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Boks is an Adobe AIR application created to help HTML web designers work visually with the BluePrint CSS framework. If your not a web designer or HTML developer then this app is not for you.

The Blueprint CSS grid framework enables designers to work easily with grid based layouts when creating web pages and web apps. It can be difficult to visually see how the framework works and what the result is going to be. This tool is very much a visual application, you click and drag out grid elements then label them while adding classes and much more.

There is an export option and a really good live preview window to show how your layout is coming together in a real browser (Webkit of course thanks to Adobe AIR) with an option to launch the preview in your default browser – so cool. The ability to compress the resulting CSS is a nice touch.

Boks is an AIR application (so it works on Windows, Mac and Linux) that provides a User Interface for Blueprint CSS’s framework. It’s been designed for those who think the Grid System is good but never really took the time to give it love.

Video Tutorials (by the Boks developer)

You can catch more of the video tutorials from the Boks developer over on Vimeo.

Design eye

Simple clean application although many of the options and actions like export are located in the application menu, which is all well and good but I was looking for an export button.

The interactions are a little tricky at first but I feel they give good control over the final product you are creating. The custom component for drawing out the layout is a really good piece of work, there are keyboard shortcuts for manipulating grid elements too – try the arrow keys and hitting alt + arrow keys to adjust the size.

The project name could use a little more breathing space between itself and the grid details below. The split screen view is nice when working with the live preview.

Technical eye

Built using Adobe Flex 3 and of course the Adobe AIR SDK.

In Summary

Boks is very good AIR application for web designers and developer out there and I’m sure it will be on a SmashingMagazine list soon. It puts my old CSS vertical rhythm calculator AIR application to shame, I must update it soon.

This type of application is really asking to be integrated with the Creative Suite applications like Dreamweaver. So hopefully the developer heads on over to the Adobe Labs site and takes a look at SwitchBoard.