CSS Grid

What is CSS Grid?

CSS grid is a two-dimensional system that assists developers in constructing intricate and adaptable web pages. It provides a layout model that enables precise management of element positioning and sizing within rows and columns.

Thanks to the latest properties and values in CSS Grid, web developers can now design adaptive, responsive, and grid-aligned layouts without depending too much on positioning hacks or floating elements. This simplifies the task of structuring content on a webpage, making it more straightforward, coherent, and efficient.

What is CSS Grid Layout?

In CSS, there exists a two-dimensional arrangement system known as CSS grid layout, alternatively referred to as CSS grid. By utilizing CSS grid, web developers have the capability to construct versatile and adjustable grid-oriented layouts for websites. This system allows for exact management of element placement and size within the grid, providing a dynamic method for organizing content in both horizontal rows and vertical columns.

The CSS Grid Layout model consists of two main parts:

• ✅ Grid Container: Serving as the foundation of the grid layout, the grid container is an element that contains multiple child elements that become grid items. By defining an element as a grid container, a new grid formatting context is established for its children.
• ✅ Grid Items: Grid items are the child elements of the grid container. These elements are positioned and aligned within the grid layout. The flexibility of having multiple rows and columns of grid items enables versatile and responsive layouts.

When contrasting CSS Grid with traditional layout methods that heavily depend on floats, positioning, or complex CSS frameworks, CSS Grid presents fresh properties and values that simplify the process for web designers to craft grid-based layouts.

Features of Grid Layout in CSS

There are some key features that grid layout includes in CSS:

• ✅ Grid Lines and Tracks: The lines that divide the grid into rows and columns are known as grid lines. "Grid tracks" are the voids between grid lines. Designers have various options for sizing these rows and columns, including fixed values, percentages, and flexible units.
• ✅ Grid Template: Using the "grid-template" properties, such as grid-template-columns and grid-template-rows, which specify the size and structure of the rows and columns, developers can specify the grid's layout. These characteristics make it simple for designers to make grids with any number of rows and columns, which makes it perfect for responsive design.
• ✅ Grid Areas: The grid-template-areas property in CSS Grid enables designers to create named grid areas. Using the named areas rather than defining explicit row and column positions makes it easier to place and position items within the grid.
• ✅ Alignment and Justification: CSS Grid offers several alignment and justification properties, including justify-items, align-items, justify-content, and align-content. These properties enable designers to align grid items within and along the grid container.
• ✅ Responsive layouts: CSS Grid is incredibly effective at producing responsive layouts. Designers can seamlessly adapt the grid layout to various screen sizes and devices by combining media queries with relative units like percentages.
• ✅ Nested Grids: CSS Grid supports nesting, allowing grid items to double as containers to create more intricate and hierarchical grid layouts.

CSS grid provides an excellent structure for web design, presenting a strong technique and intuitive approach to building adaptable and fluid grid-based layouts. This technology has revolutionized the landscape of web design, becoming the top choice for modern web development endeavors because of its seamless management of intricate layouts and precise customization capabilities.

Why We Use Grid Layout in CSS?

Due to its many benefits and abilities, CSS Grid Layout is used for various purposes. The following are some of the main justifications why web designers and developers favor CSS Grid layout:

• ✅ Flexible grid-based layouts: It can be made with CSS Grid, which enables the development of intricate, adaptable, and multidimensional grid-based layouts. Its system for organizing content into rows and columns is robust and simple, allowing designers to make intricate and dynamic page structures.
• ✅ Responsive Design: One of CSS Grid's main advantages is its responsiveness. Without complicated media queries or additional frameworks, creating responsive layouts that adjust to different screen sizes and devices is simple.
• ✅ Simple to Implement: CSS Grid is comparatively simple to implement. The process of creating complex layouts is made simpler when compared to earlier techniques like floats and positioning because you can define the grid template and position elements within the grid with just a few lines of CSS code.
• ✅ Fine-grained control: Grid layout offers fine-grained control over the positioning and dimensions of elements. Designers have precise control over the page's visual appearance because they can explicitly define the size of the rows and columns and how items span across grid cells.
• ✅ Harmony and Consistency: Grid layouts encourage harmony and consistency in web design. Designers can create a consistent look and feel across the entire website using a grid-based approach, resulting in a more polished and expert user experience.
• ✅ Support for Nested Grids: Because CSS Grid supports nesting, grid elements can act as grid containers. With the help of this feature, designers can make hierarchical layouts without using deeply nested HTML structures.
• ✅ Accessibility: CSS Grid can help make websites more accessible. Screen readers and other assistive technologies can better interpret the content and make it more accessible to users with disabilities by using well-structured grid layouts.
• ✅ Efficiency and maintainability: CSS Grid encourages code that is both effective and dependable. It is simpler to update and modify the layout without affecting other elements on the page by organizing content within a grid.
• ✅ Supports CSS Grid Frameworks: Some CSS Grid frameworks have appeared, further streamlining the development of grid-based layouts. These frameworks offer pre-built grid architectures and utility classes that simplify grid design.
• ✅ Future-Proofing: Major browsers strongly support CSS Grid, a contemporary layout solution. Using it ensures that your layouts remain compatible with upcoming browser updates and advancements and is regarded as a best practice in web design.

Overall, CSS Grid is a robust and flexible layout method that offers significant advantages in terms of flexibility, responsiveness, ease of maintenance, and inclusivity. It is an excellent choice for modern web design endeavors as it simplifies the creation of intricate layouts.

Example of CSS Grid Layout

You can organize items in a grid-based format using the Grid system in CSS to construct a basic application. An illustration of a straightforward HTML and CSS code that employs a Grid system to generate a 3x3 grid is provided below:

HTML:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>Grid Layout Example</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">
</head>
<body>
    <div class="grid-container">
        <div class="grid-item">1</div>
        <div class="grid-item">2</div>
        <div class="grid-item">3</div>
        <div class="grid-item">4</div>
        <div class="grid-item">5</div>
        <div class="grid-item">6</div>
        <div class="grid-item">7</div>
        <div class="grid-item">8</div>
        <div class="grid-item">9</div>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

body {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

.grid-container {
    display: grid;
    grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 100px); /* 3 columns with 100px width each */
    grid-template-rows: repeat(3, 100px);    /* 3 rows with 100px height each */
    gap: 10px;                               /* Gap between grid items */
    justify-content: center;                 /* Center the grid horizontally */
    align-items: center;                     /* Center the grid vertically */
    height: 100vh;                           /* Set grid container height to full viewport height */
}

.grid-item {
    background-color: #f0f0f0;
    display: flex;
    justify-content: center;
    align-items: center;
    font-size: 24px;
}

Output:

In this instance, the container's display property is configured as grid to establish a 3x3 grid layout using CSS grid. The columns and rows of the grid are specified using the grid-template-columns and grid-template-rows properties. Custom styling is applied to each grid item through CSS, including setting a background color and horizontally centering the content. Each grid item represents a div element identified by the class grid item.

You will encounter a 3x3 grid displaying numbers 1 to 9 in a structured manner upon opening the HTML file in your web browser. Modifying the CSS properties allows you to customize and design grid layouts to suit your specific requirements.