Good evening fellow Coffeecupers,

I just wanted to know what everyone's favorite framework is. I have been using Foundation for as long as SD has been out. Do you guys think there are more versatile frameworks that I should try?

Happy web building
Steve

Hi Steve
Nope for me foundation is the No1 for versatility, however, should CC ever get the update to vanilla CSS/JS etc, then that would start to become a strong contender (or if Zurb ever get their act together again and get their CSS/JS updated, then oh boy.

It's so versatile that one can even start from desktop down for basic layouts (which some people prefer) (sort of a bit messy, but works to begin.

Frameworkless is good and can be great if you have more than a smattering of vanilla coding knowledge for CSS/JS

because you can always insert custom code (which has the obvious drawback of not being able to see the way it works unless one uses "PREVIEW ON" which sort of defeats the object of having a WYSIWYG type of thingy.

Bootstrap is reasonably upto date, but then its Bootstrap hmmmm
Materialize is so out of date it should have a heath warning, "use at your own risk"

Well thats my tuppence worth I am sure there will be others with different viewpoints.

I'm sticking with Foundation. Way more efficient to stay with one.

I can work with all of them, but Materialize is the one I like the least. I agree with Wayan about how outdated it is.

When it comes to my favourite, it used to be Foundation. But Frameworkless is taking over that position more and more.

I’m curious if CC has any plans to update the existing frameworks, such as upgrading from Bootstrap v4.4.1 to v5.3. I’m also interested in whether there are plans to incorporate any other frameworks like Tailwind CSS, Bulma, or Pico CSS.

Considering that Materialize hasn’t had an official update since 2018 (despite being actively maintained by the community on GitHub), I’m wondering if there are any plans to either phase it out, adopt a more actively updated framework, or upgrade to a more recent version of Materialize.

The only examples I've seen of Tailwind are using inline CSS. I wouldn't like to go back to that. It seems like a step backwards. I used that when I was new to CSS, some 25 years ago, before I had learnt it properly.

Here Here
and imagine trying to incorporate all that Tailwind CSS, Bulma, or Pica CSS, into the backend stuff so that one can see the results as they are made rather than only when viewing :PREVIEW ON" or as live preview.
I do hope though that one day, they may be able to update the CSS for Foundation,,Bootstrap and Frameworkless nowadays CSS is so far ahead, its amazing what one can do especially with the advances in CSS Grid properties.

I find myself using HTML editor more and more nowadays especially for some of the more complex layouts, which are impossible within Site Design, but a breeze in HTML.CSS/JS etc, unless one uses so much custom code it sort of defeats the way Site Designer is made to be used.

I understand — I remember using inline CSS back in the late '90s and would not want to go back to that either!

I get that while Tailwind's utility classes might look like inline styles at first glance, they come from a centralized, reusable, and configurable Tailwind CSS file rather than being written directly on each element.

But I would agree - something like this does look lke inline styling:

<a href="#" class="block mt-4 bg-blue-500 hover:bg-blue-700 text-white font-bold py-2 px-4 rounded">
Go somewhere
</a>

Compared to Bootstrap:
<a href="#" class="btn btn-primary">Go somewhere</a>

That said, my main question was whether CC plans to update their frameworks at some point (Bootstrap for example) and possibly swap out Materialize since it seems to be outdated and there could be a better option at this point.

Interesting questions from Steve and Mark. Reading between the lines I hear one wonders why CoffeeCup is not modernizing Site Designer by updating the existing frameworks or by adding new ones. This is in fact one of the main reasons, why I do not longer use SD.

Fact is, that all the CSS frameworks in Site Designer are outdated. Neither one has the more recent CSS added. The current frameworks are either not longer maintained by their creators or, when updated, not yet implemented in SD by CC. It is namely a two-step-process: after a framework is updated , CC has to add the changes to SD. Response times of all parties involved are way too long. That leaves us, customers, with the problems that come with that.
To the original question: yes I do think there are more versatile frameworks out there. But they are not implemented into SD. And Tailwind is definitely one of them. Just to mention one or two advantages: it handles your breakpoints - you don’t have to take care of them. So, you don’t have to decide upfront if you have to develop ‘mobile first’ or ‘desktop down’ - you can mix it all during development. Further, it has all kinds of class variants that enables you to add things like ‘hover’ or ‘focus’ behavior easily. Yes, it is a utility class framework. So, it is true, it often results in adding many classes to an HTML element (but, why should we bother? It does not affect our website speed and it is not like we have to read the HTML files).

When the frameworks are outdated, the tool that implements these frameworks is outdated.
Nowadays there are definitely better alternatives to SD out there. Alternatives that support frameworks like Foundation, Bootstrap 5 and Tailwind. And that cleverly can transform Tailwind-Classes into regular classes, so that the HTML is not cluttered. That can do everything CSS Grid offers. That have modern Java-driven animation added. And that integrates the latest A.I. models to supports us to develop our websites more efficiently. And that combine the two main CC tools SD and HTML Editor without locking us in. That allow you to import any existing website and continue working with it. And, very important: that are maintained by their developers (yes, also small teams).
Everyone should of course choose the tool that best suits them and their workflow, but I personally chose a different visual web editor.