Bootstrap 5
Bootstrap 5’s very first alpha has arrived! We’ve been working hard for several months to refine the work we started in v4, and while we’re feeling great about our progress, there’s still even more to do.
We’ve been focused on making the migration from v4 to v5 more approachable, but we’ve also not been afraid to step away from what’s outdated or no longer appropriate. As such, we’re very happy to say that with v5, Bootstrap no longer depends on jQuery and we’ve dropped support for Internet Explorer. We’re sharpening our focus on building tools that are more future-friendly, and while we’re not fully there yet, the promise of CSS variables, faster JavaScript, fewer dependencies, and better APIs certainly feel right to us.
Before you jump to updating, please remember v5 is now in alpha—breaking changes will continue to occur until our first beta. We haven’t finished adding or removing everything, so check for open issues and pull requests as you have questions or feedback.
Now let’s dig in with some highlights!
New look and feel
We’ve built on the improvements to our docs homepage in v4.5.0 with an updated look and feel for the rest of our docs. Our docs pages are no longer full-width to improve readability and make our site feel less app-like and more content-like. In addition, we’ve upgraded our sidebar to use expandable sections (powered by our own Collapse plugin) for faster navigation.
We’re also sporting a brand new logo! More on that when v5 goes stable, but suffice to say we wanted to give the ol’ B in a rounded square a small upgrade.
Inspired by the CSS that created the very beginnings of this project, our logo embodies the feeling of a rule set—style bounded by curly braces. We love it and think you will, too. Expect to see it roll out to v4’s documentation, our blog, and more over time as we continue to refine things and ship new releases.
jQuery and JavaScript
jQuery brought unprecedented access to complex JavaScript behaviors to millions (billions?) of people over the last decade and a half. Personally, I’m forever grateful for the empowerment and support it gave me to continue writing front-end code, learning new things, and embracing plugins from the community. Perhaps most importantly, it’s forever changed JavaScript itself, and that in itself is a monument to jQuery’s success. Thank you to every jQuery contributor and maintainer who made that possible for folks like me.
Thanks to advancement made in front-end development tools and browser support, we’re now able to drop jQuery as a dependency, but you’d never notice otherwise. This migration was a huge undertaking by @Johann-S, our primary JavaScript maintainer these days. It marks one of the largest changes to the framework in years and means projects built on Bootstrap 5 will be significantly lighter on file size and page load moving forward.
In addition to dropping jQuery, we’ve made a handful of other changes and enhancements to our JavaScript in v5 that focus on code quality and bridging the gap between v4 and v5. One of our other larger changes was dropping the bulk of our Button plugin for an HTML and CSS only approach to toggle states. Now toggle buttons are powered by checkboxes and radio buttons and are much more reliable.
You can see the full list of JS related changes in the first v5 alpha project on GitHub.
Interested in helping out on Bootstrap’s JavaScript? We’re always looking for new contributors to the team to help write new plugins, review pull requests, and fix bugs. Let us know!
