Css Grid vs Table: Choosing the Right Layout Method

Choosing the right layout method for your website or application can be a daunting task. CSS Grid is a powerful tool for creating complex layouts, but it's not always the best choice.

One of the main advantages of CSS Grid is its flexibility. As we saw in the example of the responsive layout, CSS Grid allows you to easily create layouts that adapt to different screen sizes and devices.

CSS Grid also offers better support for modern browsers, with over 90% of users having access to Grid-enabled browsers. This makes it a great choice for developers who want to future-proof their code.

However, CSS Grid can be more difficult to learn and use, especially for developers who are new to layout design.

HTML tables are a layout format for displaying collections of items through a matrix of rows and columns. This format gives you a birds-eye view to quickly grasp and examine large quantities of data.

In HTML, the layout of the data is hardcoded as rows and columns, which may not be sufficient for various devices today. Altering the display property of tables and using CSS layouts is possible, but it doesn't seem semantically correct.

Using HTML tables can be a simple solution for displaying data, but it has limitations, especially for devices with varying screen sizes.

HTML is a fundamental building block of the web, and understanding its basics is essential for creating structured content. A table in HTML is a layout format for displaying collections of items through a matrix of rows and columns.

Items are laid out in rows, with the same data attributes in the same columns. This format gives you a birds-eye view to quickly grasp and examine large quantities of data.

The layout of the data is hardcoded as rows and columns, using tags like and. This may be sufficient for small screens, but it doesn't apply to the many devices with varying screen sizes and orientations.

To overcome this limitation, you can alter the display property of tables and use CSS layouts. However, this approach doesn't seem semantically correct.

In HTML, a container is a fundamental concept that helps organize content on a webpage. The grid container is a type of container where display: grid is applied, making it the direct parent of all the grid items.

The grid container is crucial in structuring content, as seen in the example where container is the grid container. This allows developers to create complex layouts with ease.

A container can hold multiple elements, making it a versatile tool for web development. In the case of a grid container, it's the direct parent of all the grid items, setting the stage for a well-structured layout.

The display property is a crucial part of HTML and structure, allowing you to define how an element is displayed on the page.

The grid property, when used with display, defines the element as a grid container and establishes a new grid formatting context for its contents.

There are two values for the grid property: grid and inline-grid.

The grid value generates a block-level grid, while the inline-grid value generates an inline-level grid.

You can use either of these values to create a grid system that suits your needs, depending on the layout you're trying to achieve.

Grid properties are a crucial aspect of CSS Grid. You can control the layout of your grid container with properties like display, grid-template-columns, and grid-template-rows.

The grid container's properties can be passed down to its nested elements, also known as subgrids, but this feature is currently at level 2 of the CSS Grid specification.

Here are some key properties for the grid container:

You can also control the layout of individual grid items with properties like grid-column-start, grid-column-end, and grid-row-start.

Grid-template-columns is a property that allows you to define the columns of a grid with a space-separated list of values. Each value represents the track size, and the space between them represents the grid line.

You can use the fr unit to set the size of a track as a fraction of the free space in the grid container. For example, setting each item to one third the width of the grid container would look like this: grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr 1fr.

The repeat() notation can be used to streamline definitions with repeating parts. This is equivalent to defining the same value multiple times. For example, grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr 1fr is the same as grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr).

Grid lines can be automatically assigned positive numbers, or you can choose to explicitly name them. If a line has more than one name, it can be referenced by its line name and count. For example, the second line will have two names: row1-end and row2-start.

Here's an example of how to define grid-template-columns with repeating parts:

grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr 1fr

grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr)

In both cases, the grid will have three columns, each taking up one third of the free space in the grid container.

Template-Rows are a crucial aspect of Grid Properties. They define the height of each row in a grid container, which can be a fixed value or a percentage of the grid container's height.

A grid container can have multiple rows, and each row can have a different height. The height of a row is determined by the highest child element in that row.

To set a fixed height for a row, you can use the grid-template-rows property with a fixed value, such as 100px. This sets the height of the first row to 100 pixels.

You can also set the height of a row as a percentage of the grid container's height by using the grid-template-rows property with a percentage value, such as 50%. This sets the height of the first row to 50% of the grid container's height.

In the example, grid-template-rows is set to 100px 200px, which means the first row will have a height of 100 pixels and the second row will have a height of 200 pixels.

The grid-template-rows property can also be used to repeat a row pattern, such as repeating a row with a height of 100px three times. This can be achieved by using the repeat function, such as grid-template-rows: repeat(3, 100px).

Justify-items aligns grid items along the inline (row) axis, making it a crucial property for arranging content in a grid.

This property applies to all grid items inside the container, so you can use it to set the alignment for all items at once. You can also set it on individual grid items via the justify-self property.

The justify-items property has four values: start, end, center, and stretch. The stretch value is the default, which means grid items will fill the whole width of their cell.

Here are the options for justify-items:

The justify-self property works similarly, but it aligns a grid item inside a single cell along the inline (row) axis. This value applies to a grid item inside a single cell, making it perfect for fine-tuning the alignment of individual items.

CSS Grid is a powerful layout algorithm that allows us to build complex layouts that fluidly adapt to different constraints.

Unlike other layout modes, CSS Grid defines the grid structure, rows, and columns purely in CSS, without the need for extra DOM nodes.

This means we can slice up the container however we wish, creating compartments that our grid children can use as anchors.

Here's a brief comparison of CSS Grid and Table layout:

This approach makes CSS Grid incredibly flexible and easy to use, allowing us to build complex layouts that adapt to different screen sizes and devices.

CSS Grid is a powerful layout algorithm that lets us manage the layout entirely from within CSS. This is a game-changer compared to other layout modes, where we'd need to add extra DOM nodes to create compartments.

There are several layout algorithms in CSS, each designed for different types of user interfaces. The default layout algorithm, Flow layout, is designed for digital documents, while Table layout is designed for tabular data.

Flexbox is designed for distributing items along a single axis, which is different from CSS Grid. CSS Grid, on the other hand, can distribute items along multiple axes and is incredibly powerful.

The grid structure in CSS Grid is defined purely in CSS. This means we can slice up the container however we wish, creating compartments for our grid children to use as anchors.

Justify-Content is a property that aligns the grid along the inline (row) axis. This is different from align-content, which aligns the grid along the block (column) axis.

The justify-content property can be set to one of several values: start, end, center, stretch, space-around, space-between, or space-evenly. These values determine how the grid is aligned within the grid container.

If you set justify-content to start, the grid will be flush with the start edge of the grid container. Similarly, setting it to end will align the grid with the end edge of the grid container.

The center value aligns the grid in the center of the grid container, making it look balanced and visually appealing.

Setting justify-content to stretch resizes the grid items to allow the grid to fill the full width of the grid container. This is useful when you want the grid to take up the full space available.

Here are the possible values for justify-content:

Auto-Flow is a powerful feature in Grid Layout that lets you automatically place items on the grid. This happens when you don't explicitly place all the items on the grid, and the auto-placement algorithm kicks in.

The grid-auto-flow property controls how this auto-placement algorithm works. You can set it to one of three values: row, column, or dense.

Here are the options for grid-auto-flow:

Keep in mind that dense only changes the visual order of your items and might cause them to appear out of order, which is bad for accessibility.

Column-Start is a property that determines the starting point of a grid item within the grid. It's used in conjunction with grid-column-end to specify the item's location.

You can refer to a specific grid line using a number or a name. For example, if you have a grid with numbered lines, you can use "grid-column-start: 3" to place an item at the third line.

You can also use the "span" value to indicate how many grid tracks the item should span. For instance, "grid-column-start: span 2" will place the item across two grid tracks.

If no grid-column-end is declared, the item will span 1 track by default. This means that if you only specify the starting point, the item will automatically take up one track.

Rows are a fundamental part of CSS Grid layout, and understanding how they work is crucial for building effective grid systems. You can control how rows are created and arranged using the grid-auto-flow property.

The grid-auto-flow property determines how the auto-placement algorithm works, which is responsible for automatically placing grid items that aren't explicitly placed. You can set it to row, column, or dense, which tells the algorithm to fill in rows or columns in a specific way. For example, setting it to row will fill in each row in turn, adding new rows as necessary.

If you want to explicitly define the rows in your grid, you can use the grid-template-rows property. This property allows you to define the height of each row, which is perfect for building page layouts or creating a specific layout.

Here's a breakdown of the grid-auto-flow values:

Keep in mind that dense only changes the visual order of your items and might cause them to appear out of order, which can be bad for accessibility.