Tag: CSS grid layout

Intro to CSS Grid Layout Part 5

Posted on by NY Comdori

This is intro to CSS grid layout part 5. So far we have taken a look at following topics. It is recommended to take a look if you are not familiar with css grid layout basics.

In this post, I will focus on explaining how to use grid area with area names for positioning grid items with an example. Let’s take a look it.

Example

We have a layout of multiple items. Note that the header is not spanning to the end but the last slot is empty.

HTML Code

This is the html code used for the example

<div class="challenge">
  <div class="header">Header</div>
  <div class="small-box-1">Small box</div>
  <div class="small-box-2">Small box</div>
  <div class="small-box-3">Small box</div>
  <div class="main-content">Main content</div>
  <div class="sidebar">Sidebar</div>
  <div class="footer">Footer</div>
</div>


CSS Code

We have 4 rows and 4 columns which make 16 unit areas. To use area based positioning, you need to define each unit area with an area name. You can decide the name as you prefer. As you can see, grid-template-areas property is defined with 16 names. For example, head is located at the first row and spanning from first to third column. “.” represents an empty slot. After you define the area representation, all you need to do is to specify the area name for each class. Take a look at line 21 and others.

.challenge {
  width: 1000px;
  margin: 30px auto;
  
  display: grid;
  grid-template-rows: 100px 200px 400px 100px;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr) 200px;
  grid-gap: 35px;
  grid-template-areas: "head head head ."
                      "small-box-1 small-box-2 small-box-3 side"
                      "main main main side"
                      "foot foot foot foot";
  
  & > * {
    background-color: orangered;
    padding: 15px;
    color: white;
    font-size: 30px;
    font-family: sans-serif;
  }
  .header {
    grid-area: head;
  }
  
  .small-box-1 { grid-area: small-box-1; }
  .small-box-2 { grid-area: small-box-2; }
  .small-box-3 { grid-area: small-box-3; }
  
  .sidebar {
    grid-area: side;
  }
  
  .main-content {
    grid-area: main;
  }
  
  .footer {
    grid-area: foot;
  }
}

It is very important to note that you have to have a complete area representation. Since you have 16 unit slots (4 rows * 4 columns), you have to have 16 area names in order to use it. It is fairly simple to use for a simple area layout. However, if you have a complex layout, it could be inconvenient to use it. i.e., 10 rows and 10 columns. In such a case, it would be better to use grid lines instead of names.

Intro to CSS Grid Layout Part 4

Posted on by NY Comdori

This is intro to CSS grid layout part 4 continuing from previous posts. This will specifically focus on how to position grid items based on the name of the grid lines. If you are not familiar with CSS grid layout, please refer to these posts here.

In the previous post, we went over how to position grid items based on their grid line numbers. However, it is often hard to read and understand the code when it’s using line numbers. To improve the readability and maintainability, we want to use names for the line numbers. Let’s take a look at them now.

Example

This is the one we are going to build using CSS grid layout.

HTML Code

<div class="challenge">
  <div class="header">Header</div>
  <div class="small-box-1">Small box</div>
  <div class="small-box-2">Small box</div>
  <div class="small-box-3">Small box</div>
  <div class="main-content">Main content</div>
  <div class="sidebar">Sidebar</div>
  <div class="footer">Footer</div>
</div>


CSS Code

.challenge {
  width: 1000px;
  margin: 30px auto;
  
  display: grid;
  grid-template-rows: [header-start] 100px [header-end box-start] 200px [box-end main-start] 400px [main-end footer-start] 100px [footer-end];
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, [col-start] 1fr [col-end]) 200px [grid-end];
  grid-gap: 35px;
  
  & > * {
    background-color: orangered;
    padding: 15px;
    color: white;
    font-size: 30px;
    font-family: sans-serif;
  }
  .header {
    grid-column: col-start 1 / grid-end;
  }
  
  .sidebar {
    grid-column: col-end 3 / grid-end;
    grid-row: box-start / main-end;
  }
  
  .main-content {
    grid-column: col-start 1 / col-end 3;
  }
  
  .footer {
    grid-column: col-start 1 / grid-end;
  }
}

Let’s first take a look at how grid-template-rows and grid-template-columns are defined. Typically, you would just list width of each row and column and use the line number. However, in each line number position, you can have a list of names to use instead of numbers.

Name for grid-template-rows

Note that row line number 1 is before the first row which is now named header-start. Now, row line number 2 could have multiple names because it is the position where header ends but all other boxes start. That’s why we also added a name box-start at row line number 2. You can follow the similar logic for all other row numbers.

grid-template-rows: [header-start] 100px [header-end box-start] 200px [box-end main-start] 400px [main-end footer-start] 100px [footer-end];

Name for grid-template-columns

There is a difference for columns because it uses repeat with fractional units. Just putting the name before and after the repeat would be incorrect because it will not put names between those columns. We put names in the repeat keyword like this: repeat(3, [col-start] 1fr [col-end]). It means I want to put a name before and after 1fr column. In order to prevent any name conflict, CSS will automatically add numbers starting from 1.

grid-template-columns: repeat(3, [col-start] 1fr [col-end]) 200px [grid-end];

Usage

Now you can define all element classes using names instead of line numbers. I am only going to note one class as an example here. As you can see sidebar class, it is using names. Since the sidebar is the end column of the grid, it uses col-end 3 and grid-end (3 is automatically added by CSS). The row uses box-start and main-end.

.sidebar {
  grid-column: col-end 3 / grid-end;
  grid-row: box-start / main-end;
}


Conclusion

It is very simple to use names instead of line numbers when positioning grid items. And it is actually recommended practice. In the next post, I will explain how to position grid items based on grid area using names.

Intro to CSS Grid Layout Part 3

Posted on by NY Comdori

This is a continuation of intro to css grid layout articles. Please refer to previous articles for declaring grid layout and fractional units in row/column. This post will specifically focus on the positioning and spanning of the grid item. Let’s take a look at the example image and code first.

Example

HTML Code

<div class="container">
  <div class="item item--1">1: Orange</div>
  <div class="item item--2">2: Green</div>
  <div class="item item--3">3: Violet</div>
  <div class="item item--4">4: Pink</div>
  <div class="item item--5">5: Blue</div>
  <div class="item item--6">6: Brown</div>
</div>

As you see in the above image and the HTML code, each item is placed in the order of declaration which is the default positioning of the CSS grid layout. Then, you might ask a question if it’s possible to place an item to a specific location. For example, how do you place the item 1: orange to the location of 5: blue? There are CSS properties that allow you to change the position.

CSS Code

.container {
  background-color: #eee;
  width: 1000px;
  margin: 30px auto;
  
  display: grid;
  grid-template-rows: repeat(2, 150px);
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr);
  grid-gap: 60px;
}

.item {
  padding: 20px;
  font-size: 30px;
  font-family: sans-sarif;
  color: white;
  
  &--1 {
    background-color: orangered;
    grid-row-start: 2;
    grid-row-end: 3;
    grid-column-start: 2;
    grid-column-end: 3;
    /*grid-row: 2 / 3;*/
    /*grid-column: 2 / 3;*/
  }
  
  &--2 {
    background-color: green;
  }
  
  &--3 {
    background-color: violet;    
  }
  
  &--4 {
    background-color: pink;
  }
  
  &--5 {
    background-color: blue;
  }
    
  &--6 {
    background-color: brown;
  }
}

Take a look at lines 20-23 in the CSS code. You have two choices to change the position.
1. use grid-<row/column>-<start/end>
2. use grid-<row/column> which is a short hand version

Do you remember there are row/column line numbers when you have CSS Grid? If you are not familiar with the concept, please refer to this article. Basically, there are row/column line numbers and you just need to specify row/column start/end position based on the number.

Looking at the image there are 3 row lines: start of the row grid, middle of the row grid and end of the row grid (1,2,3). There are 4 lines in the column: start of the column grid, 2 middle lines, end of the column grid. After specifying row/column start/end points you will notice that item 1 is now placed where item 5 was.

There are shorthand version of specifying row/column start/end which are commented at line 24,25. There is another shorthand version which is using grid-area but I think it is not really readable and didn’t specify here. You can take a look at the documentation for that.

What if more than one items are to be placed on the same position? Simply the last one will be rendered on top of the first one. The first item will not be shown.

What if you put multiple rows or columns in the grid-row or grid-column? It will simply span to take the specified area. Note that grid-column now has start at 2 and end at 4 which should take space from column 2 to 4.

  &--1 {
    background-color: orangered;
    grid-row: 2 / 3;
    grid-column: 2 / 4;
  }

Note that item 6 is now pushed to new row because item 1 is taking up the space. Even though we only specified 2 rows, CSS grid automatically expands to fit the items which is called implicit grid I will discuss in different post.

Another way of specifying the span is like this. Note that instead of specifying the end column in line 4, you can tell how many lines it should span in this case 2. Another special usage is putting -1 (at line 7) which means to span to the end of the columns.

  &--1 {
    background-color: orangered;
    grid-row: 2 / 3;
    grid-column: 2 / span 2;
    
    /*
    grid-column: 2 / -1;
    */
    
  }

Conclusion

We have taken a look at positioning of the grid item. In next post, I am going to explain how to name grid line numbers to improve readability.

Intro to CSS Grid Layout Part 2

Posted on by NY Comdori

This is intro to css grid layout part 2, continuing from the first post which explained basics of CSS grid layout. This post will explain fractional units which control the width of each grid item.

Example CSS Grid Layout

Example HTML Code

This is the html code used for the example images in the post.

<div class="container">
  <div class="item item--1">1: Orange</div>
  <div class="item item--2">2: Green</div>
  <div class="item item--3">3: Violet</div>
  <div class="item item--4">4: Pink</div>
  <div class="item item--5">5: Blue</div>
  <div class="item item--6">6: Brown</div>
</div>


Example CSS Code

This is the common CSS code used for the example images. I will specify more properties separately when necessary. For more explanations about rows, columns and gap properties, please take a look at the first post.

.container {
  background-color: #eee;
  width: 1000px;
  margin: 30px auto;
  
  display: grid;
  grid-template-rows: repeat(2, 150px);
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 200px);
  grid-gap: 30px;
}

.item {
  padding: 20px;
  font-size: 30px;
  font-family: sans-sarif;
  color: white;
  
  &--1 {
    background-color: orangered;
  }
  
  &--2 {
    background-color: green;
  }
  
  &--3 {
    background-color: violet;    
  }
  
  &--4 {
    background-color: pink;
  }
  
  &--5 {
    background-color: blue;
  }
    
  &--6 {
    background-color: brown;
  }
}


Fractional Units

We have defined a two-dimensional grid with two rows (width 150px) and three columns (width 200px). However, as you can see the left over space (gray color), the grid is not filling up the container width. Fractional units become useful to fill up the space just like flex: 1 property. Note that I only modified the necessary property for readability (you will still need the common code along with the modified one)

.container {
  grid-template-columns: repeat(2, 200px) 1fr;
}

Now, we have two columns of width 200px and the last column just grows to fill all the available space in the container.

What if you want to have all the columns grow equally instead of fixed width? You just need to specify the fr in the repeat like this.

.container {
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr);
}

Note again that 1fr is a fraction of each available space. It means 2fr will have double size of 1fr in the container. You can also think of it as this way – the entire width will be divided into each fraction based on the specified ratio. You can use mix of %, px, or fr. For example, if you put the code as the following, the first column will have the 50% of the entire width and the rest of columns will be divided based on specified fr.

.container {
  grid-template-columns: 50% 1fr 2fr;
}

One thing to note is the gap size when using % or px. % or px do not take the gap as part of their size. They take the specified width. However, fractional units count the space after subtracting the gaps from the available space. Note the difference between the two images below – gap increase from 30px to 60px. The first column – width 50% – stays same but the width of the others decrease as gap size increased.


Conclusion

In this post, we went over fractional units which control the width of each grid item. For defining CSS grid, please take a look at the first post. In the next article, I am going to explain the positioning of each grid item.

Intro to CSS Grid Layout Part 1

Posted on by NY Comdori

This post is an intro to CSS grid layout part 1. You can use CSS Grid to easily build a two-dimensional grid-based layout. This is the first part of the article which will specifically focus on the basic properties.


CSS Grid Layout Example

The above image represents basics of CSS grid layout. It has two rows and three columns. Each brown box is called a grid item. There is a gap between the items which is called a gutter.


Grid Container

It is the container of the grid. You can declare the container by calling this in the CSS file.

.container {
    display: grid;
}


Row/Column

Row and column of the container can be specified by calling the following after display: grid

.container {
  grid-template-rows: 150px 150px;
  grid-template-columns: 150px 150px 150px;    
}

The above declares two rows and three columns. Each row/column has width of 150px. However, it is a bit inconvenient to specify all the rows and columns separately. For that you can use the keyword repeat.

.container {
  grid-template-rows: repeat(2, 150px);
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 150px);
}

The above code is exactly same as the first one. If you want to have different width for certain row or column, you can just specify it like this.

.container {
  grid-template-rows: repeat(2, 150px);
  grid-template-columns: repeat(2, 150px) 200px;
}

Now you have 2 rows with the same width but 3 columns of which first 2 columns have 150px and the last column has 200px.

Note the numbers around the row and column (row: 1,2,3 and column:1,2,3,4) are row lines and column lines.


Gap (gutter)

The space between each grid item. You can define the row/column gap separately or the same depending on the property.

.container {
  grid-row-gap: 30px;
  grid-column-gap: 50px;
}

The above code has 30px for row gap and 50px for column gap. Row gap is the space between two rows (there are only two rows).
Column gap is the spaces between three columns (there are only three columns)

If you would like to have the same space for all the gaps, you can use this property.

.container {
  grid-gap: 30px;
}


Conclusion

We have taken a look at very basics of CSS grid layout – declaring two-dimensional grid with rows and columns. In next post, I will go over more of CSS grid. fractional units, positioning of grid items