Here’s a short list of some of the more popular frameworks:
- Blueprint CSS Grid Framework. Robust despite only being in V0.7 (as of this writing), with lots of support from designers, and numerous tools for generating CSS code (beyond the standard 24-column, 950 px default framework). Supports the use of Blueprint “plugins”.
- Yahoo! YUI Grids CSS, Grids Builder. This framework, which predates Blueprint, comes with six preset templates and four preset widths, and the layouts accomodate IAB ad unit guidelines. YUI Grids CSS is integrated with the rest of the Yahoo! UI (User Interface) Library.
- YAML, YAML Builder. YAML (Yet Another Multicolumn Layout) has a fair bit of maturity, is built on web standards, and is supposedly easy to use. Though it doesn’t seem to have all that much use in the WordPress community. In fact, in the many hundreds of WP themes I’ve looked at for the last three years, I don’t recalling seeing it used once. That might be because you need a license to use it with some CMSes (Content Management Systems).
- Grid Designer. This is a web tool for generating custom CSS grids. It uses its own CSS classes, so it could be said to be a framework, though it’s not as well support in the design community as some of the others.
- 960 CSS Grid System. This system is based on a page width of 960 pixels, which is a number that’s divisible by many other numbers, making it “a highly flexible base number to work with.” However, 960 Grid only works with 12 or 16 columns.
- CSS Boilerplate. Produced as a stripped down framework by one of the original Blueprint authors.
- Sparkl. The documentations says you can create 1-, 2-, or 3-column pages, but the samples suggest you have more flexibility.
