Websites come in varying shapes and sizes. In our lifetime, we may work on sites that have four or 400 different pages. And the devices these websites are viewed on are just as different. Creating websites for all these variables is a daunting task. Breaking sites down to bite-sized pieces, or patterns, can make this task more manageable.
Web design and development is a great industry to be a part of because the people in it love to share. When developing a responsive website, it can be a challenge to come up with solutions for scaling content from small to large screens. Luckily, we can look to responsive patterns and responsive pattern libraries shared by the companies and individuals that make up this industry.
Together, let's look at the most popular responsive web design patterns and how they are built. Responsive patterns, just like patterns in the analog world, can be used as a guide, a foundation, or solely inspiration for your own work.
Chapter 1, Creating a Home for Responsive Patterns, builds a home for all the patterns reviewed in this book and looks into why pattern libraries should be used in the first place.
Chapter 2, The Main Stage – Building Responsive Layouts, reviews the top most common responsive layouts and what type of content is suited for each.
Chapter 3, Make Way for Responsive Navigations, explores patterns for one of the most tricky aspects of a responsive website—the menu system. It looks at popular navigational patterns used in modern websites and the pros and cons of each.
Chapter 4, From Static to Dynamic – Embedding Media, shows how to deliver catered images for different quality displays and how to make media such as images and video scale with a responsive website.
Chapter 5, Gathering and Displaying Information, covers patterns and guidelines for developing the more analytical elements of a website such as forms and tables.
Chapter 6, Combining Responsive Patterns, teaches how to decide whether a responsive pattern is the right one to use and how to combine patterns to create a more custom solution.
Chapter 7, Ship It – Finalizing Your Pattern Library, lays out the final steps to polishing up a responsive library before archiving it or handing it to the client.
Websites can be made in a plain text editor, but why suffer? In this book, we will be creating a responsive pattern library using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It is recommended to use a more advanced text editor such as a Sublime Text editor to edit the files provided. A modern browser such as Chrome, Safari, and Firefox is also recommended.
This book is intended for HTML and CSS beginners who want to know where to start when creating a responsive website. It is also for more experienced developers who perhaps need a little inspiration for their next project. Knowing what makes a responsive site tick is not enough. You also have to know the best way to design a site that fulfills its required goals, shrinking and stretching to polar sizes all the while. This book aims to equip you with a foundation to do just that.
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Put this meta tag in the <head> of your HTML files to overcome the device's zooming."
A block of code is set as follows:
/*NAVIGATION*/
nav li {
display: block;
}
@media screen and (min-width: 800px) {
nav li {
display: inline-block
}
}When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
/*NAVIGATION*/
nav li {
display: block;
}
@media screen and (min-width: 800px) {
nav li {
display: inline-block
}
}
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "The View Pattern button takes you to the patterns page where you can view it alone outside of the landing page."
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply e-mail <[email protected]>, and mention the book's title in the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
You can download the example code files from your account at http://www.packtpub.com for all the Packt Publishing books you have purchased. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
Here is the link to the code on GitHub: https://github.com/chelmyers/RPL
Here is the live version of our website: http://chelmyers.github.io/RPL/
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title.
To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.
Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at <[email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.
If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at <[email protected]>, and we will do our best to address the problem.