USABILITY

Fluid responsive

Add fluid responsive to any Client-First projects using a visual fluid scaling tool. No calculations, no writing custom CSS, no javascript.

Tools

Two options for making our Client-First Webflow site fluid response

  1. The visual CSS snippet configurator on this page
  2. The same visual configurator in Finsweet Extension

What is fluid responsive?

As the browser viewport changes size, the design scales with it.

Client-First fluid responsive compared to vw and vh scaling

As the browser viewport changes size, the design scales with it.

Using vw or vh units is one way to make our content fluid responsive when scaling. The problems with this method are:

  • We must set vw or vh unit sizes on every element we want to be fluid responsive.
  • Elements can quickly become too small or too large because of linear scaling. vw and vh scale linearly.
  • Accessibility suffers because browser zooming cannot affect both vw and vh units.
  • It can be challenging to manage and maintain our Webflow project in vw and vh, especially for other developers and clients.

Client-First uses "root-font scaling" instead.

Root-font scaling

Client-First system uses rem units for all sizes. The rem unit is based on one thing — HTML root font size.

Everything in our project is relative to the HTML font size. Because of this, we have global-managed control over all sizes in our project.

By modifying this size, we are effectively making our rems "larger" or "smaller" visually. Our visual fluid responsive generator runs on an extensive set of calculations that modify root font size according to our preferences.

Adding the generated CSS code makes our Webflow project follow custom size scaling rules. Changing the HTML font size across breakpoints gives us ultimate customization of our fluid responsive scaling.

Benefits:

  • Use Client-First like you usually use it. There is no specific workflow change for fluid responsive sites vs. non-fluid responsive sites.
  • The fluid responsive strategy is an optional add-on. Add it, or don't add it, to any project.
  • Fluid responsive can be added at the end of the project after everything is developed.
  • Browsers can zoom normally.
  • Browser font size settings that are modified by end-users will be respected.
  • Maintaining a Webflow project in rem is easier than a project with fixed vw or vh based sizing.

Visually build fluid responsiveness

  1. Visually configure the fluid responsive scaling rules.
  2. Copy the CSS code to the Client-First Webflow project.
  3. Enjoy a fluid responsive site in rems.

Fluid responsive generator‍

Live stream explanation

Learn it Live #5

Explanation of fluid responsive generator tool.

Learn it Live #8

Implementing fluid responsive generator tool on PS5 website build.