css - Tweaking Bootstrap 2.0 for Semantic Markup

Question

Version 2 of Twitters "Bootstrap" UI framework was released today. While I find it very handy, I dislike how non-semantic it is.

I'd rather avoid setting classes like .span6 .table-striped in my HTML.

Since Bootstrap is built on less, I'm expecting that there's a good way use a project-specific less sheet that can leverage mixins to to ascribe bootstrap-defined goodness to nice semantic class names.

I cloned bootstrap.less into myproject.less, and adjusted the paths in the @import lines, then added the following at the bottom:

#call-to-action {
    .span6;
}

But lessc chokes on it, and complains that:

.span6 is undefined in

Similarly, trying .columns(6) produces the same error (".columns is undefined").

Other mix-ins, such as .table, .table-bordered, etc, seem to work fine.

What am I missing? What are the best practices for using bootstrap while keeping non-semantic class names out of my nice, semantic markup?

Answer 1

For the new Bootstrap 2.1 (maybe works on 2.0):

.content{ .makeRow();
   .main-content{ .makeColumn(5,2);} // (size,offset)
   .sidebar{ .makeColumn(3); }
}

Finally works!