#Codepen flexbox responsive columns free#

align-items allows you to align flex items along the cross axis.See the Pen Flexbox justify-content by on CodePen. justify-content allows you to align flex items along the main axis.Lay out flex items within their containerĬontrary to other CSS modules, Flexbox offers various methods to arrange flex items with the two following simple properties that I often use to lay out web app components.So you only have to define the main axis using the flex-direction property. See the Pen Create a flexible container by on CodePen.Īs you learned above, the cross axis is implicitly determined form the main axis. You can use two options of the display property to create a flex container, display:flex as block-level or display:inline-flex as inline-level. Unlike many other properties, in Flexbox, some CSS properties are used only on the flex container, and others only on the flex items.

Below, we'll use CodePen examples where you can also find comments to understand each of these properties a bit more. Now as you've seen the primary concepts, if you feel ready, let’s begin to find out what CSS properties are used in Flexbox module and their roles. Cross size: the size of the flex container in the cross axis.Īgain in our example, the main size of the flex container is its calculated width, while its cross size is its calculated height.Main size: the width/height of the flex container in the main axis.Whereas the cross start is the top line, and the cross end is the last bottom line. The same, you can notice that the main start is the left side, and the main end is the right side. Cross start and cross end: flex items can be laid out on multiple (horizontal/vertical) lines from the cross start line toward the cross end line.Main start and main end: flex items are placed within their container from the main start side toward the main end side.In the figure above, you can notice that the main axis is a row, thus the cross axis is a column. Cross axis : The axis perpendicular to the main axis.

Main axis : It can be whether a row or a column along which flex items are laid out.

Flex container is the box within direct children are flex items representing its in-flow contents.

To make things easy for you before diving into practice, this section defines a set of flex flow–relative terms mapped to physical directions, axes, and sizes. The current version of the specification as of October 2020 is dated 19th November 2018 and titled CSS Flexible Box Layout Module Level 1 and it is a W3C CR, which means it still subject to change and other specifications may supersede it. In 2015, a new syntax was published and the efficiency of Flexbox algorithme was increased. Especially, Tab Atkins took a new editor over and published later the 'tweener' unofficial syntax which were supported in Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer 10.īetween the year 20, changes made again to the syntax and the specification updated status from being a W3C Candidate Recommendation (W3C CR) to a W3C WD. In 2011, the Flexbox specification has changed. Some of the first browsers that implemented it were Firefox and WebKit based browsers, and there were different results and some inconsistencies. The CSS working group published the Flexbox’s first Working Draft (W3C WD) on July 23rd 2009 on the W3C website. A brief history about Flexbox Brief history of Flexbox For that, the new flex layout model came out, which allows us to automatically organize elements based on the space available and lay out more complex web components. But still there was a need for this to be available natively in CSS. In addition, it is particularly an ineffective way when targeting mutliple screen sizes, which is usually the case nowadays.Īfter all that, developers started to adopt pure CSS grid layout frameworks with defined math such as Bootstrap as it saved all the headache of designing layouts. But laying out with only these properties is truly a tedious task, and often gives tenuous results with inconsisencies across different browsers. Then other CSS properties came around to align elements side by side in a row such as float, position and display:inline. Originally, the web started with tables to arrange items in a cartesian model (rows and columns), but tables were insufficient and hard to maintain.

Why use Flexbox ?Ĭomplex layouts have been one of the biggest hurdles on web design. The whole idea behind the flex layout model is to allow HTML objects to be laid out in any of directions (Left-to-Right, Right-to-Left, Top-to-Bottom or Bottom-to-Top), and “flex” their sizes, either growing to fill “free space” or shrinking to avoid overflowing their parent called flex container.

#Codepen flexbox responsive columns free#

Flexbox also known as “CSS flexible box Layout” is a modern layout model introduced in CSS3 in order to easily build complex flexible and responsive layouts based on the free space.