CSS Grid Layout

“allows authors to easily define complex, responsive 2-dimensional layouts”

by Tab Atkins Jr. (Google)
at CSS WG Blog

CSS Grid Layout | Introduction

In the past people abused the usage of tables to implement grid based designs.
Alternatives to tables were not easy to use. Problem of floating divs.
Lots of CSS frameworks are emerging to ease the development.
CSS Grid Layout is a powerful and flexible mechanism defined by the W3C.

CSS Grid Layout | Introduction

CSS Grid Layout provides a mechanism to divide the available space in rows and columns with a set of predictable sizing behaviors.
This defines a set of grid areas where designers can precisely place the elements of a web page.
The Grid Layout spec can be used to intelligently reflow elements within a web page optimizing locations and sizes depending on the device where the page is rendered in.

CSS Grid Layout | Concepts

Grid lines are the horizontal and vertical dividing lines of the grid.
Grid track is a generic term for a grid column or grid row.
Grid cell is the space between two adjacent row and two adjacent column grid lines.
Grid area is the logical space used to lay out one or more grid items. It is bound by four grid lines, one on each side of the grid area.

CSS Grid Layout | Concepts

Grid lines are the horizontal and vertical dividing lines of the grid.
Grid track is a generic term for a grid column or grid row.
Grid cell is the space between two adjacent row and two adjacent column grid lines.
Grid area is the logical space used to lay out one or more grid items. It is bound by four grid lines, one on each side of the grid area.

CSS Grid Layout | Concepts

Grid lines are the horizontal and vertical dividing lines of the grid.
Grid track is a generic term for a grid column or grid row.
Grid cell is the space between two adjacent row and two adjacent column grid lines.
Grid area is the logical space used to lay out one or more grid items. It is bound by four grid lines, one on each side of the grid area.

CSS Grid Layout | Concepts

Grid lines are the horizontal and vertical dividing lines of the grid.
Grid track is a generic term for a grid column or grid row.
Grid cell is the space between two adjacent row and two adjacent column grid lines.
Grid area is the logical space used to lay out one or more grid items. It is bound by four grid lines, one on each side of the grid area.

CSS Grid Layout | Concepts

Grid lines are the horizontal and vertical dividing lines of the grid.
Grid track is a generic term for a grid column or grid row.
Grid cell is the space between two adjacent row and two adjacent column grid lines.
Grid area is the logical space used to lay out one or more grid items. It is bound by four grid lines, one on each side of the grid area.

CSS Grid Layout | Syntax

      .grid {
          display: grid;
          grid-template-columns: 200px 1fr;
          grid-template-rows: 100px 1fr auto;
      }

      .title  { grid-column: 1; grid-row: 1;          }
      .menu   { grid-column: 1; grid-row: 2 / span 2; }
      .main   { grid-column: 2; grid-row: 1 / span 2; }
      .footer { grid-column: 2; grid-row: 3;          }

display: grid: Defines a grid container.
grid-template-columns and grid-template-rows: Specify the track breadths.
grid-column and grid-row: Determine a grid item's size and location within the grid.

      <div class="grid">
          <div class="title">Title</div>
          <div class="menu">Menu</div>
          <div class="main">Main</div>
          <div class="footer">Footer</div>
      </div>

CSS Grid Layout | Track Breadths

Options:
- length
- percentage
- flex (fr - free space - unit)
- max-content
- min-content
- minmax(min, max)
- auto

CSS Grid Layout | Flexible Track Breadths

Flexible track breadths will grow or shrink and automatically adapt themselves to viewport size.

This allows to create very customized grids, defining flexible tracks with minimum and maximum breadths depending on their contents or the available free space left by the rest of tracks and viewport size.

CSS Grid Layout | Demo

CSS Grid Layout | Areas & Alignment

      .grid {
          display: grid;
          grid-template-areas: "title  title  title  social"
                               "menu   main   main   social"
                               "menu   main   main   social"
                               "footer footer footer footer";
      }
      .title  { grid-area: title; align-self: center; justify-self: center; }
      .menu   { grid-area: menu;  align-self: start;                        }
      .main   { grid-area: main;                                            }
      .social { grid-area: social; align-self: end;   justify-self: right;  }
      .footer { grid-area: footer; align-self: start;                       }

grid-template-areas specifies named grid areas that can be referenced to position grid items.
Follows CSS Box Alignment spec for alignment features.

CSS Grid Layout | Areas & Alignment

CSS Grid Layout | Auto-placement

      form {
          display: grid;
          grid-auto-flow: row;
      }
      label           { grid-column: 1;          }
      input, textarea { grid-column: 2;          }
      .controls       { grid-column: 1 / span 2; }

Grid items can be positioned outside of the grid bounds. This causes the grid container to generate implicit grid tracks, forming the implicit grid.
grid-auto-flow controls the direction in which the grid items are automatically placed.

CSS Grid Layout | Current status

Spec (W3C Working Draft, 23 January 2014): http://www.w3.org/TR/css-grid-1/.
Main browsers:

Already shipped in IE/Trident.
Work in progress in Chromium/Blink (Google and Igalia) and Safari/WebKit (Igalia).
Firefox/Gecko has plans to implement it but work has not started yet.

CSS Grid Layout | Status

Done:
- Grid properties, named grid lines and named grid areas supported.
- Placement options, track breadths and layout grid items are also implemented.
Work in progress:
- Alignment.
- Performance optimizations.
- Support for different writing modes.
- Selection.
- Subgrids (out of Working Draft for now).

Collaborations

Bloomberg is sponsoring our work in CSS Grid Layout.