csswizardry-grids

Simple, fluid, nestable, flexible, Sass-based, responsive grid system.

• Fully responsive
• Mobile first
• Infinitely nestable
• Reversible/reorderable
• With/without gutters
• Endless possible combinations
• Simple to understand, human-friendly classes
• Option to keep classes out of your HTML
• Robust
• Simple
• No .clear or .last classes
• It just works

Please see Responsive grid systems; a solution? for a comprehensive overview of the principles of the grid system.

Demo

• csswizardry.github.com/csswizardry-grids.
• Writeup

Setup

Simply fill in/adjust the relevant variables.

• $responsive is used to turn csswizardry-grids’ responsive features on and off. csswizardry-grids is designed primarily for responsive builds but can also be used on non-responsive projects just as easily. Setting this to false will simply prevent Sass generating your palm etc modifiers.
• $gutter controls how much space there is between columns.
• $mobile-first controls whether you would like unclassed grid items to initially adopt `width:100%;. This means that you won’t need to add a class to force a grid item to take up the full width of its container.
• $use-silent-classes tells csswizardry-grids whether to go ahead and compile solid, traditional classes (e.g. .one-whole) or to create Sass ‘silent’ classes which only compile to CSS once explictly called.
• $lap-start and $desk-start tell csswizardry-grids when to fire particular media queries to service those particular sizes. Note that csswizardry-grids works out the ends of any other breakpoints by using these numbers.

Usage

csswizardry-grids is incredibly simple to implement, its classes are all human-readable and follow the same pattern.

Patterns

csswizardry-grids’ classes are based on a modified BEM syntax.

• .grid is a Block
• .grid__item is an Element
• .grid--rev is a Modifier

Classes include your breakpoint namespaces (e.g. .palm--one-half, .desk--two-thirds and so on); your push and pull classes (.push--one-third, .pull--desk--one-quarter and so on); your regular classes (.one-tenth, .three-quarters etc).

Knowing these patterns will allow you to create hundreds of different combinations. A few examples:

/**
 * Sets an item to be one half across all breakpoints.
 */
.one-half{}

/**
 * Pushes an item one third of the way to the right across all breakpoints.
 */
.push--one-third{}

/**
 * Sets an item to be ten twelfths wide only at the desk breakpoint.
 */
.desk--ten-twelthfs{}

/**
 * Pulls an item one half of the way to the left only at the palm breakpoint.
 */
.pull--palm--one-half{}

Classes in markup

If you are using traditional classes then an example, basic usage might look like this:

<div class="grid">

    <div class="grid__item  lap--one-half  desk--two-thirds">
        ...
    </div><!--

 --><div class="grid__item  lap--one-half  desk--one-third">
        ...
    </div>

</div>

It’s as simple as that!

Note the empty HTML comments. These are to remove whitespace caused by using inline-block. Prior to v1.1 this was tackled by using some [letter|word]-spacing trickery, however Chrome 25 introduced a change which meant this method now broke csswizardry-grids.

If you’d rather not use HTML comments to remove the whitespace then you can set the $use-markup-fix variable to false; this invokes a CSS hack that cannot be guaranteed. Always take care to check things over if using this method.

If you need to use csswizardry-grids with a CMS, or data coming out of a loop, you will need to format your template something a little like this:

<div class="grid">
<!--
<?php
    $items = array('foo', 'bar', 'baz');

    foreach ($items as $item) {
?>

--><div class="grid__item  one-third">
    <?= $item ?>
</div><!--

<?php
    }
?>
-->
</div>

Note the opening and closing comments before and after the loop, and the corresponding opening and closing comments facing outward from the .grid__item element. Try pasting the above into the codepad code runner: items from a loop without the need for a counter :)

Sass’ silent classes

If you are using silent classes ($use-silent-classes: true;) then your HTML might look like this:

<div class="page">

    <div class="content">
        ...
    </div><!--

 --><div class="sub-content">
        ...
    </div>

</div>

…and your Sass, something like this:

.page{
    @extend %grid;
}

    .content,
    .sub-content{
        @extend %grid__item;
        @extend %one-whole;
        @extend %lap--one-half;
    }

    .content{
        @extend %desk--two-thirds;
    }

    .sub-content{
        @extend %desk--one-third;
    }

Reversed grids (.grid--rev{})

csswizardry-grids has the option to reverse a set of grids; this means that the order you write your source and the order it renders are total opposites, for example:

<div class="grid  grid--rev">

    <div class="main-content  grid__item  two-thirds">
        I appear first in the markup, but render second in the page.
    </div><!--

 --><div class="sub-content  grid__item  one-third">
        I appear second in the markup, but render first in the page.
    </div>

</div>

This is handy if you want to lay out your page a certain way visually but it would be advantageous to order the source differently, for example to aid accessibility (getting a screenreader to read more important content first).

Gutterless grids (.grid--full{})

It may be desirable at times to have no gutter between your grid items; with csswizardry-grids this is as simple as:

<div class="grid  grid--full">

    <div class="grid__item  one-half">
        Look, ma! No gutter!
    </div><!--

 --><div class="grid__item  one-half">
        Look, ma! No gutter!
    </div>

</div>

Right-aligned grids (.grid--right{})

Keep grids in their correct order, but have them flush right instead of left:

<div class="grid  grid--right">

    <div class="grid__item  one-quarter">
        I render first but start in the middle of the page.
    </div><!--

 --><div class="grid__item  one-quarter">
        I render second and appear at the very right edge of the page.
    </div>

</div>

Centred grids (.grid--center{})

You can centrally align your grids by simply using the .grid--center modifier:

<div class="grid  grid--center">

    <div class="grid__item  one-half">
        I’m in the middle!
    </div>

</div>

Vertically aligned grids (.grid--[middle|bottom]{})

You can vertically align your grids to each other by simply using the .grid--[middle|bottom] modifiers:

<div class="grid  grid--middle">

    <div class="grid__item  one-half">
        I’m in the middle!
    </div>

    <div class="grid__item  one-half">
        I’m in the middle!
    </div>

</div>

Different sized grids (.grid--[narrow|wide]{})

You can quickly alter the gutter size of your grids to half (.grid--narrow) or double (.grid--wide) by using the relevant modifiers.

<div class="grid  grid--narrow">

    <div class="grid__item  one-half">
        I’m a narrow-guttered grid.
    </div>

    <div class="grid__item  one-half">
        I’m a narrow-guttered grid.
    </div>

</div>

Help and questions

If you have any trouble setting csswizardry-grids up, or would like some help using and implementing it (or any questions about how it works) then please feel free to fire me a tweet or open an issue.

csswizardry-grids’ Sass can look a little daunting, but it’s doing quite a lot of work behind the scenes to make it as simple as possible when it comes to implementation.