15 Best Bootstrap Tools for Designers

Development Resources

The process of Web design entails various skills and disciplines when it comes to the creation and maintenance of websites. These areas of web design include web ( graphic design ), interface design, authoring, ( which includes standardized code as well as proprietary software ), user experience design, and search engine optimization ( or SEO ).

Very often many individuals will work in teams covering different aspects of the design process, although some designers who are also adept at code ( development & possess programming skills ) can encompass all areas of the design aspect.

The term web design is normally used to describe the design process relating to the front-end (client side) which involves the design of a website including mark up ( or code ). Web design tends to overlap with web engineering in the broader sense of web development- as web designers are expected to possess an in-depth awareness pertaining to usability, and if their role involves creating mark up then- they are also expected to be up to date with web accessibility guidelines.

Within the scope of Design, web designers usually tend to utilize a variety of different tools- depending on what part of the production process they are involved in. When it comes to the End-User experience and understanding the content of a website, it often depends upon how well the web designer ( or developer ) has designed that particular website to work. This is what defines the user experience when it comes to design.

In lieu of this, the Bootstrap framework was created by which to encourage a better and broader consistency across internal tools , as well as various libraries which were incorporated for interface development, which led to the acceleration of a project’s development process.

Thus, ever since Bootstrap exploded and was initially released onto the web-scene during 2011, it quickly became one of the most popular responsive frameworks available, and has now become the Web Standard and absolute requirement towards good web design and practices. The Bootstrap Framework encompasses an extensive library of pre-styled components, plugins and add-ons which allow kick-starting any web project a breeze.

There are no shortage of Bootstrap resources, and in this article we would like to introduce our readers to several of these best bootstrap tools by which to customize the framework of their projects to better suit their ( or their clients ) requirements, as well as to help boost their web development productivity.

Which list of Bootstrap tools/resources do you use and would recommend to others ? If you have a few favorites, then please share them with our readers in the comment section below.

Enjoy !

1. Layoutit

LayoutIt
LayoutIt helps you create your frontend code simple and quickly with Bootstrap using our Drag & Drop Interface Builder. It takes every element and component of Bootstrap to make your frontend coding easier without needing to be an expert in javascript, html5 or css3.
All your designs can be Responsive CSS and Fluid. Drag-and-drop the same Bootstrap components to your own design. Easy to integrate with any programming language, you just download the HTML and start coding the design into it.
 

2. X-editable

x-editable
X-editable supports in-place editing with Twitter Bootstrap, jQuery UI or pure jQuery. This library allows you to create editable elements on your page. It includes both popup and inline modes. It’s new life of bootstrap-editable plugin that was strongly refactored and improved.
It supports input type like, text, textarea, select, date, dateui and checklist. It supports client-side and server-side validation. The container placement is fully customizable. User can toggle by click, dblclick or manually. It works in IE7+ and all modern browsers.
 

3. Jetstrap

jetstrap
Jetstrap is a 100% web-based interface building tool for Twitter Bootstrap. Built for developers, designers, and idea-people alike, Jetstrap helps you get awesome websites up and running fast, with less work and digging through docs.
 

4. Grid Displayer

grid-displayer
Grid Displayer is a boomarklet that displays the grid of both Twitter Bootstrap (fixed and fluid grid) and Foundation (2.0 and 3.0). It works with Firefox and WebKit browsers.
 

5. Bootply

bootsply
Bootply lets you fiddle with Bootstrap. Edit Bootstrap-friendly CSS, HTML and JavaScript.Use Bootply to design, prototype, extend, or test the Bootstrap framework. Bootply is integrated with other popular Bootstrap plugins, micro-libraries and frameworks.
 

6. DivShot

divshot
Divshot is a drag-and-drop front end editor that allows you to build responsive sites on Bootstrap (as well as Foundation) without the coding.
 

7. Bootstrap Magic

bootstrap magic
Bootstrap Magic themes generator is featuring Bootstrap 3 and AngularJS. You can easily create your own Twitter Bootstrap theme quickly. You can see instantly what you are changing on the content. You can also add awesome webfonts from Google Webfont. They are all included in font magic typehead. Satisfy? Download your personalized CSS, minified or not and LESS variables.
 

8. GetkickStrap

getKickstrap
Kickstrap seamlessly combines Bootstrap with top-tier web technologies. It’s so advanced, it can run an authenticated, database-driven web app without a native backend. Kickstrap’s partnership with JSPM.io provides a strong front-end package dependency manager built on Require.js. Kickstrap apps are unit JSPM bundles of static resources that can be run at any time in the web app’s lifetime.
 

9. Font Awesome

Font Awesome
Font Awesome gives you scalable vector icons that can instantly be customized — size, color, drop shadow, and anything that can be done with the power of CSS.
 

10. Bootstrap Button Generator

Bootstrap Button Generator
It’s easy, you Just need to enter the css class you want to assign to your new button style and play with the different button colors to update the live previews in the right.
 

11. PaintStrap

paintstrap
Paintstrap lets you generate beautiful Twitter Bootstrap themes using the Adobe kuler / COLOURlovers color scheme.
 

12. Fancyboot

Fancyboot
Fancyboot is a simple yet powerful customization tool for Bootstrap with just the right amount of control and without all the unnecessary complexities.
 

13. Bootstrap Designer

bootstrap designer
Bootstrap Designer is an online design tool, producing awesome HTML5 templates based on Bootstrap framework. Use Bootstrap Designer to create various design styles: minimalist style, black & white, grunge, typographic-driven, monochromatic look, clean & creative, etc.
 

14. Bootsnipp

bootsnipp
Bootsnipp is an element gallery for web designers and web developers created by Maks, anybody usingBootstrap will find this website essential in their craft.
 

15. Easel

Easel
Easel is an impressive browser design tool for Bootstrap. Easel lets you make specific elements in your documents link to other documents to prototype flows within your application without a single line of code. You can even have your users test through a unique link allowing you to get feedback earlier in your process. Easel makes it easy to make comments on specific parts of your documents. Just highlight the part of the design you are interested in and type in your comment.

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Design addicted Geek who harbors a passion for Web Design & Technology.

19 Comments to: 15 Best Bootstrap Tools for Designers
  1. I think bootstrap is great, but I prefer to use a framework with a lighter footprint. I am also aware of the fact that bootstrap does cover functionality for multiple browsers. However, if you are using an old browser that just sucks.

  2. Nice list! I will definitely be using Bootstrap Magic for some theme customization, I love that you can save the LESS variables as a standalone file. I’ve been editing the LESS variables manually, which is fine, but having the visuals along with the color pickers make the experience a lot easier.

    If you’re looking for some free themes for Bootstrap, you can check out Start Bootstrap at http://startbootstrap.com. Some of the unstyled starter examples on the site will work wonderfully with some of these theme creators.

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