MTA css layouts

Understanding CSS Essentials: Layouts
Lesson 5

Exam Objective Matrix
Skills/Concepts

MTA Exam Objectives

Arranging User Interface
(UI) Content by Using CSS
Using a Flexible Box to
Establish Content
Alignment, Direction, and
Orientation
Using Grid Layouts to
Establish Content
Alignment, Direction, and
Orientation

Arrange user interface (UI) content by using
CSS. (3.2)
CSS. (3.2)

CSS. (3.2)

2

User Interface (UI) Design
• User interface (UI) is the portion of a Web site
or application with which a user interacts
• Can be simple, or complex with several sections,
buttons, and controls
• Positioning and autosizing of UI elements central
to good design
• Compare Bing.com to Microsoft.com
– Look very different
– Both follow the elements of good design—clean,
easy to use, well-structured
3

The Traditional CSS Box Model

4

Block-level and Inline Elements
• A block-level element creates boxes that
contribute to the layout of the document.
– Examples: Sections, articles, paragraphs,
lists, and images

• Inline elements are designed for laying
out text and don’t disrupt the flow of the
document.
– Examples: Applying boldface and the new
HTML5 mark element
5

Parent/Child Relationships
• A parent box can contain one or more
child boxes.
• A child can inherit CSS styles from a
parent.

6

UI Challenges
• Developers have used float property for
relative positioning of UI elements for years
– Doesn’t work for most mobile Web
applications
• CSS3 Flexbox Box model ideal for items that
should resize or reposition themselves
• CSS3 Grid Layout model good for complex
layouts
7

Vendor Prefixes
• CSS3 specification is still in draft format
and undergoing modifications
• Need to use vendor prefixes with several
CSS3 constructs
– Internet Explorer uses the -ms- prefix.
– Firefox supports the -moz- prefix.
– Opera supports the -o- prefix.
– Chrome and Safari support the -webkitprefix.
8

CSS Flexbox Box Model
• Good for controls, toolbars, menus, and
forms that resize and reposition
automatically when the user changes the
size of the browser window
• Browser takes the available space into
account and calculates the dimensions for
the user
• Enables relative sizes and positioning
9

CSS Flexbox Box Model (Continued)
• Example: Parent flexbox indicated by shaded
background, icons are child boxes
• When user increases screen size horizontally,
the flexbox expands, distributing an even
amount of space between the children
Before:

After:
10

• Define an element as a flexbox using the
CSS properties display:flexbox or
display:inline-flexbox.
• The flexbox attribute sets the flexbox as a
block-level element.
• The inline-flexbox attribute sets the
flexbox as an inline-level element.

11

• A box within a box is a child box, which
can be flexible or not. A child box is
referred to as a flexbox item.
• The flex property controls the height and
width of flexbox items.
• Whereas the display:flexbox property
creates a flexible parent box, the flex
property is what gives the flexible nature to
child boxes.
12

A parent flexbox
with three child
boxes (flexbox
items)

Modifying the
third child box to
fill the available
space

13

Flexible Child Boxes Example

14

Flexible Child Boxes Example

The child boxes
resized
automatically
along with the
parent box
15

flex-wrap Property
• The flex-wrap property determines whether
child boxes automatically create a new line and
wrap onto it.

Illustrations: © MightyIsland/iStockphoto

16

flex-pack and flex-align Properties
• The flex-pack property justifies the alignment
of child boxes within a flexbox and minimizes
whitespace in the parent box.
– Accepts one of four values: start, end, justify,
or center

• The flex-align property sets the default
alignment for child boxes, but with a twist. If the
orientation of the parent box is horizontal, flexalign determines the vertical alignment of the
child boxes, and vice versa.
17

Changing Direction of Child Items
• The flex-direction property affects the
direction of child boxes in the parent box. It
uses the row, row-reverse, column, and
column-reverse values.
• The flex-flow property sets the flexdirection and flex-wrap properties at the
same time.
• The flex-order property controls the order
and arrangement of child boxes in a flexbox
by placing the child boxes in ordered groups.
18

flex-order and flex-order Example

19


20


21


22

CSS3 Grid Layout Model
• Gives developers greater control over
complex layouts than the flexbox model
• Lets you control the design of sections or
entire HTML-based documents using
CSS3
• Grid layouts use columns, rows, and cells,
but you can move blocks of content from
one part of page or application to another
by moving code lines in CSS
23

Newspaper Layout Example Using a Grid

25

Grid Layout CSS Properties
• CSS property of a grid layout creates
container for the layout :
– display:grid
– display:inline-grid

• Grids also use grid-columns and gridrows properties
• Child elements of a grid are called grid
items
26

Sizing and Positioning of Grid Items
• Grid tracks: The columns and rows of the
grid; you define grid tracks using the gridrows and grid-columns properties
• Grid lines: The horizontal and vertical
lines that divide columns or rows
• Grid cells: The logical space used to lay
out grid items, similar to a cell in a
spreadsheet
27

Fixed vs. Fractional
• Can define columns and rows with a fixed
size or a fractional size relative to the grid
• Fractional sizes defined using fr (short for
―fraction‖)
– A row defined as 2fr will be twice the size
of a row defined as 1fr

30

CSS Grid Template Layout Module
• Another approach to grid layouts
• Creates a grid template, which is like an
empty table into which data can be flowed
• Template uses alphabetical characters to
represent the position of items in a grid

31

• Use grid-position property and assign
an alphabetical character as a position
value
• Example of grid-position property
defined for four items:
news { grid-position: a; }
weather { grid-position: b; }
sports { grid-position: c; }
events { grid-position: d; }
32

• After assigning positions, create layout using
strings of characters
– A string equals a row
– Each character in string is a column

• Can use same values as used for grid-rows
and grid-columns
• Example of grid with one row and four columns
that size to fit content:
div { grid-template: "abcd"; grid-rows: auto;
grid-columns: auto;}
33

Recap
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

UI design
Traditional CSS Box model
Block-level and inline element
Parent/child relationships
Vendor prefixes
CSS Flexbox Box model
CSS Grid Layout model
CSS Grid Template Layout model

34

MTA css layouts

More Related Content

Similar to MTA css layouts

Recently uploaded

MTA css layouts

Editor's Notes