Designing Natively Responsive Interfaces with CSS Flexbox

The modern layout method realigning the web to device needs

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

For years forcing square website designs to reflow cleanly onto mobile screens elicited headaches for developers and subpar experiences for users.

However with Flexbox, CSS now natively supports intelligently realigning layout elements along flexible axes dynamically personalized to any viewport.

Unlike clunky floats or grid systems requiring heavy wrappers, Flexbox enables effortlessly adapting interfaces by applying simple directional flow and sizing behaviors to parent containers:

/* Layout containers */ 
.flex-container{
   display: flex; /* Enable Flexbox */
   flex-direction: row; /* Arrange items horizontally */
   /* Wrap items onto multiple lines */
   flex-wrap: wrap; 
 
   /* Evenly distribute available space */
   align-items: stretch;
   /* Place space between items */
   justify-content: space-between;
}

/* Flexible children items */
.flex-item {
   flex: 1 1 auto; /* Grow, Shrink, Default size */
}

From these basics, full-featured layouts rapidly take shape optimally reformatting content naturally as elements resize. Nesting flex containers even allows crafting complex multi-dimensional arrangements responsively.