Is there a Ruby on Rails layouts/css archive?

Question

Does anybody know a place with a bunch of Ruby On Rails Layouts/CSS combinations? I am starting new applications and would like to give them different look, but I am not a designer, so I would love to use someone's else free layouts/css for starters.

Answer 1

It's not exactly what you're asking for, but the ActiveScaffold plugin provides a fair amount of pre-fab look and behavior. It's useful if you want to throw up something quickly that you feel comfortable showing to people before the actual styling gets done by a designer (or by you at a later stage of development).

Answer 2

You should definitely take a look at yaml It is a CSS framework with default settings for all HTML elements. (remember to include default_content.css) The good thing about yaml is that you don't need to hack your CSS/HTML to death to make it look good in all browsers. Yaml has all the hacks and tweaks included. Use the yaml builder to set up your columns etc.

Best regards. Asbjørn Morell.

Answer 3

CSS is easy. Just find a site you like and download its css files. To figure out what elements on the page correspond to which css classes use firebug's inspect feature.

Another thing you can do is find an open source rails app you like and look at there views and css.

Answer 4

The question isn't a good question. Ruby on Rails is a programming framework. You can create a variety of different types of applications on it. You can create a craigslist type app, an ebay-like app, a shopping cart system like amazon.com or even a search engine like Google. You cannot really have a template design for a ruby on rails app.

Instead, you are looking to ask one of these two questions:

1) Is there an open source Ruby on Rails application that does blah blah blah?

or

2) I'm planning on using XYZ open source Rails app (such as typo or beast or spree) ... does anyone know of design templates for it?

Answer 5

Maybe you can use a widget plugin. This plugin helps you to build Tabnav, navigations menu, progression bar and so on...

Have a look at this presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/paolo.dona/rails-widgets-by-paolo-dona-at-railstoitaly?src=embed

and this is the official plog page: http://blog.seesaw.it/

Answer 6

There's nothing special about CSS for Ruby on Rails and layouts tend to be so application specific that you're unlikely to see much advantage in reuse across different applications. However, there are some tools that might help for the non-designer programmer.

Some people like haml and sass as an alternative to erb templates. Personally, I prefer to stick to erb than learn a different template markup language.

Blueprint CSS is an excellent grid-based CSS/layout starter kit. I use it for many sites these days. There are other "CSS frameworks" that you might want to investigate.

And honestly, you can take any free design template and modify it for Ruby on Rails if you can find something you like and fits the layout of your application.

Good luck.

Answer 7

When you make a Rails app, you write all the HTML yourself. There is nothing specific about a Rails specific template.

Answer 8

There are plenty of free templates sites, or open source designs, but they are usually not designed for applications (there are a few but they'll often need customisation)

to start up with new projects, I love to use templates form themeforest http://themeforest.net/ usually around 10-20$ so it's not free, but it's yours, no need to leave copyrights notice.

the templates on themeforest almost always include fancy jQuery animations, they can be removed if you prefer prototype.

Helpers like paolo donna's widgets will help, but you really need some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS to get results, I think the hard part is to create from scratch, but once you understand basic formatting and document structure it ain't that hard.

anyway you really need to understand html and css to use javascript (ajax, effects, behaviors..)

Answer 9

Frank it's true.

Cos I bet that you look good on the dancefloor......

Answer 10

Streamlined Rails plugin is another way of easing user interface generation.

Screenshots and description of the plugin can be found at Rails Inside and in the 'Java Kicks Ruby In The What Now' article

Answer 11

Several people here are saying that there is nothing specific about Rails templates, and that is correct. What people, and I am guessing the questioner, refer to is the look and feel that many if not most of Rails apps have. This may have grown out of imitating 37 signal designs, and their emphasis on simplicity without looking cheap as expressed in this http://37signals.com/design

So, if anybody has links to such designs/templates, please provide the links.

Answer 12

I stumbled onto this question while searching for this type Rails css archive. It CAN be done, and I think it should be.

It would be awesome if there was a site for sharing css layouts specifically for styling Rails sites. The layouts could style form fields, set a color scheme, set fonts, styles, baseline grids -- all this stuff is not application specific. Some layouts might even offer different commonly used UI configurations (Basecamp-style top nav, sidebars, etc) that could be easily used form the application.

It would be even better if there was a place for SASS layouts, since they could offer mixins without littering the main css files with stuff until it's used. It would also be cool if there were also Formtastic form style sheets.

Anyone else think a site like this should exist? How would you like it to work?

If you want to start a site like this together, drop me a message.