Level-Up Your Shopify Theme Build Using Bootstrap!

Shopify is an established online store builder that aids you to develop a website of your own style and preferences. Along with a plethora of features, this powerful eCommerce platform helps you to simplify the procedure of setting up your own web store. Every year, 1000s of retailers flock to Shopify eCommerce platform to set up a powerful and secure online web store. The reason behind this popularity is inclusive of its flexibility, ease of use, inventory features, 24/7 support, Theme store etc. “Currently, Shopify powers 600,000 ambitious businesses worldwide with 1,000,000+ active users.” In this writing, I shall be discussing on Shopify theme development while harnessing the power of Bootstrap. Let’s begin with the basics of Shopify default theme build! Shopify offers you a wide range of themes that help you to control the overall appearance of your website and also helps you to manage pre-made layouts. Shopify uses a template language i.e. ‘Liquid’ to write themes in Ruby. This template language works as a backbone of every Shopify theme and comes handy to load the dynamic content of your Shopify powered website. Whether you are planning to create a new theme or performing Shopify theme customization to your existing website, you need to be well-versed with this open-source template language. However, with the beta release of Bootstrap for Shopify, it becomes easier for designers and developers to set up a highly responsive and clean web solution. This release actually helped many retailers to set up websites without a lot of cruft that usually accompanies Shopify liquid based themes. What is Bootstrap? Bootstrap is an open-source and free to use front-end framework that helps you to design and develop online websites. Some of its major components are HTML, CSS, JavaScript-based templates for designing various web interface components. Its integration helps to make the theme development more responsive, and mobile-friendly. Integrating Bootstrap to your Shopify theme is quite simple yet powerful to make your web store more beautiful in appearance. Top ways to Add Bootstrap to your Shopify ThemernBelow are some of the proven ways to add Bootstrap to your Liquid-based Shopify Theme: 1. Easy Integration To achieve an easy integration of Bootstrap with Shopify, you can follow the steps: Admin → Themes → Template Editor → theme.liquidrnAfterward, do follow the below-mentioned code in the script: 2. CDN Integration Google and Bootstrap’s CDN are sufficient enough to deliver all files required for a seamless integration. Here, you don’t need to download any file on your own.rnBelow are three simple steps to achieve CDN integration: Load jQueryrnGo to, Admin → Themes→ Template Editor→ theme.liquid, then code the following: Load Bootstrap CSSrnGo to, Admin → Themes→ Template Editor→ theme.liquid, then code the following: Load Bootstrap JSrnGo to, Admin → Themes→ Template Editor→ theme.liquid, then code the following: These are three simple steps to achieve a successful Bootstrap’s CDN while implementing a responsive and more accurate Shopify theme. Here, jQuery and Bootstrap JS are optional for those who wish to enable fancy scripts and functions like responsive drop-downs, menus, and transitions. And, in case you wish to download files while implementing your own way then you need local server integration. It will be followed by downloading & uploading jQuery → Download & upload Bootstrap → Load Bootstrap. Apparently, a Bootstrap integration for Shopify seems easy yet it is accompanied with some complications. For e.g., using Respond.js with Shopify needs an additional AJAX request to re-download and re-parse style sheets. rnTherefore, to achieve a more sorted integration while going your own way, you can always choose to hire Shopify experts if you don’t possess the requisite amount of technical expertise.