Question for the senior front end web developer here:

If you guys got a project (big or small), do you guys usually:
1. Get a template from another website and modify or style it to suits your need, or
2. Build it from scratch?

This applies to website like devrant, or swag store

@Joshbent @Alice @trogus and any other front end I don't remember

Always from scratch, I might look at similar sites to see what they do / don’t do though.

The time it takes to work or joe and why a template was put together the way it was and how to incorporate extras usually takes as long as just going from a blank file anyway.

@C0D4 could I see some of your projects?

Not senior, but I prefer from scratch. You actually know all the codes and what you have done.

@devTea almost all of my work is for companies I work for 9-5 plus kids doesn’t leave a lot of room for side projects these days😑
And for the sake of anonymity and all ...😇

I’m in the middle of doing something with this so stay tuned I guess

https://c0d4-playground.ga/

Never use templates, it’s boring :/

Haven't really created anything awesome by design, so I'm just worry if it's ended up using template in the future

@devTea if you haven’t done design work previously us a template, learn how it’s put together, but experiment on your own designs as well.

Templates are only good for quick and dirty solution in my opinion but they don’t tend to be flexible enough for what I need to do most of the time.

@C0D4 got it thanks

@Alice lol does that mean no bootstrap? I have never used it before but all my past website doesn't look too good or satisfying

@devTea most people rely on bootstrap and have no idea how to customise it to actually look good.

It does a lot of the work for you which is good for beginners but bad if you never learn how not to use it.

@C0D4 @Alice kay, I’ll try not to depend on bootstrap

Front end? I suck at it so template.

But if I just want to display some info from a back end, generally tables, I use skeleton.

@mundo03 wym by skeleton? I used datatables plugin for database table from backend

@devTea I would never call myself senior in anything probably (even though it's flattering you said it in context), but as everybody else said already, from scratch.

I use figma to design the frontend. I usually have a rough idea already in my head, but then also go to uplabs, dribbble, coloors, palletton etc. to throw together some more ideas for color themes, interesting CTA ideas etc. refactoringui is a great resource too.

In contrast to the others I actually like bootstrap though, since bootstrap 4 has made amazing (breaking) changes to their mobile responsive tools etc.

I don't use their actual styles, except if I am too lazy to add custom design to say a laravel default theme (which is auto generated bootstrap), but they do offer a lot of base components that you can style to your needs and make your life that much easier.

I design some front end architecture so I can probably call myself slightly senior. I'm pretty sure every developer worth his salt does 2.

1 just ends up being more work later on.

@devTea I think she means don't use bootstrap without understanding what it does

@devTea skelethon is a css boilerplate.
Wym table plugin in the backend?

@theKarlisK @hashedram I thought than maybe since building it from scratch takes a lot of time, maybe it’s better to just take a template and modify it from head to bottom

@JoshBent well since iirc you take and build your own project (freelancing?) and thanks for the input

@mundo03 I thought you mean to show the data or tables, nvm

@devTea You consider me a senior because I build my own projects through freelancing? 😅

@JoshBent well I should have mentioned a freelancing developer since you can pretty much handle both quite well (you wouldn’t if you can’t right?) :)

I've tried working with WordPress templates before, thinking it might save some time, but unless you plan on making zero changes and all the layout and content lines up with what you have to work with, it's going to lead to frustration and bloated hacky code.

@trogus haven’t tried working with wordpress. I’m guessing you start from scratch for devrant? But noticed about the shopify theme for swag store, is it because it offers the system too?

@devTea devRant marketing site and web app were both from scratch. The swag store is through Shopify so they make it easy to riff off their templates (vs building a custom e-commerce platform) and then devComics.com is based on WordPress template since it is structured like a blog already

@trogus thanks for the explanation

Build what the client wants.

I’m not sure why this showed back up but @devTea , I’ve updated that site of mine too a simple 1 pager that does more then stab you in the eyes with purple 😎

@C0D4 I like how simple it is

No plugin and fancy stuff

@devTea why use things you don’t need I figure.

I could probably remove most of the css and still have it work, but that’s for another day 😇

@devTea If clients are paying you less that $5,000 fuckem they dont deserve more than a free template

@AymanH $5000 is a lot at my country I can pay my tuition for like 3 or 4 semester. I also work on a software development company, so they didn't force us to build anything from 0, i'm asking because I was curious

Depends on project requirements and project budget. Really.

Majority of clients are asking something urgent and something not expensive.

Which means I use templates. 😁

If client gave me enough time then I roll something on my own. But after all it's still standard website designs. 🤷‍♂️

To me all website should be similar in a way phone designs are similar to each other. User experience.