Display two rows of six columns and have them shrink - css

Question

I'm try to display two rows of six columns and have them shrink when the browser window shrinks. The original css displays number of columns depending on the image size, each image floating left, so for different screen sizes I end up with large spaces.
.ngg-albumoverview {
overflow: hidden;
margin-top: 1px;
margin-left: 0px;
width: 100%;
clear:both;
display:block !important;
}
.ngg-album {
float:left;
height: 100%;
padding: 0px;
margin-bottom: 0px;
border: 0px solid #fff;
}
/* IE6 will ignore this , again I hate IE6 */
/* See also http://www.sitepoint.com/article/browser-specific-css-hacks */
html>body .ngg-album {
overflow:hidden;
padding: 0px;
margin-bottom: 0px;
border: 0px solid #cccccc;
}
.ngg-album {
overflow: hidden;
padding: 0px;
margin-bottom: 0px;
border: 0px solid #cccccc;
}
.ngg-albumtitle {
text-align: left;
font-weight: bold;
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
font-size: 1.4em;
margin-bottom: 0px;
}
.ngg-thumbnail {
float: left;
margin-bottom: 10px;
margin-right: 2px;
text-align: center;
font-weight:bold;
background-color:#0F0F0F;
-webkit-border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px;
-moz-border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px;
border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px
}
.ngg-thumbnail img {
background-color:#A9A9A9;
border:0px solid #1D1D1D;
display:block;
margin:4px 0px 4px 5px;
padding:4px;
position:relative;
-webkit-border-radius: 4px;
-moz-border-radius: 4px;
border-radius: 4px;
width:200px;
}
.more {
width: 100%;
background-color:#0F0F0F;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
-moz-border-radius: 10px;
border-radius: 10px
}
.ngg-thumbnail:hover {
background-color: #333333;
}
.ngg-thumbnail img:hover {
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}
.more:hover {
background-color: #333333;
}
.ngg-description {
text-align: center;
}
When I add this css to .ngg-albumoverview it displays six columns ok and shrinks them, but the second image is placed under the first, instead of alongside, with the third image alongside the first.
columns:100px 6;
-webkit-columns:100px 6; /* Safari and Chrome */
-moz-columns:100px 6; /* Firefox */

Answer 1

CSS columns are just segregations of the page and flow the same as the rest of the page. Your images are laid out like this:
[1][3][5]
[2][4][6]
because the flow of a page goes top to bottom and expands as necessary depending on element widths.
Your images will not be in the order you want unless you remove the columns and replace it with a responsive grid. If you want the images to appear like:
[1][2][3]
[4][5][6]
you need to adjust your .ngg-thumbnail widths to be a percentage (that incorporates the margin, border and padding spacing in between and adds up close to 100% between 3 of them), float them to the left and give your .ngg-thumbnail img a max-width: 100%; and height: auto;. Be sure to float the .ngg-thumbnail parent element and not the img or they will be removed from the document flow and not line up with the grid unless you perfectly size everything (and you don't want that).
Almost forgot - make sure you add a clear: left; on the 4th image if your widths don't add up to 100% so it starts on a new line by default. You can select the 4th image with:
.ngg-thumbnail img:nth-of-type(4);
Here is a good resource for you if you'd like an enjoyable way to learn more about this.