This question already has answers here:
How can I vertically center a div element for all browsers using CSS?
(48 answers)
Closed 12 days ago.
EDIT:
Per the comments, it was unexpected that the <div> was ever centering - turned out to be a height thing, where the <div> was taking up the parent's full height, but the custom element's children were not.
Also this isn't a duplicate but whatever
I have the following css:
.layout-main {
display: flex
flex-direction: column;
}
If I do the following:
<div class="layout-main">
<div> stuff goes here </div>
</div>
,
the "stuff" is centered vertically.
However, if I define a custom element, which results in:
<div class="layout-main">
<my-element>
<div> stuff goes here </div>
</my-element>
</div>
the "stuff" is not centered vertically.
If I explicitly set justify-content: center on .layout-main, problem solved.
If I set display: contents on my-element, problem also solved.
Saw this that seemed related / docs on contents
Why is the custom element not centered vertically the way a div is when inside a display: flex; justify-content: center parent?
The display: flex property will only change the positioning of its children, not its children's children. It would be best if you moved the class="layout-main" part onto the my-element block and then set it's height to be 100% of it's parent div's height.
I'm trying to fix strange behavior (in IE11) of vertical flexbox container children, which stretch in height too much leaving a lot of white space, when they contain floated elements.
You can also see it at: https://kinderhotel.info
So far, I've tried removing order: 6; on .content-5, setting different values of flex-grow\-shrink\-basis, height. I also moved .content-5-inside up one level in the DOM and then this element had a lot of white space at the bottom. Finally, when I turned off float on the divs, there was no superfluous white space.
It works perfectly in modern browsers.
<div class="home-page">
<div class="content-5">
<div class="content-5-inside">
<div class="float-left">...</div>
<div class="float-left">...</div>
<div class="float-right">...</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
.home-page {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
}
.content-5 {
order: 6;
}
.content-5-inside::before, .content-5-inside::after {
content: "";
display: table;
}
.content-5-inside::after {
clear: both;
}
I cannot use any content managing rules like flexbox inside .content-5-inside block, since anything that is inside is provided by end users and can be or not floated. But I need, whenever user puts floated content inside, that there is no white space below.
Please take a look on the following code:
.header {
display: flex;
width: 100vw;
height: 20vh;
}
div {
border: solid;
}
#first {
flex: 1
}
#second {
flex: 1
}
#third {
flex: 1
}
<header class="header">
<div id="first"></div>
<div id="second"></div>
<div id="third"></div>
</header>
This code gives three rectangles that lie one next to the other.
However, if you inspect each rectangle, you'll see in dev-tools
that these rectangles has display: block.
However, I know that when an element has a display: block property, it means that the element starts a new line. As you can see, it's not the case. All three rectangles are placed in the same line.
How can you explain this?
However, I know that when an element has a display: block property, it means that the element starts a new line.
Your information is wrong because the display property alone never tells us if we will have a new line or not.
Let's take another example without flexbox:
.box {
width:200px;
height:200px;
border:2px solid;
float:left;
}
<div class="box">
</div>
<div class="box">
</div>
You can clearly notice that the elements have the computed value of display equal to block but they don't start on a new line due to the float property. Same thing happen with flexbox, CSS grid, position:absolute and many others combination of properties.
All this is defined in the specification.
For float elements: https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visuren.html#floats
If the current box is left-floating, and there are any left-floating boxes generated by elements earlier in the source document, then for each such earlier box, either the left outer edge of the current box must be to the right of the right outer edge of the earlier box, or its top must be lower than the bottom of the earlier box. Analogous rules hold for right-floating boxes.
For flexbox: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-flexbox-1/
The display value of a flex item is blockified: ...
The flex-direction property specifies how flex items are placed in the flex container, by setting the direction of the flex container’s main axis. This determines the direction in which flex items are laid out.
The default direction is row
You simply need to find the part of the specification dealing with the properties you are using to find how your elements will be placed in the document and you will clearly see that display alone isn't enough to define this.
Hi it's because your header display flex. If it displays flex, its all children will display in a line. You can change by add flex-direction: column or row (as default)
Your container div is set to be displayed as flex - so all of its children will inherit the display mode from the parent (and thus, display inline). You can set how they're displayed by specifying the flex-direction. Setting it to display as column will make all of the child elements display under one another.
.header {
display: flex;
width: 100vw;
height: 20vh;
/* Add this */
flex-direction:column;
}
div {
border: solid;
}
#first {
flex:1
}
#second {
flex:1
}
#third {
flex:1
}
<body>
<header class="header">
<div id="first"></div>
<div id="second"></div>
<div id="third"></div>
</header>
</body>
display: flex is tells your browser, "I wanna use flexbox with this container, please." A div element defaults to display:box.
An element with this display setting takes up the full width of the
line it is on. Here is an example of four colored divs in a parent
div with the default display setting:
I am trying to vertically align elements within an ID wrapper. I gave the property display:inline-flex; to this ID as the ID wrapper is the flex container.
But there is no difference in presentation. I expected that everything in the wrapper ID would be displayed inline. Why isn't it?
#wrapper {
display: inline-flex;
/*no difference to display:flex; */
}
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<header>header</header>
<nav>nav</nav>
<aside>aside</aside>
<main>main</main>
<footer>footer</footer>
</div>
</body>
display: inline-flex does not make flex items display inline. It makes the flex container display inline. That is the only difference between display: inline-flex and display: flex. A similar comparison can be made between display: inline-block and display: block, and pretty much any other display type that has an inline counterpart.1
There is absolutely no difference in the effect on flex items; flex layout is identical whether the flex container is block-level or inline-level. In particular, the flex items themselves always behave like block-level boxes (although they do have some properties of inline-blocks). You cannot display flex items inline; otherwise you don't actually have a flex layout.
It is not clear what exactly you mean by "vertically align" or why exactly you want to display the contents inline, but I suspect that flexbox is not the right tool for whatever you are trying to accomplish. Chances are what you're looking for is just plain old inline layout (display: inline and/or display: inline-block), for which flexbox is not a replacement; flexbox is not the universal layout solution that everyone claims it is (I'm stating this because the misconception is probably why you're considering flexbox in the first place).
1 The differences between block layout and inline layout are outside the scope of this question, but the one that stands out the most is auto width: block-level boxes stretch horizontally to fill their containing block, whereas inline-level boxes shrink to fit their contents. In fact, it is for this reason alone you will almost never use display: inline-flex unless you have a very good reason to display your flex container inline.
OK, I know at first might be a bit confusing, but display is talking about the parent element, so means when we say: display: flex;, it's about the element and when we say display:inline-flex;, is also making the element itself inline...
It's like make a div inline or block, run the snippet below and you can see how display flex breaks down to next line:
.inline-flex {
display: inline-flex;
}
.flex {
display: flex;
}
p {
color: red;
}
<body>
<p>Display Inline Flex</p>
<div class="inline-flex">
<header>header</header>
<nav>nav</nav>
<aside>aside</aside>
<main>main</main>
<footer>footer</footer>
</div>
<div class="inline-flex">
<header>header</header>
<nav>nav</nav>
<aside>aside</aside>
<main>main</main>
<footer>footer</footer>
</div>
<p>Display Flex</p>
<div class="flex">
<header>header</header>
<nav>nav</nav>
<aside>aside</aside>
<main>main</main>
<footer>footer</footer>
</div>
<div class="flex">
<header>header</header>
<nav>nav</nav>
<aside>aside</aside>
<main>main</main>
<footer>footer</footer>
</div>
</body>
Also quickly create the image below to show the difference at a glance:
flex and inline-flex both apply flex layout to children of the container. Container with display:flex behaves like a block-level element itself, while display:inline-flex makes the container behaves like an inline element.
Using two-value display syntax instead, for clarity
The display CSS property in fact sets two things at once: the outer display type, and the inner display type. The outer display type affects how the element (which acts as a container) is displayed in its context. The inner display type affects how the children of the element (or the children of the container) are laid out.
If you use the two-value display syntax, which is only supported in some browsers like Firefox, the difference between the two is much more obvious:
display: block is equivalent to display: block flow
display: inline is equivalent to display: inline flow
display: flex is equivalent to display: block flex
display: inline-flex is equivalent to display: inline flex
display: grid is equivalent to display: block grid
display: inline-grid is equivalent to display: inline grid
Outer display type: block or inline:
An element with the outer display type of block will take up the whole width available to it, like <div> does. An element with the outer display type of inline will only take up the width that it needs, with wrapping, like <span> does.
Inner display type: flow, flex or grid:
The inner display type flow is the default inner display type when flex or grid is not specified. It is the way of laying out children elements that we are used to in a <p> for instance. flex and grid are new ways of laying out children that each deserve their own post.
Conclusion:
The difference between display: flex and display: inline-flex is the outer display type, the first's outer display type is block, and the second's outer display type is inline. Both of them have the inner display type of flex.
References:
The two-value syntax of the CSS Display property on mozzilla.org
The Difference between "flex" and "inline-flex"
Short answer:
One is inline and the other basically responds like a block element(but has some of it's own differences).
Longer answer:
Inline-Flex - The inline version of flex allows the element, and it's children, to have flex properties while still remaining in the regular flow of the document/webpage. Basically, you can place two inline flex containers in the same row, if the widths were small enough, without any excess styling to allow them to exist in the same row. This is pretty similar to "inline-block."
Flex - The container and it's children have flex properties but the container reserves the row, as it is taken out of the normal flow of the document. It responds like a block element, in terms of document flow. Two flexbox containers could not exist on the same row without excess styling.
The problem you may be having
Due to the elements you listed in your example, though I am guessing, I think you want to use flex to display the elements listed in an even row-by-row fashion but continue to see the elements side-by-side.
The reason you are likely having issues is because flex and inline-flex have the default "flex-direction" property set to "row." This will display the children side-by side. Changing this property to "column" will allow your elements to stack and reserve space(width) equal to the width of its parent.
Below are some examples to show how flex vs inline-flex works and also a quick demo of how inline vs block elements work...
display: inline-flex; flex-direction: row;
Fiddle
display: flex; flex-direction: row;
Fiddle
display: inline-flex; flex-direction: column;
Fiddle
display: flex; flex-direction: column;
Fiddle
display: inline;
Fiddle
display: block
Fiddle
Also, a great reference doc:
A Complete Guide to Flexbox - css tricks
Display:flex apply flex layout to the flex items or children of the container only. So, the container itself stays a block level element and thus takes up the entire width of the screen.
This causes every flex container to move to a new line on the screen.
Display:inline-flex apply flex layout to the flex items or children as well as to the container itself. As a result the container behaves as an inline flex element just like the children do and thus takes up the width required by its items/children only and not the entire width of the screen.
This causes two or more flex containers one after another, displayed as inline-flex, align themselves side by side on the screen until the whole width of the screen is taken.
I'd like to add some details about screen reader behaviour, because there's some surprises here.
Some background first. Some screen readers like NVDA handle display: block and display: inline-block differently (and they should, as you will see later).
Comparison between different display attributes
display: block
A display: block element will always be announced in a separate "line", meaning NVDA will stop talking after its contents, and the user will manually tell NVDA to announce the next element (typically with Down arrow key).
<div>This is the first line</div>
<div>This is another line</div>
This will make NVDA announce This is the first line, and then This is another line.
The following yields the same result:
<span style="display: block">This is the first line</span>
<span style="display: block">This is another line</span>
display: inline-block
A display: inline-block element will be announced together with all preceding and following other inline elements (display: inline and display: inline-block).
<span style="display: inline-block">This is the first line</span>
<span style="display: inline-block">This is another line</span>
This will make the screen reader announce both elements in one go: This is the first line This is another line.
As said before, it doesn't matter whether it's an inline or inline-block element; the following yields the exact same result:
<span style="display: inline">This is the first line</span> <!-- Inline! -->
<span style="display: inline-block">This is another line</span> <!-- Inline block! -->
display: flex
This works exactly like display: block.
display: inline-flex
Surprisingly, this also works like display: block, not like display: inline-block!
display: grid / display: inline-grid
I didn't test this, but I expect the same like with flex / inline-flex here.
Why is that a problem?
Using display: inline-block, one can create elements that visually look very distinct, but semantically are treated "as one".
For example, consider the following headline in an online news platform:
<h2>
<span class="category">Rain forests</span>
They need our love
</h2>
You now want to visually style the category (Rain forests) very different to the "real" title ('They need our love'), i.e. by putting each in its own line, something like this:
If you'd make category a display: block element, then the screen reader would announce the heading in two separate lines like this: Rain forests, heading level 2, then They need our love, heading level 2. This is confusing to the user: are there two different headings on the page? Why is there no content for the first one (instead, immediately an apparent second heading seems to follow)?
If however you'd make category a display: inline-block element, then the screen reader would announce the heading in one go: Rain forests They need our love, heading level 2.
It is sad, that display: inline-flex (and probably inline-grid, too) does not mimic the behaviour. So if you want to offer perfect accessibility, you might want to use inline-block in such situations.
You can display flex items inline, providing your assumption is based on wanting flexible inline items in the 1st place. Using flex implies a flexible block level element.
The simplest approach is to use a flex container with its children set to a flex property. In terms of code this looks like this:
.parent{
display: inline-flex;
}
.children{
flex: 1;
}
flex: 1 denotes a ratio, similar to percentages of a element's width.
Check these two links in order to see simple live Flexbox examples:
https://njbenjamin.com/bundle-3.htm
https://njbenjamin.com/bundle-4.htm
If you use the 1st example:
https://njbenjamin.com/flex/index_1.htm
You can play around with your browser console, to change the display of the container element between flex and inline-flex.
You need a bit more information so that the browser knows what you want. For instance, the children of the container need to be told "how" to flex.
Updated Fiddle
I've added #wrapper > * { flex: 1; margin: auto; } to your CSS and changed inline-flex to flex, and you can see how the elements now space themselves out evenly on the page.
Open in Full page for better understanding
.item {
width : 100px;
height : 100px;
margin: 20px;
border: 1px solid blue;
background-color: yellow;
text-align: center;
line-height: 99px;
}
.flex-con {
flex-wrap: wrap;
/* <A> */
display: flex;
/* 1. uncomment below 2 lines by commenting above 1 line */
/* <B> */
/* display: inline-flex; */
}
.label {
padding-bottom: 20px;
}
.flex-inline-play {
padding: 20px;
border: 1px dashed green;
/* <C> */
width: 1000px;
/* <D> */
display: flex;
}
<figure>
<blockquote>
<h1>Flex vs inline-flex</h1>
<cite>This pen is understand difference between
flex and inline-flex. Follow along to understand this basic property of css</cite>
<ul>
<li>Follow #1 in CSS:
<ul>
<li>Comment <code>display: flex</code></li>
<li>Un-comment <code>display: inline-flex</code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Hope you would have understood till now. This is very similar to situation of `inline-block` vs `block`. Lets go beyond and understand usecase to apply learning. Now lets play with combinations of A, B, C & D by un-commenting only as instructed:
<ul>
<li>A with D -- does this do same job as <code>display: inline-flex</code>. Umm, you may be right, but not its doesnt do always, keep going !</li>
<li>A with C</li>
<li>A with C & D -- Something wrong ? Keep going !</li>
<li>B with C</li>
<li>B with C & D -- Still same ? Did you learn something ? inline-flex is useful if you have space to occupy in parent of 2 flexboxes <code>.flex-con</code>. That's the only usecase</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
</figure>
<br/>
<div class="label">Playground:</div>
<div class="flex-inline-play">
<div class="flex-con">
<div class="item">1</div>
<div class="item">2</div>
<div class="item">3</div>
<div class="item">4</div>
</div>
<div class="flex-con">
<div class="item">X</div>
<div class="item">Y</div>
<div class="item">Z</div>
<div class="item">V</div>
<div class="item">W</div>
</div>
</div>
This question already has answers here:
How can I make a display:flex container expand horizontally with its wrapped contents?
(5 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
The component I must implement looks like the tile groups on Metro :
the width of the horizontal flow of groups depends of the number of groups
each group contains a title, its width must be extended to the group content
each group contains an undetermined number of tiles arranged by columns
I nearly reach the goal, but I don't get why the flex container extends itself. Is there a way to shrink its width to its own content width (remove the blue space on the right of cyan tiles)
DEMO :
http://jsfiddle.net/5ar0yyks/
CSS :
div.vertical {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
flex-wrap: wrap;
justify-content: flex-start;
align-content: flex-start;
align-self:flex-start;
align-items: flex-start;
background-color:blue;
max-height:100%;
}
HTML :
<div class="vertical">
<div class = "vertical-tile">
1
</div>
<div class = "vertical-tile">
2
</div>
<div class = "vertical-tile">
3
</div>
</div>
if you think it's not the good approach, what's your proposal to resolve this issue?
I finally get the answer by myself
Actually it seems that it cannot be made only by CSS due to different browser behaviors regarding the flexbox implementation
Code :
$(document).ready(function() {
$('.vertical').each(function( index ) {
var lastChild = $(this).children().last();
var newWidth = lastChild.position().left - $(this).position().left + lastChild.outerWidth(true);
$(this).width(newWidth);
})
});
Demo :
http://jsfiddle.net/btuspmz6/2/