If you haven’t yet you should make some time to read Building Twitter Bootstrap at A List Apart. Especially if you’re interested in building a WordPress Theme Framework or WordPress Starter Theme.
Twitter Bootstrap is essentially a collection of HTML-CSS templates and some Javascript put together to “help designers and developers quickly and efficiently build awesome stuff online.” It sounds an awful lot like a lot of WordPress Theme Frameworks and Starter Themes, right? It looks like one too.
It also reminds me a lot of the advice I’ve been giving people lately on using Theme Frameworks, Starter Themes, and Child Themes. Eventually I wind up saying the same thing over and over again: You should be building your own WordPress Theme Framework. Take the WordPress Default Theme, take an existing WordPress Theme Framework, or a Starter Theme, or any old theme that works, and make it your own. Iterate on it, build on it, refine it. Use it as Parent Theme or a Starter Theme. Make it your own. When you’re done you’ll have the best WordPress Theme — for you. And really that’s what you really want in the end.
But back to Building Twitter Bootstrap. If you’re interested in building your own WordPress Theme Framework there is some great advice in that article. Check out the Twitter Bootstrap project and think about building your own Theme Framework, Parent Theme, or Starter Theme.
Just last week I snag this via GitHub and started playing around with it for a new WordPress project we’re working on. So far I’ve really enjoyed using it and what they provide is pretty solid.
Although, after using it for about a week I stumbled onto Foundation.Zurb.com and really liked how they incorporated a lot of what Bootstrap offers as well as the responsive framework as well.
Either way, good post and I hope others take a look at Bootstrap as I think it offers a solid kickstart.
I have a Bootstrap theme for WordPress that is a work in progress – and my base development theme, if anyone is interested: http://rachelbaker.me/bootstrapwp/
Rachel, this is pretty amazing. I’ve worked on wordpress and bootstrap (Which I think rocks!) on separate occasions but never thought about putting it together. It’s also very kind of you for sharing it.
Thank you!
Rachel, your Bootstrapwp theme is very nice. I plan to make a personal boostrapwp theme based on the Twenty Eleven/Twelve framework (because is full HTML5 with article, header, footer etc elementes) form WordPress 3.4 and I will look at your example.
Looks awesome!! I’m going to try it for my next project! thx!
@Rachel – I did one of these too – http://320press.com/wpbs. Definitely a fun project to put the twitter bootstrap framework into a wp theme. I also did a theme based on Zurb’s foundation – http://320press.com/wp-foundation – which I actually liked a little better than the bootstrap framework (before they released 2.0)
I’m curious though: how does the Apache license and GPL v2 coexist together?
As a matter of fact, they can’t coexist together. Legally, we cannot use the Twitter Bootstrap (Apache 2.0 license) and distribute our WordPress themes (which have to be licensed GPL v2 or later).
My sources:
http://wordpress.org/about/license/
http://drupal.org/licensing/faq/#q7
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#apache2
I do believe that I’m reading this right. If I’m not, please correct me.
My understanding is that you CAN use bootstrap with a re-released version of wordpress if it is released under a V3 license, but you cannot use it with a copy of wordpress that comes directly from the wordpress foundation (aka wordpress.org) as they are licensed under V2.
NOTE: that this is my understanding, i am not a lawyer. i’ve sent a letter to the FSF asking them to clarify it for me before i release my own theme which uses code from bootstrap and anyone reading this should do the same.
In respect to ensuring it isn’t used on an incompatible version their is code available – http://codex.wordpress.org/Determining_Plugin_and_Content_Directories#Backwards_Compatibility_Code
I guess they are compatible:
From http://wordpress.org/about/license/ :
“The license under which the WordPress software is released is the GPLv2 (or later) … so, This “later” can be GPLv3 ins’t it? , I think it does, and GLPv3 and Apache2 are compatible.
According to a core drupal dev on twitter in response to the
twitterbootstrap + drupal theme licensing question
“@crell Apache2 is not GPLv2 compatible, only GPLv3. Not allowed on drupal.org but you can use it yourself w/ GPLv3″
thoughts?
Hey everyone, just wanted to tell you about a site I just launched. It’s called WrapBootstrap and it’s a marketplace for Bootstrap themes. If you’ve made a theme come check it out.