What is inuit.css?

Written by Harry Roberts on CSS Wizardry.

inuit.css has been live for a couple of months now, but I’ve decided to do a more extensive writeup of what it is, what it does, who it might help and who could–or should–be using it.

inuit.css is a CSS framework. Another one. Except I like to think that inuit.css is a little different. It’s not a grid system, it’s not a boilerplate, it’s not a starting point, it’s a fully featured and extensive framework. It is designed to do 90% of the grunt work for you, it takes care of the boring bits that you have to do on every build and leaves you enough time to concentrate fully on the fun bits.

Extensibility

inuit.css is one of very few frameworks which has plugins, or as inuit.css calls them, igloos.

igloos extend and add functionality to an already extensive framework; add features like breadcrumb navigations, IE6 support, dropdown menus and more…

Updates

inuit.css is, at the time of writing, a mere two months old. In that time however it has gone from version 1.0 to version 2.5. Twenty updates to the framework to improve, refine and add functionality.

A lot of frameworks go stagnant or get forgotten once written; I’m trying my best to take community feedback to constantly expand and improve inuit.css based on what people want.

Pragmatic

inuit.css is a pragmatic framework which uses lots of progressive enhancement. Rather than trying to be everything to everyone it performs to its environment. IE7 works a treat, but Firefox 4 works even better. inuit.css takes a sensible approach to web development.

A developer’s best friend…

inuit.css aims to save time, effort and memory on the developer’s part. Small aspects of the framework were added with the sole intention of making developers’ lives easier. The removal of the requirement for the .end class on the last item in a line of grid columns, the dropping of the .grid class to throw divs into grid mode–these were all added with the end user in mind.

Who should use it?

• People who have a great design but aren’t too hot in notepad.

• Programmers who can build awesome apps but can’t necessarily get some decent CSS in place in a reasonable time-frame.

• People who want the majority of their browser testing done for them already (inuit.css works in IE7+ and all other browsers and has an igloo for IE6 support).

• Agencies who need to turn round projects quickly but don’t want to compromise on quality–inuit.css has loads of best practices and nifty tricks baked in.

• People who are new to CSS and build who want a decent starting point from which to learn.

• People who like the idea of a responsive site but haven’t the resources to research and/or implement it themselves.

• Anyone who builds websites.

If you’ve looked at, or even better, used inuit.css, your feedback is vital in ensuring the continued improvements and additions, so please keep tweeting at me, and leave any critiques or general comments below.

Cheers, H

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