CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlcssflexbox
user900360
user900360

Reputation:

How do I create a 3x3 grid via CSS?

Given 9 divs one after another, I want to create a grid 3X3 via CSS.

How do I do that?

.cell {
  height: 50px;
  width: 50px;
  background-color: #999;
  display: inline-block;
}

.cell:nth-child(3n) {
  background-color: #F00;
  /* what property should I use to get a line break after this element? */
}

/* this doesn't work; at least not in safari */
.cell:nth-child(3n)::after {
  display: block;
}
<div class="grid">
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
</div>

Note: I don't want float/clear solution. Focus is on CSS and not HTML restructure.

If I add content: '\A'; white-space: pre; to ::after output comes out to be ugly.

.cell {
  height: 50px;
  width: 50px;
  background-color: #999;
  display: inline-block;
}

.cell:nth-child(3n) {
  background-color: #F00;
  /* what property should I use to get a line break after this element? */
}

.cell:nth-child(3n)::after {
  display: inline;
  content: '\A';
  white-space: pre;
}
<div class="grid">
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
</div>

How do I go about getting all div in a 3X3 row-column layout?

Upvotes: 31

Views: 79887

Answers (5)

Andy Hoffman
Andy Hoffman

Reputation: 19109

02/2022 Update: As David mentioned in the comments, grid-gap is now deprecated and was replaced with the tidier gap. I've updated the code snippet below to reflect this.

Now that CSS Grid is fairly very well supported, I thought I'd supplement the other answers with a more modern solution.

.grid {
  display: grid;
  gap: 1px;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr);
}

div > div {
  padding: 10px;
  background-color: #ccc;
}
<div class="grid">
  <div>item</div>
  <div>item</div>
  <div>item</div>
  <div>item</div>
  <div>item</div>
  <div>item</div>
  <div>item</div>
  <div>item</div>
  <div>item</div>  
</div>

Upvotes: 45

Michael Benjamin
Michael Benjamin

Reputation: 371221

This layout is simple with CSS flexbox. No changes to HTML.

.grid {
  display: flex;                       /* establish flex container */
  flex-wrap: wrap;                     /* enable flex items to wrap */
  justify-content: space-around;
  
}
.cell {
  flex: 0 0 32%;                       /* don't grow, don't shrink, width */
  height: 50px;
  margin-bottom: 5px;
  background-color: #999;
}
.cell:nth-child(3n) {
  background-color: #F00;
}
<div class="grid">
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
</div>

Benefits of flexbox:

  1. minimal code; very efficient
  2. centering, both vertically and horizontally, is simple and easy
  3. equal height columns are simple and easy
  4. multiple options for aligning flex elements
  5. it's responsive
  6. unlike floats and tables, which offer limited layout capacity because they were never intended for building layouts, flexbox is a modern (CSS3) technique with a broad range of options.

To learn more about flexbox visit:

Browser support:

Flexbox is supported by all major browsers, except IE < 10. Some recent browser versions, such as Safari 8 and IE10, require vendor prefixes. For a quick way to add prefixes use Autoprefixer. More details in this answer.

Upvotes: 27

Bjornicus
Bjornicus

Reputation: 1165

I know the question is asking for a non-float clear solution, but after trying the flexbox solution I found that it did not preserve the width of my elements (further reading suggests I may have needed to set the width on the container element). In the specific case of a 3x3 grid however (as opposed to a grid with n rows of three) that a float clear solution more concise and works nicely. Here it is in case others find this answer when looking for a solution as I did:

.cell {
  float: left;
  height: 100px;
  width: 100px;
  margin: 5px;
}
.cell:nth-child(4) {
  clear: left;
}
.cell:nth-child(7) {
  clear: left;
}

Upvotes: 0

dippas
dippas

Reputation: 60563

Besides Excellent answer from @Michael_B to use flexbox, you can use

  • CSS tables

    or

  • float:left

    both to support old browsers such as IE 8/9 , which flexbox won't support.

Note IE8 won't support nth-child but supports first/last-child

Option1 (CSS Tables) : with changes to HTML, wrapping each 3 cells in a row.

.grid {
  display: table;
  border-spacing: 5px
}
.row {
  display: table-row
}
.cell {
  width: 50px;
  height: 50px;
  background: grey;
  display: table-cell;
}
.row div:last-child {
  background: red
}
<div class="grid">
  <div class="row">
    <div class="cell"></div>
    <div class="cell"></div>
    <div class="cell"></div>
  </div>
  <div class="row">
    <div class="cell"></div>
    <div class="cell"></div>
    <div class="cell"></div>
  </div>
  <div class="row">
    <div class="cell"></div>
    <div class="cell"></div>
    <div class="cell"></div>
  </div>
</div>

Update

Option2 (float:left): with NO changes to HTML, using clear:left at each (4th)n item.

.cell {
  width: 50px;
  height: 50px;
  background: grey;
  float: left;
  margin: 5px
}
.cell:first-child + div+ div,
.cell:first-child + div+ div + div + div + div,
.cell:first-child + div+ div + div + div + div + div + div + div {
  background: red
}
.cell:first-child + div+ div + div,
.cell:first-child + div+ div + div + div + div + div,
.cell:first-child + div+ div + div + div + div + div + div + div + div {
  clear: left
}
<div class="grid">
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
  <div class="cell"></div>
</div>

Upvotes: 7

C14L
C14L

Reputation: 12548

Just to add another, you can also make a 3x3 grid using only a single <div>. Plunker

HTML:

<div class="grid"></div>

CSS:

.grid {
  width: 50px; height: 50px;
  background-color: red;
  border-top: 50px solid red;
  border-bottom: 50px solid red;
  margin: 0 50px;
  position: relative;
  box-shadow: inset 0 4px 0 -2px white,
              inset 0 -4px 0 -2px white;
}
.grid::before {
  content: '';
  width: 50px; height: 50px;
  background-color: red;
  border-top: 50px solid red;
  border-bottom: 50px solid red;
  margin: 0;
  position: absolute; left: -52px; top: -50px;
  box-shadow: inset 0 4px 0 -2px white,
              inset 0 -4px 0 -2px white;
}
.grid::after {
  content: '';
  width: 50px; height: 50px;
  background-color: red;
  border-top: 50px solid red;
  border-bottom: 50px solid red;
  margin: 0;
  position: absolute; right: -52px; top: -50px;
  box-shadow: inset 0 4px 0 -2px white,
              inset 0 -4px 0 -2px white;
}

Upvotes: 3

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