Getting bootstrap for your website

Every web page is made up of HTML elements to display content and CSS rules to change the appearance of those content. Bootstrap is a framework that makes it easier to create beautiful website. Bootstrap has predefined CSS rules which we can use in our web pages to beautify the content. Bootstrap includes templates for typography, forms, buttons, images, navigation also some javascript plugins too. As these days responsive design is taking prominent place as websites are accessed in multiple platforms like desktop, tablets and smartphones. Responsive design is one which changes its appearance based on the device it is accessed. Bootstrap allows easy creation of responsive design. This is one of the great advantages of using Bootstrap in your web pages.

You can get and use Bootstrap in the following ways.

Downloading and saving in your server.

Bootstrap can be downloaded from http://getbootstrap.com. Download the bootstrap compiled version of bootstrap from the github. Bootstrap is hosted in github as a opensource project https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap. After downloading the compiled bootsrap unzip it to a folder. It contains the following files as in the below picture.

As you see the files in bootstrap framework are arranged in three folders . Some files have its miniature versions which are useful in production version of your web site.  include the css files and js files in your web pages to make use of bootstrap framework.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/bootstrap.css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"></script>
<script src="js/bootstrap.js"></script>

After linking both these files now your webpage is now ready to use bootstrap framework.

Using Bootstrap from CDN.

Bootstrap can be linked to your web page from CDN too. MaxCDN provides support for Boostrap CSS files, Javascript files and JQuery files.  CDN has the advantage of serving the files closer to the user accessing the web page. Also it reduces the load and number requests from the server where web page is hosted.  Bootstrap can be linked to a web page using the following way.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/css/bootstrap.min.css">
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>

Both methods are extensively used. After you link the web page you can start using the Bootstrap framework for your web pages.