About Igalia & me

  • Igalia is an Open Source consultancy founded in 2001.
  • Member of Igalia Browsers Team.
  • Blink and WebKit committer.
  • Working on CSS standards:
    • CSS Grid Layout
    • CSS Regions

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

  • Grid based designs were first done using tables and more recently floating divs.
  • Those approaches have issues and a lot of complexity.
  • Lots of CSS frameworks emerging to make things easier.
  • CSS Grid Layout is a powerful and flexible standard defined by the W3C.

CSS Grid Layout | Introduction

CSS Grid Layout example image
  • 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

CSS Grid Layout lines
  • 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

CSS Grid Layout columns
  • 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

CSS Grid Layout rows
  • 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

CSS Grid Layout cells
  • 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

CSS Grid Layout areas
  • 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

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

CSS Grid Layout track breadths big
  • Flexible track breadths will grow or shrink and automatically adapt themselves to viewport size.

CSS Grid Layout | Flexible Track Breadths

CSS Grid Layout track breadths small
  • 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 | Responsive Layout

CSS Grid Layout portrait example
  • CSS Grid Layout can be used combined with other CSS features to create responsive designs.
  • For example previous case can be adapted to portrait mode if the screen orientation changes using Media Queries.

CSS Grid Layout | Responsive Layout

      @media (orientation: portrait) {
          .grid {
              grid-template-columns: auto 1fr;
              grid-template-rows: auto 1fr auto;
          }

          .title  { grid-column: 1; grid-row: 1;          }
          .menu   { grid-column: 2; grid-row: 1;          }
          .main   { grid-column: 1 / span 2; grid-row: 2; }
          .footer { grid-column: 1 / span 2; grid-row: 3; }
      }
  • Change grid-template-columns and grid-template-rows.
  • Change position inside the grid of the different items.

CSS Grid Layout | Examples

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 areas and 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 | Auto-placement

CSS Grid Layout auto-placement

CSS Grid Layout | Current status

  • Spec (W3C Working Draft, 23 January 2014): http://www.w3.org/TR/css-grid-1/.
  • Main browsers:
    • Old version already shipped in IE/Trident.
    • Work in progress in Chromium/Blink (Google and Igalia) and Safari/WebKit (Igalia).
    • Mozilla has started the development in Firefox/Gecko early this year.

CSS Grid Layout | Implementation Status

  • Define grids using all different properties in the spec.
  • Support for named grid lines and named grid areas.
  • All placement options are supported too (both explicit and implicit grid).
  • Track sizing and auto-placement algorithms are already implemented.

CSS Grid Layout | Roadmap

  • Subgrids (still under discussion inside the CSS WG).
  • Alignment.
  • Fragmentation.
  • Test coverage.
  • Performance optimizations.
  • Support for different writing modes.
  • Selection.

Acknowledgements

Igalia & Bloomberg logos
  • Bloomberg is sponsoring our work in CSS Grid Layout.