Chopstick Boilerplate is a mobile-first responsive Design Boilerplate using the Chopstick framework.

It uses the following tools

• Bower as a dependency manager
• Sass as a scss preprocessor
• Jekyll as a static site generator
• Gulp as a build system

• Ask your question on twitter: @GetChopstick
• Join the Slack channel

1. Ruby and rubygems
2. Node 4.4.4 and npm 2.15.1 or NVM

For automated install just run ./install.sh from project root. This will check if package managers are installed and download required packages for you. For manual installation follow the below method.

You only need to do this once in a new project. First, cd into the project root (where this file is). Install bundler and the necessary Ruby dependencies:

gem update --system && gem install bundler
bundle install

Install bower and the necessary JavaScript dependencies:

npm install -g bower
bower install

Install gulp and the necessary gulp dependencies:

npm install -g gulp
npm install

Project specific code should be written in the components layer.

We use Gulp as our task runner. There are some basic tasks defined but these can be easily extended by changing the gulpfile.js.

To compile Chopstick Boilerplate, cd into the project root and run:

gulp

This will compile the scss and build the Jekyll site.

For development there is also a watch task wich will load a browsersync server and watch your all your files (*.html, *.md, *.scss, *.js, *.jpg, *.png, *.svg) for changes:

gulp watch

Browsersync also works as a server for your devices. More info can be found on the browsersync site.

The boilerplate can be used as a styleguide, to build static websites or to speed up making HTML prototypes.

The Chopstick Scss is maintained in separate repositories which are loaded with Bower. We believe these partials should be easy to update and configurable without writing new code.

We use the following partials according to the ITCss structure.

1. chopstick-settings: contains global variables and config switches to get you started. These can be overwritten in your project. Simply duplicate the variables you want to change or replace this file.
2. chopstick-tools: contains mixins and functions.
3. chopstick-generic: contains ground-zero styles (Normalize.css, resets, box-sizing)
4. chopstick-elements: contains unclassed HTML elements (type selectors)
5. chopstick-objects: contains cosmetic-free design patterns
6. chopstick-components: contains designed components, chunks of UI (these are maintained in the boilerplate as they are specific to this)
7. chopstick-utilities: contains helper classes

We try to keep the code as modular as possible. So you can comment out what you don’t use.

If you want to change something within the external partials you have 3 options:

1. Change the settings and default appearance by overriding the variables in your project.
2. Create a pull request on the source code in the correct repository.
3. Copy the original file in you own project. This means you will have to do manual updates in the future.

Chopstick aims to support all modern browsers. This includes latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari and the latest mobile browsers on Android, iPhone and Windows Phone. Internet explorer is currently supported starting from IE10 and up.

Chopstick is a framework based on the ITCSS architecture and a series of principles. It creates a structure to easily set-up and build bespoke web projects.

• Maintain sensible defaults
• Enforce a global coding style
• Create a scalable system for both small and big web projects

Chopstick is built upon the following principles. Please keep these in mind when contributing and/or using this framework.

A single-depth-class-based architecture based on the BEM naming methodology.

Avoid reliance on other bits.

• Separation of Concerns: let each piece of code solve its own problems
• Single Responsibility Principle: one thing, one thing only, one thing well
• Open/Closed Principle: add via extension, not modification

• We build the bits that build the bits
• Make everything opt-in and configurable: expose API-like CSS

• The Principle of Least Surprise: make sure expectations are met, and nothing else
• Murphy’s Law: Pick the option that is the most resilient, even if it is the most boring one

1. Add configurable components (API like ui-kit)
2. Add configurable theming layer
3. Redesign/optimize start theme

1. Add configurable javascript patterns

1. Create a self-updating style-guide
2. Update website and write complete documentation and starter guide

You are free to contribute to Chopstick via GitHub Pull Requests. We have a couple of simple guidelines we try to follow, of which most are taken from the CSS Tricks Sass Style Guide. Please refer to the CONTRIBUTING.md for more information

We owe a ton of credits to the following projects for inspiration:

• ITCSS
• SMACSS
• OOCSS
• HTML5 Boilerplate
• Inuit CSS, Foundation and Bootstrap