21 ms·

Bootstrap 3.3.0 and Bootstrap 4

329 points by rayshan 12y ago

mattmanser 12y ago
From Bootstrap 4: Dropped support for IE8 That seems pretty premature.
- LandoCalrissian 12y ago
  I feel like it's going pretty fast. Do Google or Facebook even officially support IE8 anymore? I think the quicker the issue is forced the better it is for everyone. IE9 is at the very least pretty acceptable to deal with. Edit: Looks like Google doesn't even support IE9 anymore. https://support.google.com/a/answer/33864?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/33864?hl=en
  - sytelus 12y ago
    First, you are talking about Google Apps which is not same other mainstream Google websites. Second, IE8 is still very popular browser with 20% market share. You don't want to lock out 1 in every 5 of your users. Third, a major point of using frameworks is not having to worry about browsers. This is why making frameworks are hard. Fourth, people who are stuck with IE8 or below are typically not by their choice.
    - swartkrans 12y ago
      Gmail is part of Google Apps. That's pretty mainstream. Personally, where I work, anyone using any version of IE is screwed. We don't test for IE. I haven't checked to make things worked in IE as a regular part of development since 2009 and I have worked at a pretty big company that is often talked about on HN.
      - goatforce5 12y ago
        A few years back I was working on an app with some moderately fancy CSS and JS. We desperately wanted to drop IE6 support but after we pulled the revenue numbers per browser, we worked out our IE6 users could pay for a junior-mid range developer to just sit there and fix IE bugs all day.
        swartkrans 12y ago
        > sit there and fix IE bugs all day I wonder what that's doing to the maintainability of your code base. I'm sure the overall cost is higher than just the pay of a single developer ruining your architecture. Supporting IE6 is more than just about fixing bugs.
        kmkemp 12y ago
        And what happens when the amount of your users drops slightly or that hired dev is now worth more money? And what about the other costs on complexity in your codebase? I think the revenue needs to far eclipse one dev's salary to justify keeping IE6 support.
        kibibu 12y ago
        Not to mention the mental health impact of spending all of your time fixing bugs for a 13 year old browser.
        oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
        Yeah, better get some good insurance for when that person goes postal ...
        seanp2k2 12y ago
        Also, something to possibly consider: reach out to customers and ask them how much they need IE6 support. Unless it's healthcare or government, I'm not sure why anyone would use IE6 by choice. Would deprecating support for IE6 lose every single one of those customers?
    - retrogradeMT 12y ago
      As much as I dislike IE8, I agree with you. Locking out 20% of users is going to stop me from using bootstrap 4 for awhile.
    - tjsix 12y ago
      IE8 has less than 5% market share globally, how is it that you are arriving at your 20% number?
      - lomnakkus 12y ago
        I believe (but cannot prove) that the 20% is mostly due to China. Because it's such an incredibly populous nation, it can dominate international statistics like these. Unfortunately my home nation (though very small) is also on something like 20% WinXP (thus limited to IE8). It's ridiculous, but as long as clients are willing to pay us to support IE8, then that's what we'll do, much as we hate it. In my country it hopefully won't be long before it becomes prohobitively expensive to support IE8, so there's that... :)
        arthurfm 12y ago
        > Unfortunately my home nation (though very small) is also on something like 20% WinXP (thus limited to IE8). Chrome and Firefox are still supported on XP. Surely they could switch browsers if forced? http://chrome.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/extending-chrome-support-for-xp-users.html http://chrome.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/extending-chrome-suppor... http://www.neowin.net/news/mozilla-to-support-firefox-on-windows-xp-after-microsoft-ends-support-for-the-os http://www.neowin.net/news/mozilla-to-support-firefox-on-win...
        lomnakkus 12y ago
        Alas, no. People who are still on WinXP tend to not be the install-"custom"-software type. :(
        paublyrne 12y ago
        How long should the mountain wait for Muhammad, though? In the UK, analogue terrestrial television was eventually turned off, and replaced by digital, following a lengthy publicity campaign. I would guess there are very few people staring at blank TV screens and wondering what to do now. My point is, you need to give people a push sometimes.
    - negativeview 12y ago
      Does that 20% come from your own stats or a third party? Most of the third parties look at worldwide market share. IE8 is disproportionately represented in third-world countries which you may or may not care about in your business. Best I can tell IE8 is somewhere around 6% in the US (these numbers are rough to find because most of the places that collect statistically significant numbers charge for the info). On my site (which centers around a first-world disposable-income-heavy hobby) IE8 is basically non-existent. Your mileage may vary.
      - JohnTHaller 12y ago
        On my largest site with a couple million visitors a month, IE makes up about 16% of site visitors. About 25% of those are using IE8. So, about 4% overall. I specifically ensure that the site still works in IE8 and up and was still quite functional on IE7 when I last looked. Anyone not ensuring their site works on IE is leaving money and customers on the table. Note that it doesn't have to look exactly the same, but it should still work and allow customers to learn, buy, sign in, subscribe, etc.
        ulisesrmzroche 12y ago
        It depends on your market. I've worked on apps that have never even seen a visitor using internet explorer at all. This happens all the time in b2c software. So that analogy of leaving money on the table is not very realistic.
        JohnTHaller 12y ago
        Of course, it varies. But there are far more users of desktop IE than desktop Safari in the US, for instance. So, once your product spreads beyond early adopters, iPhone users and Mac users (all of which are the minority of the market by large margins in each case) it's important that your site already works with the new visitors as word spreads.
        negativeview 12y ago
    - joshuahornby 12y ago
      20%? What is your source?
    - fireismyflag 12y ago
      IE8 is at 3.66% or a little over 1 in 30 users. Not 20% but still significant enough. http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
    - hiou 12y ago
      > 20% marketshare Anti-virus companies use an IE8 user agent string sometimes for finding dangerous sites. Other bots and crawlers still use the IE8 string, although it seems like many are switching to Chrome. I've never been able to find a resource about this, but is there any data available for the breakdown of bots/crawlers and their effect on browser usage statistics? One reason I ask is that using the web with IE8 is pretty miserable and a lot of sites are flat out broken. I know there is an aspect of corporate networks on it, but 20% just seems really high if you realize that 20% or more of the web is broken for IE8 users.
  - Siecje 12y ago
    The latest Firefox has issues with Google sites http://www.otsukare.info/2014/10/28/google-webcompatibility-bugs-list http://www.otsukare.info/2014/10/28/google-webcompatibility-...
- simonsarris 12y ago
  Consider that Bootstrap 3 isn't going away if you need IE8 support, and plenty of sites would be comfortable with that restriction. (Eg, all sites that use <canvas> in a non-fallback-able way)
- jbeja 12y ago
  I am so happy for this actualy and I hope that this promote others developers to completely drop support for IE8.
  - girvo 12y ago
    If you can convince the 10% of Australia's population to stop using IE8, then I'd be happy to. As it stands, where I work charges a lot more for IE8 support, but most places are happy to pay it :(
  - chrisan 12y ago
    ALL Developers want to drop support for IE8. Has anyone had fun developing a site for IE8? Business owners looking to make profit anyway they can DO NOT. We do A/B testing for very small % gains yet we are ok with delivering a site that wont work in IE8? It is a hard business case to make with clients. I'm glad the framework is moving forward, we all like playing with new toys, but I hope there is an IE css file that will "fix it enough" to make it work for IE8 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combined-na-monthly-201309-201409 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combine... Shows 7% for North America IE8
- kbenson 12y ago
  The statement may be more to test the waters than to state a hard and fast condition of Bootstrap 4. Also, it's not like someone can't just use the 3 series. For our internal app, we're still using Bootstrap 2.
- spollock 12y ago
  Not really. The only people who still need to support ie8 are in enterprise and the enterprise is usually a couple years behind. By the time they upgrade to bootstrap 4 ie8 support will have ended.
  - eterm 12y ago
    I'm still working with major clients who insist their official browser is ie6. We are in an awkward spot of soon having to say, "Sorry ie8 wasn't a suitable upgrade".
    - tracker1 12y ago
      I worked in an environment like that a few years ago on an internal SPA. IE6 was so bad in terms of memory leaks, the app was unusable in IE6 after a few hours. Many people were using Firefox standalone for our app (among others) just to be able to keep things open all day.
  - _random_ 12y ago
    You know, humans work at enterprises. And we would appreciate reducing the crazy touch-friendly padding and margins as well!
  - squiggy22 12y ago
    On highly trafficked sites , IE 8.0 usage can account for a fair amount of users, and conversions etc. It's a tougher decision to make to take those users off the table.
    - swartkrans 12y ago
      I won't work anywhere that cares about IE. If you are a company that wants to support IE and have competent, professional engineers I hope you pay a high salary.
      - matthewmacleod 12y ago
        This is such a stultifyingly stupid attitude it's hard to know where to begin, or to understand how you can be effective as a developer. Let's be clear – if you develop a service on the web, and a significant proportion of the users or target market uses IE8—enough that there's a positive ROI—then you are making a poor business decision by refusing to support it.
- freyr 12y ago
  Bootstrap 3 still supports IE8. You can still use Bootstrap 3, or even Bootstrap 2. But it makes little sense to develop new tools that support IE8 at this point. By the time Bootstrap 4 is released (probably many months from now), IE8 usage will be even lower. Further, since it's solely responsible for so many edge cases, polyfills, and hacks, it doesn't hurt to gently push for its demise. Even Microsoft is trying.
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    >Even Microsoft is trying. Well why in the name of all good design did Microsoft not put out a version of IE9 for Windows XP while it was still supported? That would made everything so much simpler, including for them -- after all, they have to worry about IE8 just like the rest of us, XP or no.
    - numbsafari 12y ago
      Why? Because they want people to stop using XP. Stop using XP. Seriously.
      - jnbiche 12y ago
        Jesus, I don't mean for me. I haven't touched XP in years, and have very rarely used any Windows OS for the past 5-6 years. But there are millions of people in developing countries who can't afford to upgrade, or don't know how. Have you considered that? This is not a first-world problem. Why not accommodate those users? MS doesn't have to support the OS itself, but think of how much trouble it could save developers around the world -- inside of Microsoft and out -- if all these XP machines were automatically upgraded to IE9.
    - BillinghamJ 12y ago
      Because Microsoft is also trying to get people off XP. Releasing any new software sends the wrong signals.
    - richbradshaw 12y ago
      Uh, when was the last time you saw XP on a new machine - from Google Analytics on a UK retail site I'm getting 2.4% of users on XP this month, equivalent month in 2013 was 6.5%, in 2012 was 12.4%, in 2011 21%, 2010 34% - that's basically halving each year for the last 3 years.
- LukeB_UK 12y ago
  It's a 5 year old browser. The only operating system stuck on IE8 is Windows XP, a 13 year old operating system. I have a feeling that anyone still using it won't take much notice of things being a little broken.
- acdha 12y ago
  IE8 is under 4% now globally. Unless your customers are primarily large enterprise shops that's probably a reasonable trade-off even now, much less by the time Bootstrap 4 is actually released.
- joshuacc 12y ago
  I disagree. The company I work for provides software to schools and school districts, which tend to be pretty far behind the technological curve. After analyzing our usage patterns, we were able to drop IE8 recently.
- AndrewDucker 12y ago
  As of January 2016 all versions of IE below 11 will be dropped. By Microsoft. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/support-for-old-versions-of-internet-explorer-to-be-dropped/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/suppor...
- LordHumungous 12y ago
  The sooner it dies the better.
- vlunkr 12y ago
  Well for one thing, Bootstrap 4 isn't out yet, so you're prematurely accusing them of acting prematurely.
  - malyk 12y ago
    They said the alpha is a couple of weeks away. Do you expect IE8 browser share to change significantly in the next couple of months?
    - McGlockenshire 12y ago
      > Do you expect IE8 browser share to change significantly in the next couple of months? IE8 implies XP. XP is now actively nagging users about how dead it is every time they boot. The holidays are coming up. It is not unreasonable to expect some people to replace their prehistoric computers around the end of the year.
      - clscott 12y ago
        It's never going to go away at that rate
- malyk 12y ago
  Yep. More than 10% of our users come from IE8. I'm not about to shut them out.
- chestnut-tree 12y ago
  There's an informative talk by Alice Bartlett, a front-end developer at gov.uk (the UK government digital service) on Youtube. In the presentation, she states that two of the requirements for gov.uk are 1. Functional without Javascript 2. Functional in IE7+ Link to the relevant part of the talk: http://youtu.be/CUkMCQR4TpY?t=17m34s http://youtu.be/CUkMCQR4TpY?t=17m34s And also http://youtu.be/CUkMCQR4TpY?t=19m21s http://youtu.be/CUkMCQR4TpY?t=19m21s The essential point made is that for much of gov.uk, it isn't that difficult to make the site work without Javascript or work in IE7 either. Purley personal opinion, but web design has become incredibly bloated with so much cruft added to web pages - be it unnecesary Javascript or excess CSS. Web developers pick the tools that make their lives easier (as you'd expect), but that doesn't always mean that users get the best experience.
  - 7952 12y ago
    Heavy use of client side methods seems to break a lot of the benefits of using web apps in the first place. A main advantage of web apps originally was that they worked more or less the same on any machine. That Google Maps worked in exactly the same way regardless of how good your machine was at vector rendering. I wonder if the aversion to maintaining state on the server needs to end. You could do almost anything that a modern web app does with minimal client side code and have performance on low end PCs.
- acjohnson55 12y ago
  If you're using IE8 still, you're probably pretty used to a broken web. For most purposes, I think developing for IE8 should basically be making sure your very basic content and functionality is available in some form. But I think it's ridiculous at this point in the game to be aiming for 100% compatibility. If someone cares enough, they'll upgrade.
minimaxir 12y ago
For Bootstrap 4: > Updated grid system with at least one additional tier for handheld devices. Bootstrap already has a Mobile and Tablet layout, so which form factor would this addition address? Phablets?
- LandoCalrissian 12y ago
  Kind of interesting, that would mean there will be 5 different sizes. I guess one between 768 and 480 or something?
- joeblau 12y ago
  Watches!
- rpedela 12y ago
  Most likely there will be two tiers for phones: landscape (480-768px) and portrait (0-480px). https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/10203 https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/10203
  - jrochkind1 12y ago
    I often end up adding that myself already one way or another, so I hope others are in the same boat and that is what they add!
    - Encosia 12y ago
      Same here. I almost always end up with quite a bit of custom CSS for a 480px breakpoint between XS and SM.
- sparkzilla 12y ago
  Maybe because the iPhone 6 has a different width than an iPhone 4?
iends 12y ago
Does it have RTL support yet?
- joshstrange 12y ago
  Maybe try out something like this? https://github.com/morteza/bootstrap-rtl https://github.com/morteza/bootstrap-rtl (more info: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19730598/right-to-left-support-for-twitter-bootstrap-3 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19730598/right-to-left-su...)
  - TheGuyWhoCodes 12y ago
    Could be handy but the license is Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 so can't really use it for commercial.
- ZeroGravitas 12y ago
  They started to add it with some automated flipping tech around 3.1 but a developer of a 3rd party Bootstrap RTL project convinced them that it didn't belong in core and should be done manually. The argument made no sense to me but they scrapped their efforts shortly afterwards.
bhhaskin 12y ago
I for one am happy they are dropping support for IE8.
- matti3 12y ago
  I can't believe that it has taken this long. Didn't Foundation drop IE Support like 2 versions ago?
  - bhhaskin 12y ago
    I am not sure. But they are dropping IE8 support so they can start using rems.
  - mVChr 12y ago
    Yes, dropped for v.4. Both are good frameworks and these new versions look great, but considering I prefer SASS to LESS I don't think I'll be switching back to Bootstrap any time soon.
    - zeitg3ist 12y ago
      Bootstrap has an officially supported SASS version.
      - mVChr 12y ago
        Ah, been a while, good to know, thanks.
_random_ 12y ago
Phew, no BootScript!
- _pmf_ 12y ago
  > Phew, no BootScript! How can a JS framework expect to be taken seriously if it doesn't even provide a half-assed abstraction over a half-assed excuse for a language?
Smudge 12y ago
The most interesting part of this release (well, something that came shortly before this release) is Bootlint, their linter for your bootstrapified markup. https://github.com/twbs/bootlint https://github.com/twbs/bootlint I could see myself integrating something like this into a text editor or a build process -- something that watches for bootstrap usage errors and helps my team correct them early and quickly. That is, of course, assuming that we stick pretty closely to vanilla bootstrap, which we usually don't. One of my biggest issues with Bootstrap (and similar frameworks) is that, beyond a certain point, you find yourself overriding and customizing them to such a degree that it's more productive to just build your own "vanilla" components that are specific to the way your site or organization uses them, and then just ditch Bootstrap altogether. One thing I'd like to see is a way of generally linting HTML structure (not validity, but actual structure) with a goal of reducing complexity and improving maintainability, regardless of what frameworks you may be using. Something that spits out a ratio of meaningful, semantic markup to "div soup" and tells you where you should spend the most time mopping up the soup. It could also have some understanding of which kinds of div patterns are acceptable -- bootstrap components, your own component library (see: OOCSS), etc.
- themodelplumber 12y ago
  > you find yourself overriding and customizing them to such a degree that it's more productive to just build your own "vanilla" components that are specific to the way your site or organization uses them, and then just ditch Bootstrap altogether. This has been similar to my experience. Bootstrap can be overwhelming at times, and there have been a few cases where I had to solve buggy behavior by specific Bootstrap components by writing elaborate fixes that would not have been required had I used my own framework. From that standpoint, working on a time-consuming, yet practically throwaway-type site, Bootstrap was really frustrating. I do really like the low-baggage approach of Initializr's Responsive configuration as well as the Responsive Grid System.
  - monk_e_boy 12y ago
    For small throw away sites I tend to have getbootstrap open and using Chrome debugger cut and paste the bits off CSS I need into my own project. Things like the nav bar are really clever, but way too much for most of my projects. I like the button styles, but usually modify them... stuff like that.
brickmort 12y ago
This is the rhythm of the night!
wuliwong 12y ago
Am I the only one who actually thought that video was going to show some sort of demo for the new release? hahahah. I was actually pretty disappointed when that didn't happen.
hackerboos 12y ago
I would have liked to have seen LESS support dropped. Bootstrap is the only thing keeping LESS alive right now...
- aikah 12y ago
  I dont,I prefer LESS over SASS for multiple reasons(running less in the browser during development is one).
  - jmathai 12y ago
    Is there a secret I don't know about or do browsers convert LESS to CSS natively?
    - mrkipling 12y ago
      No, but there's a JS file that transforms your LESS into CSS in the browser. It's handy for development but obviously you'd want to pre-compile for production.
      - jeffreyrogers 12y ago
        Is there any reason someone couldn't do the same thing for Sass?
        bruce_one 12y ago
        looks plausible: http://medialize.github.io/sass.js/ http://medialize.github.io/sass.js/ :-)
        drivingmenuts 12y ago
        The biggest issue is probably keeping up with Sass. Other Sass implementations are behind on features. Less ... well, there's less to keep up with since there's one implementation of it that I'm aware of. I used to prefer Sass, but mostly because it was the only thing going at the time, but I'm starting to lean toward Less.
sebslomski 12y ago
I'm glad to see them finally switch from pixel based values to rem. This feels totally overdue to me.
- ZoF 12y ago
  I'd expect that was at least partially due to the fact that they were still supporting IE8.
- vohof 12y ago
  hear hear!
derengel 12y ago
Why is Bootstrap much more popular than Foundation? Is technically better for most tasks?
- illicium 12y ago
  Probably not, but the reverse is not necessarily true. It's mostly a matter of taste -- e.g. if you don't like SASS, you won't want to use Foundation.
  - selamin 12y ago
    I can't imagine that's a real deterrent is it? Using LESS with Foundation is fairly straightforward. Create an empty .less file and @import 'foundation.css'. Also, LESS and SASS have very similar syntax. There's very little learning curve if you're going from one to the other...
    - illicium 12y ago
      You can't use any of the variables or mixins if you import the CSS in your LESS file. The syntax is not the issue -- the tooling is.
  - kyriakos 12y ago
    as somebody who uses bootstrap with SASS instead of LESS I can tell you that my reason is simply better community support
- JelteF 12y ago
  I really don't like Foundation because of the way it looks out of the box. Everything is way to square and brightly colored. Bootstrap just looks quite good from the start. After a quick look at the markup however, I really think Foundation is winning there.
  - boynamedsue 12y ago
    It's really easy to customize the radius of things like buttons in Foundation.
elchief 12y ago
Please add the "clear" button back on input type=search! Thanks
sandeshd 12y ago
It's too late to see rems and ems in bootstrap, but it's most welcome feature I guess.
maga 12y ago
Speaking of dropping IE8, folks, is there a CSS framework for modern browsers that preferably support only IE10+?

329 points by rayshan 12y ago

mattmanser 12y ago

From Bootstrap 4: Dropped support for IE8 That seems pretty premature.

LandoCalrissian 12y ago
I feel like it's going pretty fast. Do Google or Facebook even officially support IE8 anymore? I think the quicker the issue is forced the better it is for everyone. IE9 is at the very least pretty acceptable to deal with. Edit: Looks like Google doesn't even support IE9 anymore. https://support.google.com/a/answer/33864?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/33864?hl=en
- sytelus 12y ago
  First, you are talking about Google Apps which is not same other mainstream Google websites. Second, IE8 is still very popular browser with 20% market share. You don't want to lock out 1 in every 5 of your users. Third, a major point of using frameworks is not having to worry about browsers. This is why making frameworks are hard. Fourth, people who are stuck with IE8 or below are typically not by their choice.
  - swartkrans 12y ago
    Gmail is part of Google Apps. That's pretty mainstream. Personally, where I work, anyone using any version of IE is screwed. We don't test for IE. I haven't checked to make things worked in IE as a regular part of development since 2009 and I have worked at a pretty big company that is often talked about on HN.
    - goatforce5 12y ago
      A few years back I was working on an app with some moderately fancy CSS and JS. We desperately wanted to drop IE6 support but after we pulled the revenue numbers per browser, we worked out our IE6 users could pay for a junior-mid range developer to just sit there and fix IE bugs all day.
      - swartkrans 12y ago
        > sit there and fix IE bugs all day I wonder what that's doing to the maintainability of your code base. I'm sure the overall cost is higher than just the pay of a single developer ruining your architecture. Supporting IE6 is more than just about fixing bugs.
      - kmkemp 12y ago
        And what happens when the amount of your users drops slightly or that hired dev is now worth more money? And what about the other costs on complexity in your codebase? I think the revenue needs to far eclipse one dev's salary to justify keeping IE6 support.
        kibibu 12y ago
        Not to mention the mental health impact of spending all of your time fixing bugs for a 13 year old browser.
        oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
        Yeah, better get some good insurance for when that person goes postal ...
      - seanp2k2 12y ago
        Also, something to possibly consider: reach out to customers and ask them how much they need IE6 support. Unless it's healthcare or government, I'm not sure why anyone would use IE6 by choice. Would deprecating support for IE6 lose every single one of those customers?
  - retrogradeMT 12y ago
    As much as I dislike IE8, I agree with you. Locking out 20% of users is going to stop me from using bootstrap 4 for awhile.
  - tjsix 12y ago
    IE8 has less than 5% market share globally, how is it that you are arriving at your 20% number?
    - lomnakkus 12y ago
      I believe (but cannot prove) that the 20% is mostly due to China. Because it's such an incredibly populous nation, it can dominate international statistics like these. Unfortunately my home nation (though very small) is also on something like 20% WinXP (thus limited to IE8). It's ridiculous, but as long as clients are willing to pay us to support IE8, then that's what we'll do, much as we hate it. In my country it hopefully won't be long before it becomes prohobitively expensive to support IE8, so there's that... :)
      - arthurfm 12y ago
        > Unfortunately my home nation (though very small) is also on something like 20% WinXP (thus limited to IE8). Chrome and Firefox are still supported on XP. Surely they could switch browsers if forced? http://chrome.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/extending-chrome-support-for-xp-users.html http://chrome.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/extending-chrome-suppor... http://www.neowin.net/news/mozilla-to-support-firefox-on-windows-xp-after-microsoft-ends-support-for-the-os http://www.neowin.net/news/mozilla-to-support-firefox-on-win...
        lomnakkus 12y ago
        Alas, no. People who are still on WinXP tend to not be the install-"custom"-software type. :(
        paublyrne 12y ago
        How long should the mountain wait for Muhammad, though? In the UK, analogue terrestrial television was eventually turned off, and replaced by digital, following a lengthy publicity campaign. I would guess there are very few people staring at blank TV screens and wondering what to do now. My point is, you need to give people a push sometimes.
  - negativeview 12y ago
    Does that 20% come from your own stats or a third party? Most of the third parties look at worldwide market share. IE8 is disproportionately represented in third-world countries which you may or may not care about in your business. Best I can tell IE8 is somewhere around 6% in the US (these numbers are rough to find because most of the places that collect statistically significant numbers charge for the info). On my site (which centers around a first-world disposable-income-heavy hobby) IE8 is basically non-existent. Your mileage may vary.
    - JohnTHaller 12y ago
      On my largest site with a couple million visitors a month, IE makes up about 16% of site visitors. About 25% of those are using IE8. So, about 4% overall. I specifically ensure that the site still works in IE8 and up and was still quite functional on IE7 when I last looked. Anyone not ensuring their site works on IE is leaving money and customers on the table. Note that it doesn't have to look exactly the same, but it should still work and allow customers to learn, buy, sign in, subscribe, etc.
      - ulisesrmzroche 12y ago
        It depends on your market. I've worked on apps that have never even seen a visitor using internet explorer at all. This happens all the time in b2c software. So that analogy of leaving money on the table is not very realistic.
        JohnTHaller 12y ago
        Of course, it varies. But there are far more users of desktop IE than desktop Safari in the US, for instance. So, once your product spreads beyond early adopters, iPhone users and Mac users (all of which are the minority of the market by large margins in each case) it's important that your site already works with the new visitors as word spreads.
        negativeview 12y ago
  - joshuahornby 12y ago
    20%? What is your source?
  - fireismyflag 12y ago
    IE8 is at 3.66% or a little over 1 in 30 users. Not 20% but still significant enough. http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
  - hiou 12y ago
    > 20% marketshare Anti-virus companies use an IE8 user agent string sometimes for finding dangerous sites. Other bots and crawlers still use the IE8 string, although it seems like many are switching to Chrome. I've never been able to find a resource about this, but is there any data available for the breakdown of bots/crawlers and their effect on browser usage statistics? One reason I ask is that using the web with IE8 is pretty miserable and a lot of sites are flat out broken. I know there is an aspect of corporate networks on it, but 20% just seems really high if you realize that 20% or more of the web is broken for IE8 users.
- Siecje 12y ago
  The latest Firefox has issues with Google sites http://www.otsukare.info/2014/10/28/google-webcompatibility-bugs-list http://www.otsukare.info/2014/10/28/google-webcompatibility-...
simonsarris 12y ago
Consider that Bootstrap 3 isn't going away if you need IE8 support, and plenty of sites would be comfortable with that restriction. (Eg, all sites that use <canvas> in a non-fallback-able way)
jbeja 12y ago
I am so happy for this actualy and I hope that this promote others developers to completely drop support for IE8.
- girvo 12y ago
  If you can convince the 10% of Australia's population to stop using IE8, then I'd be happy to. As it stands, where I work charges a lot more for IE8 support, but most places are happy to pay it :(
- chrisan 12y ago
  ALL Developers want to drop support for IE8. Has anyone had fun developing a site for IE8? Business owners looking to make profit anyway they can DO NOT. We do A/B testing for very small % gains yet we are ok with delivering a site that wont work in IE8? It is a hard business case to make with clients. I'm glad the framework is moving forward, we all like playing with new toys, but I hope there is an IE css file that will "fix it enough" to make it work for IE8 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combined-na-monthly-201309-201409 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combine... Shows 7% for North America IE8
kbenson 12y ago
The statement may be more to test the waters than to state a hard and fast condition of Bootstrap 4. Also, it's not like someone can't just use the 3 series. For our internal app, we're still using Bootstrap 2.
spollock 12y ago
Not really. The only people who still need to support ie8 are in enterprise and the enterprise is usually a couple years behind. By the time they upgrade to bootstrap 4 ie8 support will have ended.
- eterm 12y ago
  I'm still working with major clients who insist their official browser is ie6. We are in an awkward spot of soon having to say, "Sorry ie8 wasn't a suitable upgrade".
  - tracker1 12y ago
    I worked in an environment like that a few years ago on an internal SPA. IE6 was so bad in terms of memory leaks, the app was unusable in IE6 after a few hours. Many people were using Firefox standalone for our app (among others) just to be able to keep things open all day.
- _random_ 12y ago
  You know, humans work at enterprises. And we would appreciate reducing the crazy touch-friendly padding and margins as well!
- squiggy22 12y ago
  On highly trafficked sites , IE 8.0 usage can account for a fair amount of users, and conversions etc. It's a tougher decision to make to take those users off the table.
  - swartkrans 12y ago
    I won't work anywhere that cares about IE. If you are a company that wants to support IE and have competent, professional engineers I hope you pay a high salary.
    - matthewmacleod 12y ago
      This is such a stultifyingly stupid attitude it's hard to know where to begin, or to understand how you can be effective as a developer. Let's be clear – if you develop a service on the web, and a significant proportion of the users or target market uses IE8—enough that there's a positive ROI—then you are making a poor business decision by refusing to support it.
freyr 12y ago
Bootstrap 3 still supports IE8. You can still use Bootstrap 3, or even Bootstrap 2. But it makes little sense to develop new tools that support IE8 at this point. By the time Bootstrap 4 is released (probably many months from now), IE8 usage will be even lower. Further, since it's solely responsible for so many edge cases, polyfills, and hacks, it doesn't hurt to gently push for its demise. Even Microsoft is trying.
- jnbiche 12y ago
  >Even Microsoft is trying. Well why in the name of all good design did Microsoft not put out a version of IE9 for Windows XP while it was still supported? That would made everything so much simpler, including for them -- after all, they have to worry about IE8 just like the rest of us, XP or no.
  - numbsafari 12y ago
    Why? Because they want people to stop using XP. Stop using XP. Seriously.
    - jnbiche 12y ago
      Jesus, I don't mean for me. I haven't touched XP in years, and have very rarely used any Windows OS for the past 5-6 years. But there are millions of people in developing countries who can't afford to upgrade, or don't know how. Have you considered that? This is not a first-world problem. Why not accommodate those users? MS doesn't have to support the OS itself, but think of how much trouble it could save developers around the world -- inside of Microsoft and out -- if all these XP machines were automatically upgraded to IE9.
  - BillinghamJ 12y ago
    Because Microsoft is also trying to get people off XP. Releasing any new software sends the wrong signals.
  - richbradshaw 12y ago
    Uh, when was the last time you saw XP on a new machine - from Google Analytics on a UK retail site I'm getting 2.4% of users on XP this month, equivalent month in 2013 was 6.5%, in 2012 was 12.4%, in 2011 21%, 2010 34% - that's basically halving each year for the last 3 years.
LukeB_UK 12y ago
It's a 5 year old browser. The only operating system stuck on IE8 is Windows XP, a 13 year old operating system. I have a feeling that anyone still using it won't take much notice of things being a little broken.
acdha 12y ago
IE8 is under 4% now globally. Unless your customers are primarily large enterprise shops that's probably a reasonable trade-off even now, much less by the time Bootstrap 4 is actually released.
joshuacc 12y ago
I disagree. The company I work for provides software to schools and school districts, which tend to be pretty far behind the technological curve. After analyzing our usage patterns, we were able to drop IE8 recently.
AndrewDucker 12y ago
As of January 2016 all versions of IE below 11 will be dropped. By Microsoft. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/support-for-old-versions-of-internet-explorer-to-be-dropped/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/suppor...
LordHumungous 12y ago
The sooner it dies the better.
vlunkr 12y ago
Well for one thing, Bootstrap 4 isn't out yet, so you're prematurely accusing them of acting prematurely.
- malyk 12y ago
  They said the alpha is a couple of weeks away. Do you expect IE8 browser share to change significantly in the next couple of months?
  - McGlockenshire 12y ago
    > Do you expect IE8 browser share to change significantly in the next couple of months? IE8 implies XP. XP is now actively nagging users about how dead it is every time they boot. The holidays are coming up. It is not unreasonable to expect some people to replace their prehistoric computers around the end of the year.
    - clscott 12y ago
      It's never going to go away at that rate
malyk 12y ago
Yep. More than 10% of our users come from IE8. I'm not about to shut them out.
chestnut-tree 12y ago
There's an informative talk by Alice Bartlett, a front-end developer at gov.uk (the UK government digital service) on Youtube. In the presentation, she states that two of the requirements for gov.uk are 1. Functional without Javascript 2. Functional in IE7+ Link to the relevant part of the talk: http://youtu.be/CUkMCQR4TpY?t=17m34s http://youtu.be/CUkMCQR4TpY?t=17m34s And also http://youtu.be/CUkMCQR4TpY?t=19m21s http://youtu.be/CUkMCQR4TpY?t=19m21s The essential point made is that for much of gov.uk, it isn't that difficult to make the site work without Javascript or work in IE7 either. Purley personal opinion, but web design has become incredibly bloated with so much cruft added to web pages - be it unnecesary Javascript or excess CSS. Web developers pick the tools that make their lives easier (as you'd expect), but that doesn't always mean that users get the best experience.
- 7952 12y ago
  Heavy use of client side methods seems to break a lot of the benefits of using web apps in the first place. A main advantage of web apps originally was that they worked more or less the same on any machine. That Google Maps worked in exactly the same way regardless of how good your machine was at vector rendering. I wonder if the aversion to maintaining state on the server needs to end. You could do almost anything that a modern web app does with minimal client side code and have performance on low end PCs.
acjohnson55 12y ago
If you're using IE8 still, you're probably pretty used to a broken web. For most purposes, I think developing for IE8 should basically be making sure your very basic content and functionality is available in some form. But I think it's ridiculous at this point in the game to be aiming for 100% compatibility. If someone cares enough, they'll upgrade.

minimaxir 12y ago

For Bootstrap 4: > Updated grid system with at least one additional tier for handheld devices. Bootstrap already has a Mobile and Tablet layout, so which form factor would this addition address? Phablets?

LandoCalrissian 12y ago
Kind of interesting, that would mean there will be 5 different sizes. I guess one between 768 and 480 or something?
joeblau 12y ago
Watches!
rpedela 12y ago
Most likely there will be two tiers for phones: landscape (480-768px) and portrait (0-480px). https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/10203 https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/10203
- jrochkind1 12y ago
  I often end up adding that myself already one way or another, so I hope others are in the same boat and that is what they add!
  - Encosia 12y ago
    Same here. I almost always end up with quite a bit of custom CSS for a 480px breakpoint between XS and SM.
sparkzilla 12y ago
Maybe because the iPhone 6 has a different width than an iPhone 4?

iends 12y ago

Does it have RTL support yet?

joshstrange 12y ago
Maybe try out something like this? https://github.com/morteza/bootstrap-rtl https://github.com/morteza/bootstrap-rtl (more info: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19730598/right-to-left-support-for-twitter-bootstrap-3 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19730598/right-to-left-su...)
- TheGuyWhoCodes 12y ago
  Could be handy but the license is Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 so can't really use it for commercial.
ZeroGravitas 12y ago
They started to add it with some automated flipping tech around 3.1 but a developer of a 3rd party Bootstrap RTL project convinced them that it didn't belong in core and should be done manually. The argument made no sense to me but they scrapped their efforts shortly afterwards.

bhhaskin 12y ago

I for one am happy they are dropping support for IE8.

matti3 12y ago
I can't believe that it has taken this long. Didn't Foundation drop IE Support like 2 versions ago?
- bhhaskin 12y ago
  I am not sure. But they are dropping IE8 support so they can start using rems.
- mVChr 12y ago
  Yes, dropped for v.4. Both are good frameworks and these new versions look great, but considering I prefer SASS to LESS I don't think I'll be switching back to Bootstrap any time soon.
  - zeitg3ist 12y ago
    Bootstrap has an officially supported SASS version.
    - mVChr 12y ago
      Ah, been a while, good to know, thanks.

_random_ 12y ago

Phew, no BootScript!

_pmf_ 12y ago
> Phew, no BootScript! How can a JS framework expect to be taken seriously if it doesn't even provide a half-assed abstraction over a half-assed excuse for a language?

Smudge 12y ago

The most interesting part of this release (well, something that came shortly before this release) is Bootlint, their linter for your bootstrapified markup. https://github.com/twbs/bootlint https://github.com/twbs/bootlint I could see myself integrating something like this into a text editor or a build process -- something that watches for bootstrap usage errors and helps my team correct them early and quickly. That is, of course, assuming that we stick pretty closely to vanilla bootstrap, which we usually don't. One of my biggest issues with Bootstrap (and similar frameworks) is that, beyond a certain point, you find yourself overriding and customizing them to such a degree that it's more productive to just build your own "vanilla" components that are specific to the way your site or organization uses them, and then just ditch Bootstrap altogether. One thing I'd like to see is a way of generally linting HTML structure (not validity, but actual structure) with a goal of reducing complexity and improving maintainability, regardless of what frameworks you may be using. Something that spits out a ratio of meaningful, semantic markup to "div soup" and tells you where you should spend the most time mopping up the soup. It could also have some understanding of which kinds of div patterns are acceptable -- bootstrap components, your own component library (see: OOCSS), etc.

themodelplumber 12y ago
> you find yourself overriding and customizing them to such a degree that it's more productive to just build your own "vanilla" components that are specific to the way your site or organization uses them, and then just ditch Bootstrap altogether. This has been similar to my experience. Bootstrap can be overwhelming at times, and there have been a few cases where I had to solve buggy behavior by specific Bootstrap components by writing elaborate fixes that would not have been required had I used my own framework. From that standpoint, working on a time-consuming, yet practically throwaway-type site, Bootstrap was really frustrating. I do really like the low-baggage approach of Initializr's Responsive configuration as well as the Responsive Grid System.
- monk_e_boy 12y ago
  For small throw away sites I tend to have getbootstrap open and using Chrome debugger cut and paste the bits off CSS I need into my own project. Things like the nav bar are really clever, but way too much for most of my projects. I like the button styles, but usually modify them... stuff like that.

brickmort 12y ago

This is the rhythm of the night!

wuliwong 12y ago

Am I the only one who actually thought that video was going to show some sort of demo for the new release? hahahah. I was actually pretty disappointed when that didn't happen.

hackerboos 12y ago

I would have liked to have seen LESS support dropped. Bootstrap is the only thing keeping LESS alive right now...

aikah 12y ago
I dont,I prefer LESS over SASS for multiple reasons(running less in the browser during development is one).
- jmathai 12y ago
  Is there a secret I don't know about or do browsers convert LESS to CSS natively?
  - mrkipling 12y ago
    No, but there's a JS file that transforms your LESS into CSS in the browser. It's handy for development but obviously you'd want to pre-compile for production.
    - jeffreyrogers 12y ago
      Is there any reason someone couldn't do the same thing for Sass?
      - bruce_one 12y ago
        looks plausible: http://medialize.github.io/sass.js/ http://medialize.github.io/sass.js/ :-)
      - drivingmenuts 12y ago
        The biggest issue is probably keeping up with Sass. Other Sass implementations are behind on features. Less ... well, there's less to keep up with since there's one implementation of it that I'm aware of. I used to prefer Sass, but mostly because it was the only thing going at the time, but I'm starting to lean toward Less.

sebslomski 12y ago

I'm glad to see them finally switch from pixel based values to rem. This feels totally overdue to me.

ZoF 12y ago
I'd expect that was at least partially due to the fact that they were still supporting IE8.
vohof 12y ago
hear hear!

derengel 12y ago

Why is Bootstrap much more popular than Foundation? Is technically better for most tasks?

illicium 12y ago
Probably not, but the reverse is not necessarily true. It's mostly a matter of taste -- e.g. if you don't like SASS, you won't want to use Foundation.
- selamin 12y ago
  I can't imagine that's a real deterrent is it? Using LESS with Foundation is fairly straightforward. Create an empty .less file and @import 'foundation.css'. Also, LESS and SASS have very similar syntax. There's very little learning curve if you're going from one to the other...
  - illicium 12y ago
    You can't use any of the variables or mixins if you import the CSS in your LESS file. The syntax is not the issue -- the tooling is.
- kyriakos 12y ago
  as somebody who uses bootstrap with SASS instead of LESS I can tell you that my reason is simply better community support
JelteF 12y ago
I really don't like Foundation because of the way it looks out of the box. Everything is way to square and brightly colored. Bootstrap just looks quite good from the start. After a quick look at the markup however, I really think Foundation is winning there.
- boynamedsue 12y ago
  It's really easy to customize the radius of things like buttons in Foundation.

elchief 12y ago

Please add the "clear" button back on input type=search! Thanks

sandeshd 12y ago

It's too late to see rems and ems in bootstrap, but it's most welcome feature I guess.

maga 12y ago

Speaking of dropping IE8, folks, is there a CSS framework for modern browsers that preferably support only IE10+?