Flexbox: 4 items per row

Question

I\'m using a flex box to display 8 items that will dynamically resize with my page. How do I force it to split the items into two rows? (4 per row)?

Here is a releva

Answer 1

Add a width to the .child elements. I personally would use percentages on the margin-left if you want to have it always 4 per row.

DEMO

.child {
    display: inline-block;
    background: blue;
    margin: 10px 0 0 2%;
    flex-grow: 1;
    height: 100px;
    width: calc(100% * (1/4) - 10px - 1px);
}

Answer 2

Flex wrap + negative margin

Why flex vs. display: inline-block?

• Flex gives more flexibility with elements sizing
• Built-in white spacing collapsing (see 3 inline-block divs with exactly 33% width not fitting in parent)

Why negative margin?

Either you use SCSS or CSS-in-JS for the edge cases (i.e. first element in column), or you set a default margin and get rid of the outer margin later.

Implementation

https://codepen.io/zurfyx/pen/BaBWpja

<div class="outerContainer">
    <div class="container">
        <div class="elementContainer">
            <div class="element">
            </div>
        </div>
        ...
    </div>
</div>

:root {
  --columns: 2;
  --betweenColumns: 20px; /* This value is doubled when no margin collapsing */
}

.outerContainer {
    overflow: hidden; /* Hide the negative margin */
}

.container {
    background-color: grey;
    display: flex;
    flex-wrap: wrap;
    margin: calc(-1 * var(--betweenColumns));
}

.elementContainer {
    display: flex; /* To prevent margin collapsing */
    width: calc(1/var(--columns) * 100% - 2 * var(--betweenColumns));
    margin: var(--betweenColumns);
}

.element {
    display: flex;
    border: 1px solid red;
    background-color: yellow;
    width: 100%;
    height: 42px;
}

Answer 3

I would do it like this using negative margins and calc for the gutters:

.parent {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  margin-top: -10px;
  margin-left: -10px;
}

.child {
  width: calc(25% - 10px);
  margin-left: 10px;
  margin-top: 10px;
}

Demo: https://jsfiddle.net/9j2rvom4/

---

Alternative CSS Grid Method:

.parent {
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(4, 1fr);
  grid-column-gap: 10px;
  grid-row-gap: 10px;
}

Demo: https://jsfiddle.net/jc2utfs3/