Bootstrap Button Group

Overview

The button features coupled with the web links covered within them are perhaps some of the most significant components allowing the users to interact with the web pages and take various actions and move from one webpage to some other. Most especially nowadays in the mobile first environment when a minimum of half of the pages are being observed from small touch screen devices the large convenient rectangle places on display screen very simple to find with your eyes and touch with your finger are even more necessary than ever. That's reasons why the brand new Bootstrap 4 framework evolved giving extra convenient experience canceling the extra small button sizing and providing some more free space around the button's captions to make them a lot more easy and legible to work with. A small touch adding in a lot to the friendlier looks of the new Bootstrap Button Style are also just a little bit more rounded corners that coupled with the more free space around making the buttons a lot more pleasing for the eye.

The semantic classes of Bootstrap Button Example

Within this version that have the same amount of very simple and marvelous to use semantic styles giving us the capability to relay meaning to the buttons we use with simply providing a special class.

The semantic classes are the same in number as in the latest version but with several renovations-- the not often used default Bootstrap Button normally carrying no meaning has been gone down in order to get substituted by much more intuitive and subtle secondary button styling so presently the semantic classes are:

Primary

.btn-primary

- painted in light blue;

Secondary

.btn-secondary

- changing out the

.btn-default

class-- clean white coloring with subtle greyish outline; Info

.btn-info

- a little bit lighter and friendlier blue;

Success

.btn-success

the good old green;

Warning

.btn-warning

colored in orange;

Danger

.btn-danger

that happens to be red;

And Link

.btn-link

that comes to design the button as the default hyperlink element;

Just be sure you first add in the main

.btn

class just before using them.

<button type="button" class="btn btn-primary">Primary</button>

<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary">Secondary</button>

<button type="button" class="btn btn-success">Success</button>

<button type="button" class="btn btn-info">Info</button>

<button type="button" class="btn btn-warning">Warning</button>

<button type="button" class="btn btn-danger">Danger</button>

<button type="button" class="btn btn-link">Link</button>

Tags of the buttons

While using button classes on

<a>

elements that are used to provide in-page capabilities ( such as collapsing content), rather than attaching to new web pages or zones located in the current web page, these hyperlinks should be granted a

role="button"

to accurately convey their role to assistive technologies like display viewers.

<a class="btn btn-primary" href="#" role="button">Link</a>
<button class="btn btn-primary" type="submit">Button</button>
<input class="btn btn-primary" type="button" value="Input">
<input class="btn btn-primary" type="submit" value="Submit">
<input class="btn btn-primary" type="reset" value="Reset">

These are however the fifty percent of the possible appearances you can include in your buttons in Bootstrap 4 ever since the updated version of the framework additionally gives us a brand new suggestive and pleasing approach to style our buttons keeping the semantic we currently have-- the outline mode ( see post).

The outline mechanism

The solid background with no border gets removed and replaced by an outline using some message with the affiliated coloring. Refining the classes is very quick and easy-- simply just incorporate

outline

before assigning the right semantics such as:

Outlined Major button comes to be

.btn-outline-primary

Outlined Additional -

.btn-outline-secondary

and so on.

Significant thing to note here is there actually is no such thing as outlined web link button and so the outlined buttons are in fact six, not seven .

Reinstate the default modifier classes with the

.btn-outline-*

ones to take away all background images and colors on any type of button.

<button type="button" class="btn btn-outline-primary">Primary</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-outline-secondary">Secondary</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-outline-success">Success</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-outline-info">Info</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-outline-warning">Warning</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-outline-danger">Danger</button>

Additional text message

The semantic button classes and outlined appearances are really great it is important to remember some of the page's visitors won't actually be able to see them so if you do have some a bit more special meaning you would like to add to your buttons-- make sure along with the visual means you also add a few words describing this to the screen readers hiding them from the page with the

.  sr-only

class so really anyone might get the impression you angle for.

Buttons sizing

Like we told earlier the brand new version of the framework pursues legibility and ease so when it comes to button scales along with the default button proportions that needs no more class to get assigned we also have the large

.btn-lg

and small

.btn-sm

sizings yet no extra small option due to the fact that these are far way too hard to target with your finger-- the

.btn-xs

from the previous version has been cast off. Of course we still have the convenient block level button component

.btn-block

When you need it, spanning the whole width of the element it has been placed within which combined with the large size comes to be the perfect call to action.

<button type="button" class="btn btn-primary btn-lg">Large button</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary btn-lg">Large button</button>

<button type="button" class="btn btn-primary btn-sm">Small button</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary btn-sm">Small button</button>

Build block level buttons-- those that span the full width of a parent-- by adding

.btn-block

<button type="button" class="btn btn-primary btn-lg btn-block">Block level button</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary btn-lg btn-block">Block level button</button>

Active mechanism

Buttons will appear pressed (with a darker background, darker border, and inset shadow) when active.

<a href="#" class="btn btn-primary btn-lg active" role="button" aria-pressed="true">Primary link</a>
<a href="#" class="btn btn-secondary btn-lg active" role="button" aria-pressed="true">Link</a>

Disabled mode

Make buttons look non-active by simply providing the

disabled

boolean attribute to any

<button>

element ( useful source).

<button type="button" class="btn btn-lg btn-primary" disabled>Primary button</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary btn-lg" disabled>Button</button>

Disabled buttons applying the

<a>

element work a little bit different:

<a>

-s do not support the disabled feature, so you have to put in the

.disabled

class to get it visually appear disabled.

- Several future-friendly styles are involved to disable all pointer-events on anchor buttons. In internet browsers which assist that property, you won't notice the disabled arrow anyway.

- Disabled buttons need to provide the

aria-disabled="true"

attribute to signify the condition of the element to assistive technologies.

<a href="#" class="btn btn-primary btn-lg disabled" role="button" aria-disabled="true">Primary link</a>
<a href="#" class="btn btn-secondary btn-lg disabled" role="button" aria-disabled="true">Link</a>

Link capability caveat

The

.disabled

class applies pointer-events: none to try to disable the web link functionality of

<a>

-s, but that CSS property is not still standard. Also, even in internet browsers that do support pointer-events: none, key-board navigating continues to be unaffected, indicating that sighted computer keyboard users and users of assistive modern technologies will still have the ability to activate all these web links. So to remain safe, add in a

tabindex="-1"

attribute on these hyperlinks ( to stop them from receiving key-board focus) and use custom JavaScript to disable their capability.

Toggle component

Incorporate

data-toggle=" button"

to toggle a button's active status. In case that you're pre-toggling a button, you will need to manually include the

active class

and

aria-pressed=" true"

to the

<button>

<button type="button" class="btn btn-primary" data-toggle="button" aria-pressed="false" autocomplete="off">
  Single toggle
</button>

More buttons: checkbox plus radio

The checked state for these buttons is only updated via click event on the button.

Note that pre-checked buttons require you to manually include the

.active

class to the input's

<label>

<div class="btn-group" data-toggle="buttons">
  <label class="btn btn-primary active">
    <input type="checkbox" checked autocomplete="off"> Checkbox 1 (pre-checked)
  </label>
  <label class="btn btn-primary">
    <input type="checkbox" autocomplete="off"> Checkbox 2
  </label>
  <label class="btn btn-primary">
    <input type="checkbox" autocomplete="off"> Checkbox 3
  </label>
</div>

<div class="btn-group" data-toggle="buttons">
  <label class="btn btn-primary active">
    <input type="radio" name="options" id="option1" autocomplete="off" checked> Radio 1 (preselected)
  </label>
  <label class="btn btn-primary">
    <input type="radio" name="options" id="option2" autocomplete="off"> Radio 2
  </label>
  <label class="btn btn-primary">
    <input type="radio" name="options" id="option3" autocomplete="off"> Radio 3
  </label>
</div>

Options

$().button('toggle')

- toggles push state. Provides the button the visual aspect that it has been turned on.

Conclusions

Generally in the new version of the most popular mobile first framework the buttons evolved aiming to become more legible, more easy and friendly to use on smaller screen and much more powerful in expressive means with the brand new outlined appearance. Now all they need is to be placed in your next great page.