.
Renamed all of the variables to use dashes instead of camelCase.
Dropped image icons in favor of icon font.
JavaScript events are going to be namespaced.
Docs are getting a bit of a reorganization—Scaffolding and Base CSS have been merged into a single page, CSS.
Added a new gallery page to showcase more awesome Bootstrap implementations.
And a whole mess of other changes.
And that’s just some of the highlights. Again, peep the pull request for the most up to date changes as we continue to chip away at this bad boy. Feel free to comment on that, or hit us up on Twitter, for feedback of any kind.
With 2.2.2 out the door, our attention has shifted almost entirely to the next major update to the project, Bootstrap 3. Things are coming together and we want to give you an update on what’s next and give you a chance to share your thoughts.
Specifics of v3
Overall, Bootstrap 3 will be rather narrow in focus compared to the last major update. In short, we’ll drop legacy code, improve responsive CSS, and centralize community efforts. Specifically, v3 will address the following:
Use tags for all versioned downloads, use smaller feature branches for dev work, and merge right into master (after 3.0 launches).
To help communicate and track changes, we’ve opened a Bootstrap 3 pull request. Follow along with what we’re working on, ask questions, or contribute by using that pull request as a reference point. We’ll be keeping it up to date as development progresses.
In addition, we’re going to try to accelerate versioning by focusing on individual components for major releases after 3.0 (e.g., modals or the carousel could be punted to a 4.0 release). Given this approach, it’s less important for us to stuff a lot of feature work into 3.0.
Beyond that, we’re open to addressing a couple of things with 3.0 like form styles and mobile enhancements. We want to limit these kind of changes for 3.0 though, so let us know what features are most important to you.
New GitHub organization
We mentioned this a few times in recent months, but with 3.0 we’ll be transitioning to a new organization on GitHub, twbs. The username is homage to H5BP, one of the most notable front-end tools out there, and of course, Twitter. The move shouldn’t present any problems to you fine folks.
New URLs
With the move to the new organization, the URLs of the Bootstrap docs must change. We host our docs on GitHub Pages and those URLs are based on user or organization names. To better future-proof things, we’ll be making https://getbootstrap.com/ our base URL instead of just a redirect.
For us, this will be the most painful part of the move. Given how prolific links are, we’ll also try to setup something at the old URLs to redirect folks, but we’re unsure how we will do that just yet. Perhaps a shell repository with dummy pages pointing to their replacements? Time will tell.
Strengthening the community
The larger goal behind the organization move is to bolster the Bootstrap community. To start, we’ll be transferring the main Bootstrap repo, the Heroku customizer app, and the blog to the new organization. But more importantly, we want to bring community projects into the organization as official projects.
From language ports to extensions to snippets, we want to work with leaders of key community efforts to see if this makes sense. We’re still working on the criteria for this and have yet to reach out to anyone.
If you think your project fits, hit us up. We’ll be looking to add projects shortly after 3.0.
Growing the team
Bringing additional projects into the fold is going to be a huge undertaking as managing the existing code is already a hefty task between Jacob and myself. To that end, we’ll be looking to add one or two people to the team to help us manage issues, pull requests, etc. This is a huge deal for us and we’ll be taking our time on figuring it all out.
Growing the team with official contributors, other than the two of us, is also a goal. Similarly, we’re super nervous about this and have no clear timetable for it as well.
Wrapping up
Bootstrap is still just getting started. There is so much more awesome stuff to do and we want to work with you awesome folks to do it all as best we can. We hope you’re as excited as we are.
Please reach out to us on Twitter or GitHub with any questions or feedback.
Today we’re launching Bootstrap 2.2.2, another larger bugfix release that focuses mostly on CSS and documentation fixes, with a few key JS issues mixed in as well. Here’s the rundown on what’s new in this release:
Docs:
Assets (illustrations and examples) are now retina-ready.
Replaced Placehold.it with Holder.js, a client-side and retina-ready placeholder image tool.
Dropdowns: Temporary fix added for dropdowns on mobile to prevent them from closing early.
Popovers:
No longer inherits font-size: 0; when placed in button groups.
Arrows refactored to work in IE8, and use less code.
Plugin no longer inserts popover content into a <p>, but rather directly into .popover-content.
Hitting escape will place focus back on the <input>.
Print styles, from HTML5 Boilerplate, have been added.
Get a more complete list by viewing the 2.2.2 milestone on GitHub. Most of the issues not mentioned above are minor CSS tweaks and documentation typos.
We have a 2.2.3 release slated for further bugs and improvements we couldn’t tackle in this version, but most of our ongoing efforts are going to transition to development on 3.0.0. More details on that will come next week.
In the next week or so, we plan on releasing v2.2.2. To date, there are over 50 CSS and documentation related issues already closed, and we want to get those out in your hands. We still have some significant JavaScript issues to work out, but those will be punted to 2.2.3 so we don’t hold up development. Our hope is to have that release out by end of year at the latest.
For a more complete set of changes, view the 2.2.2 milestone on GitHub. Most of the issues not mentioned above are minor CSS tweaks and documentation typos.
How to help
We would love to have folks help test these changes to prevent further regressions.
Checkout the 2.2.2-wip branch, or browse the release candidate docs so you can easily load it up on devices and such for testing. Note: downloads on the RC docs do not work.
Take a look at the docs and give ‘em a run on the docs, on your phone, your (least?) favorite browser, etc.
Open a new issue on GitHub to report bugs. Please include as much context and information as possible. If it’s a visual bug, please include a screenshot. If it pertains to JavaScript, consider including a jsfiddle.
If you’re submitting a pull request against 2.2.2-wip, be sure to read the Contributing to Bootstrap wiki page first.
Earlier this week, I was excited to announce that our next release, 2.2.2-wip, would include the new Glyphicons icon font. In hindsight I got a little carried away and forgot about something.
IE7 doesn’t really do icon fonts.
I could put together a hack to add IE7 support, duplicating tons of code, but that doesn’t feel right as we’re dropping IE7 support in BS3. Instead of spending time on something we’ll just remove later on, we’re going to focus on things that will be here in the next major version.
So, it’s with some sadness that I inform you we will not be including the Glyphicons font in 2.2.2-wip.
Backwards compatibility is always a pain in the ass, and to avoid huge headaches for folks, we sometimes have to bend over, well, backwards. I hope this doesn’t screw up your plans too much and that you understand we have the community’s best interests at heart.
There’s some good news though. For you nerds who live on the edge, I’ve been working on tons of BS3-esque changes in the 3.0.0-wip branch on GitHub. If you really cannot wait for the Glyphicons font (and don’t mind using unsupported code), do check it out. I plan on accelerating work on it in the coming weeks. (Please don’t submit issues for it though, but rather email me or ping me on Twitter for questions.)
@mdo
February 07, 2013
