

Bootstrap Designer – Generate Bootstrap Templates - yusw
http://bootstrapdesigner.com
Online design tool, producing HTML5 templates based on Twitter Bootstrap that you can use for your clients' projects or sell on your own website.
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highace
I think this is the second 'bootstrap designer' posted to HN today alone.

Here's my gripe with these things. It seems like we're going backwards. Years
ago everyone used Frontpage and Dreamweaver to create their pages, which was
fine. But it soon became apparent that handwriting your own HTML gave your far
greater control and added way more value, and so use of these visual editors
died down. But now they're back for revenge, except from the browser this
time, and stuck with a totally overused css framework which in my opinion
[when used at stock] completely devalues your design.

As a then designer who took the time to learn HTML and CSS during the WYSIWYG
cull of the early 00s - which wasn't that hard - I just can't see why these
editors are needed.

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SkyMarshal
_> But now they're back for revenge, except from the browser this time, and
stuck with a totally overused css framework which in my opinion [when used at
stock] completely devalues your design._

Did you look at the examples on the site? None of them look anything like the
default bootstrap design. And the section below the example section is _"Your
Bootstrap site doesn't have to look like Bootstrap!"_

Also, you download the resulting code, and the customized CSS is apparently in
a separate CSS file that overrides the default bootstrap stuff, not
intermixed, so it's easy to further hand-modify as needed.

Only problem is there's no apparent way to test it out and see how it works
without providing a credit card. Would love the ability to really see for
myself to what degree you can customize bootstrap before signing up for
recurring billing, even at just $4.99/mo.

A free tier that gives you the ability to create customized designs and view
them in a preview window (similar wrapbootstrap.com), but no way to save them
to your account or other conveniences, would be nice.

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BallinBige
why not just use google chrome inspector as a 'template designer' ?

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yusw
Similar approach, but the designer gives you visual representation of the
design settings (font settings, color/gradient selection, css effects, etc).
Combined with real-time preview, makes it easy to experiment and to get ideas.

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KaoruAoiShiho
Really dislike this way of 'designing' with bootstrap. You need to be using
the grid and setting relative values rather than fiddling with px sliders.

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state
There sure is an abundance of these lately. I can see the reason why Bootstrap
opens up the possibility of building this, but I don't see exactly where it's
going. Maybe I'm missing something though, so I'd be curious to have the
creators defend the work.

What is going to make one of these win over the others, and who _exactly_ is
the intended audience?

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yusw
Before releasing the Bootstrap Designer, it was my personal tool to create a
mockup for clients. I can quickly experiment with colors, fonts, images, etc
and pick the combination that I feel works for my project. I see this will
help users to focus more on creative work.

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mnicole
I'm sure this is a great personal tool for quick prototyping, but I'd really
like to see people who are building products around the premise of design to
actually care about and understand design instead of compiling bad assets from
free resources to charge for it. The default Bootstrap layout is preferable to
bad textures and typography laid on a custom non-grid.

<https://www.easel.io/bootstrap> is a free alternative for people looking for
a WYSIWYG approach to Bootstrap, but in any case - like with the previously
mentioned Frontpage and Dreamweaver dilemmas - I'd advise against using these
tools for anything other than a functional mockup.

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imrank1
Looks interesting but there is no trial version? I dont see a a way to try it
without paying.

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bowline_nc
Agreed - I was about to give it a try, but I'd need to be able to create one
(even watermarked) to see the quality of what's generated before I pay.

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alphamale3000
How would you go about watermarking html & css?

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olefoo
data-* attributes on all the elements. But switched up and randomised so you
wouldn't be able to strip them out with a single line of XSLT; and for greater
annoyance, some of them would be required to make the design work, so
stripping them out with a regex would break things.

Make 'em work for the free html they designed with your tool...

If it seems like a waste of effort on both sides, that's because it is.

Given that tools like this appear to be easy to write and easy to launch they
should probably be sold to hosting companies not designers. As in, you'd make
more money selling AutoMattic the whole shebang to use for designing things on
top of Wordpress or it's successor than you would trying to sell $9/month
subscriptions to would be web designers.

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yusw
Here is sample template, created using Bootstrap Designer:
<http://bootstrapdesigner.com/easy-start.aspx>

More samples can be seen at: <http://www.facebook.com/BootstrapDesigner>

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deepGem
"Generate HTML templates at the speed of light" - Really ? I use
powerpoint/Keynote for that. Thank you.

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jtesp
Tons! Of! Exclamation! Marks! :)

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keeptrying
This is great. Now u can seriously play around with a design without knwing
photoshop skills. Great effing job!

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pestaa
Photoshop was never needed to build an interactive demo.

<https://37signals.com/svn/posts/1061-why-we-skip-photoshop>

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oonny
what's the music that was used in the demo?

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yusw
Music from Audiojungle :)

