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  • CSS Flex Container

 

Parent Element (Container)

Like we specified in the previous chapter, this is a flex container (the blue area) with three flex items:

 
 

The flex container becomes flexible by setting the display property to flex:

Example

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
}

 

The flex container properties are:

 

 

The flex-direction Property

The flex-direction property defines in which direction the container wants to stack the flex items.

 

Example

The column value stacks the flex items vertically (from top to bottom):

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}

 

Example

The column-reverse value stacks the flex items vertically (but from bottom to top):

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column-reverse;
}

 

Example

The row value stacks the flex items horizontally (from left to right):

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: row;
}

 

Example

The row-reverse value stacks the flex items horizontally (but from right to left):

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: row-reverse;
}

 

 

The flex-wrap Property

The flex-wrap property specifies whether the flex items should wrap or not.

The examples below have 12 flex items, to better demonstrate the flex-wrap property.

 

 

Example

The wrap value specifies that the flex items will wrap if necessary:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
}

 

Example

The nowrap value specifies that the flex items will not wrap (this is default):

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: nowrap;
}

 

Example

The wrap-reverse value specifies that the flexible items will wrap if necessary, in reverse order:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap-reverse;
}

 

 

The flex-flow Property

The flex-flow property is a shorthand property for setting both the flex-direction and flex-wrap properties.

Example

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-flow: row wrap;
}

 

 

The justify-content Property

The justify-content property is used to align the flex items:

 

Example

The center value aligns the flex items at the center of the container:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: center;
}

 

Example

The flex-start value aligns the flex items at the beginning of the container (this is default):

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: flex-start;
}

 

Example

The flex-end value aligns the flex items at the end of the container:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: flex-end;
}

 

Example

The space-around value displays the flex items with space before, between, and after the lines:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: space-around;
}

 

Example

The space-between value displays the flex items with space between the lines:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: space-between;
}

 

 

The align-items Property

The align-items property is used to align the flex items.

 

In these examples we use a 200 pixels high container, to better demonstrate the align-items property.

Example

The center value aligns the flex items in the middle of the container:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 200px;
  align-items: center;
}

 

Example

The flex-start value aligns the flex items at the top of the container:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 200px;
  align-items: flex-start;
}

 

Example

The flex-end value aligns the flex items at the bottom of the container:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 200px;
  align-items: flex-end;
}

 

Example

The stretch value stretches the flex items to fill the container (this is default):

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 200px;
  align-items: stretch;
}

 

Example

The baseline value aligns the flex items such as their baselines aligns:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 200px;
  align-items: baseline;
}

Note: the example uses different font-size to demonstrate that the items gets aligned by the text baseline:

 
 
 
 

 

 

The align-content Property

The align-content property is used to align the flex lines.

In these examples we use a 600 pixels high container, with the flex-wrap property set to wrap, to better demonstrate the align-content property.

Example

The space-between value displays the flex lines with equal space between them:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 600px;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  align-content: space-between;
}

 

Example

The space-around value displays the flex lines with space before, between, and after them:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 600px;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  align-content: space-around;
}

 

Example

The stretch value stretches the flex lines to take up the remaining space (this is default):

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 600px;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  align-content: stretch;
}

 

Example

The center value displays the flex lines in the middle of the container:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 600px;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  align-content: center;
}

 

Example

The flex-start value displays the flex lines at the start of the container:

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 600px;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  align-content: flex-start;
}

 

Example

The flex-end value displays the flex lines at the end of the container: 

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 600px;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  align-content: flex-end;
}

 

Perfect Centering

In the following example we will solve a very common style problem: perfect centering.

 

SOLUTION: Set both the justify-content and align-items properties to center, and the flex item will be perfectly centered:

Example

.flex-container {
  display: flex;
  height: 300px;
  justify-content: center;
  align-items: center;
}

 

The CSS Flexbox Container Properties

The following table lists all the CSS Flexbox Container properties:

Property Description
  Modifies the behavior of the flex-wrap property. It is similar to align-items, but instead of aligning flex items, it aligns flex lines
  Vertically aligns the flex items when the items do not use all available space on the cross-axis
  Specifies the type of box used for an HTML element
  Specifies the direction of the flexible items inside a flex container
  A shorthand property for flex-direction and flex-wrap
  Specifies whether the flex items should wrap or not, if there is not enough room for them on one flex line
  Horizontally aligns the flex items when the items do not use all available space on the main-axis

 

 
CSS Flex Container
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