inuit.css has been my answer to the CSS framework. I launched it just under two months ago to great reception, you guys have had some excellent suggestions and some really supportive feedback which has kept inuit.css going, with me updating it as often as I can and adding new features.
I’m very excited today to announce that inuit.css is getting plugins, and to keep the theme running these plugins are called igloos! jQuery has them, WordPress has them and now so does inuit.css.
An igloo = an inuit.css plugin
I wrote a really rough spec for them this morning just to keep development on the straight and narrow but I thought I’d show it to you guys too.
Here is the tiny spec:
igloos — CSS plugins for inuit.css
igloos are inuit.css specific plugins to extend and add functionality to the inuit.css framework.
Naming conventions
igloos shall be named thus: <igloo-name>.inuit.css. An igloo which provides annotation support for HTML5 figure elements would be named thus: annotate.inuit.css
How they work
An igloo is included in the page using a HTML <link /> element. This <link /> appears after the <link /> which includes inuit.css, eg:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/inuit.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/annotate.inuit.css" />This does mean additional HTTP requests, however it does mean that we see the extension metaphor at work and the core inuit.css file remains unchanged, allowing for easier upgrades of the framework in the future.
In case you haven’t guessed, one of the first igloos to come to inuit.css is the annotated <figure> snippet I wrote last week!
I’m working on writing igloos and also preparing them and v2.0 for release. They should be ready within the next week or so but to keep up to date follow inuit.css on Twitter.
They’re live!
Some igloos are live and can be downloaded from http://inuitcss.com/#igloos
By Harry Roberts on Saturday, June 11th, 2011 in inuit.css. | 5 Comments »
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trovster said on 11 June, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Just a small note: I would prefer inuit.plugin.css as then it groups all the inuit plugins together.
Jeroen Ransijn said on 12 June, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Inuit.css is a great idea, I also believe you did some things right other frameworks did not. The igloos are probably the best addition to this framework, as most frameworks don’t offer this feature. A lot of great stuff, though I do have some points of concern. First of all, I use CSSedit.app for the mac, and it has an elegant way of grouping, if you use this way of grouping the editor will also recognize the groups. Second, the baseline is not very strict — especially concerning the forms and tables. Additionaly, what are the main arguments for choosing the relative em’s?
I wish you the best of luck with inuit.css, some good resources that might interest you are ‘baseline css framework’ and ’skeleton css framework’ if you haven’t already. (I don’t mean copying, but learning from some of their approaches).
Ben Cooper said on 13 June, 2011 at 7:25 am
Holy shit man …. this is an awesome idea
Harry Roberts said on 13 June, 2011 at 11:53 am
@Jeroen:
Thanks for your kind words. The baseline isn’t strict because it doesn’t need to be… It’s not an important enough feature to spend too much time working on IMO. inuit.css aims to be pragmatic, but slaving away forcing tables and forms onto a baseline to me isn’t all that sensible. I chose ems because I’m old school, and ems just feel nice (plus you get better font-sizing in older browsers).
Cheers,
H
HK said on 15 June, 2011 at 6:24 am
Thanks for this fantastic framework. Love the igloos. I am trying to make a case for using inuit in our new company project.
One suggestion – please put some more demos. There is presently only 1 demo of this entire framework. Would love to see some more demos (for inuit, and for igloos too).