Vertically justify content - html

Hopefully this isn't an unsolved task, but I'm trying to vertically justify an unknown (ish) number of divs inside of a container.
Each div should be equal distances from each other, and, additionally, the same distance from the edges. (Assuming the last part can be accomplished using ghost elements before and after)
The divs will each fill the width of the container, and the container is a set height, but the number of elements inside the container is unknown.
I'm assuming it can be done using Flexbox to some degree, but have been unsuccessful in my attempts thus far.

Yep, flexbox is the simplest way to do it.
On the container element:
.container {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
justify-content: space-between;
}
On the child elements:
.container div {
flex: 1;
width: 100%
}
For the spacing between the elements, just add padding to the container and bottom margins to the children.
The style would look like this:
.container {
/* Same as above, and */
padding: 20px;
}
.container div {
/* Same as above, and */
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.container div:last-of-type{
margin-bottom: 0;
/* So that spacing is even at bottom and top of container */
}
(I was typing this when you posted your answer, so I put it up anyway)
Fiddle

I use justify-content:space-evenly.
HTML:
div.container {
display: flex;
}
div.one_item_container {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
justify-content: space-evenly;
}
<div class="container">
<div class="one_item_container">
<img height="30" src="hello.jpeg" style="background-color:lightblue;" />
</div>
<div class="one_item_container">
<img height="50" src="hello2.jpeg" style="background-color:lightblue;" />
</div>
<div class="one_item_container">
<img height="40" src="hello2.jpeg" style="background-color:lightblue;" />
</div>
</div>

As usual, no matter how long I search, I find the answer only immediately after I ask the question. :D
For those curious, or for my own future reference: Flexbox's justify DOES work, you just need a few more options:
HTML:
<div id="outer-container">
<div class="inner-element"></div>
<div class="inner-element"></div>
<div class="inner-element"></div>
<div class="inner-element"></div>
<div class="inner-element"></div>
<div class="inner-element"></div>
<div class="inner-element"></div>
</div>
CSS:
#outer-container {
height: 250px;
width: 200px;
background: red;
display: flex;
justify-content: space-around;
flex-direction: column;
}
.inner-element {
width: 200px;
height: 10px;
background: blue;
}
https://css-tricks.com/almanac/properties/j/justify-content/
https://jsfiddle.net/WW3bh/

Related

How to make this image move to the right?

So, I was doing this Frontend Mentor challenge (at https://www.frontendmentor.io/challenges/notifications-page-DqK5QAmKbC) while I had run into this problem - I couldn't align the "Chess" image in the "Kimberly Smith" notification to the right.
Here is all the code I have written related to the notification:
The HTML:
<div class="notification">
<div class="notification__container">
<img src="assets\images\avatar-kimberly-smith.webp" class="image" />
<div class="notification-formatting">
<div class="align-right">
<div><strong>Kimberly Smith</strong> commented on your picture
<br /><time>1 week ago</time>
</div>
<div class="img-container"><img src="assets/images/image-chess.webp" alt="Chess" class="image chess"></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
The CSS:
img,
picture,
svg,
video {
display: block;
max-width: 100%;
}
.notification {
background-color: #f6fafd;
display: flex;
align-items: center;
}
.notification__container {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
}
.image {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
width: 50px;
margin-right: 5px;
}
.notification_image--main-message-content {
display: flex;
}
.align-right {
display: flex;
}
Here is the Output
Here is the Expected Output
Here are the solutions I have tried:
display: block;
margin-left: auto;
float: right;
text-align: right;
display: flex;
justify-content: right;
Here is the live website: https://prismatic-capybara-4ba8da.netlify.app/
Here is the GitHub Repository for deeper reference: https://github.com/vishalscodes/frontendmentor-notifications-page
Thank You.
It's possible to massively simplify your markup as follows:
Class notification. This is a flex box so items will try to fit side by side on one line. As the user's image, the main text and the 'chess' image are all on one line we don't need to add any more divs to this. We can just insert them directly, especially as you've made all img elements as blocks (this is always a good move imho).
Class notification-formatting is used to isolate the text so that the text and time stack on top of each other. As this is a flex item, this will try to shrink to fit the content.
We don't need a wrapper around the image with the chess class as that's already a block level element so to get that to move to the right I've added an align-right class. That simply has an inline-margin of auto 0. This is a fairly standard way of moving elements to the right of the page.
Some good resources here:
Complete guide to flexbox on css tricks
Margin on css tricks
Useful css reset by Kevin Powell (e.g. setting img to block)
Any questions just drop me a comment and I'll try help out.
img,
picture,
svg,
video {
display: block;
max-width: 100%;
}
.notification {
background-color: #f6fafd;
display: flex;
gap: 5px; /* I've removed the margin-right from your image and set the gap on the parent element so your 'chess' image moves all the way to the right */
}
.image {
width: 50px;
border-radius: 5px;
}
.align-right {
margin-inline: auto 0; /* if we set the right margin to 0 then setting the left margin to 'auto' causes it to expand to fit the available width */
}
.round {
border-radius: 100vw; /* make the radius massive so it defaults to a circle */
}
<div class="notification">
<img src="https://picsum.photos/id/64/50/50" class="image round" />
<div class="notification-formatting">
<strong>Kimberly Smith</strong> commented on your picture
<br /><time>1 week ago</time>
</div>
<img src="https://picsum.photos/id/237/50/50" alt="Chess" class="image align-right">
</div>
Base on your code you can set to
.align-right {justify-content: space-between; width: 100%; display: flex;}
and set 100% width to all parents divs you can see code bellow
img,
picture,
svg,
video {
display: block;
max-width: 100%;
}
.notification {
width: 100%;
background-color: #f6fafd;
display: flex;
align-items: center;
}
.notification-formatting {
width: 100%;
}
.notification__container {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
width: 100%;
}
.image {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
width: 50px;
margin-right: 5px;
}
.notification_image--main-message-content {
display: flex;
}
.align-right {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
width: 100%;
}
<div class="notification">
<div class="notification__container">
<img src="assets\images\avatar-kimberly-smith.webp" class="image" />
<div class="notification-formatting">
<div class="align-right">
<div><strong>Kimberly Smith</strong> commented on your picture
<br /><time>1 week ago</time></div>
<div class="img-container"><img src="assets/images/image-chess.webp" alt="Chess" class="image chess"></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

How to get divs to respond to screen resizing like imgs?

In REACT, I have three divs that I would like to position side by side, separated by a small margin, and horizontally centered on the screen.
When the screen width becomes too small, I would like the right-most div to move below the first two divs, but still be horizontally centered.
When the screen becomes even smaller, I would like all three divs to be in a column in the center of the screen.
This is easy to achieve with images:
Html (the REACT flavor of html):
<div id='container'>
<img src={image}/>
<img src={image}/>
<img src={image}/>
<div/>
CSS:
#container {
text-align: center;
}
How can this be done with objects that are not imgs?
Welcome to stack overflow, I think what you're looking for is css flexbox https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/CSS_layout/Flexbox.
#container {
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
flex-wrap: wrap;
}
.childClass { // you would need to add a className to the child divs
width: // add the width of your divs here, this will force them to wrap
flex-grow: 0;
flex-shrink: 0;
}
I think that should do it, but I highly encourage you to read https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/ - it's one of the best resources on using flexbox for layouts
//use flexbox for easy structuring html elements
.container {
display: flex;
flex-direction: row;
justify-content: center;
}
.first {
background-color: red;
height: 100px;
width: 100px;
flex-wrap: wrap;
}
.second {
background-color: blue;
height: 100px;
width: 100px;
}
.third {
background-color: yellow;
height: 100px;
width: 100px;
}
.flex-item {
padding: 10px;
margin: 1rem;
}
<div class="container">
<div class="first flex-item">First div</div>
<div class="second flex-item">Second div</div>
<div class="third flex-item">Third div</div>
</div>
for more info on flexbox visit here : https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/

Responsive CSS Image size effects row sizes

I know this sounds like it's been asked before but I've played around with a lot of techniques I've found from other questions and nothing seems to get the desired effect I need.
I'm trying to make something that will be responsive like this:
Responsive Example gif
I basically need an image to be centered, where the image is at 100% size.
Here is what I tried to get this effect:
I first made a div containing three child divs for "columns". Then inside the center column I made three child divs for "rows". Now I need the image to fill the max width it's allowed while still maintain that square aspect ratio. As well the height of the image should determine the height of the top and bottom rows.
Then it should just be a matter of having the text inside the top and bottom row align to the bottom and top of their divs respectively.
This would look something like this:
HTML Visualization of columns
HTML Visualization of center rows
The issue I'm running into is I can't seem to get the center image to determine the heights of the rows above and below it.
I've tried...
Flexbox
using vh (view height)
and a bit of using calc() but to no luck
Setting aspect ration with padding-top: 100%
What the code looks like
/* .row & .col from materialize.css */
.full {
height: 100vh;
}
.art_top {
height: 10vh;
/* I Don't actually want this fixed though */
padding-bottom: 10px;
display: flex;
}
.art_center {
height: 80vh;
/* I Don't actually want this fixed though */
}
.art_bottom {
height: 10vh;
/* I Don't actually want this fixed though */
padding-top: 10px;
display: flex;
}
#cover_art {
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
background: center / cover no-repeat;
}
#song_name {
align-self: flex-end;
}
#artist_name {
align-self: flex-start;
}
<div class="row">
<div class="col s2 m3 full"></div>
<div class="col s8 m6 full">
<div class="row art_top">
<a id="song_name" class="bold-title"></a>
</div>
<div class="row art_center">
<div id="cover_art"></div>
</div>
<div class="row art_bottom">
<a id="artist_name" class="bold-title"></a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="col s2 m3 full"></div>
</div>
Flexbox makes this kind of layout very straightforward. The trick is selectively allowing items to flex or shrink.
The flex property shorthand takes 3 values for flex-grow, flex-shrink, and flex-basis (the initial width or height depending on flex direction). Just keep clear which divs are serving as flex containers as you get into the details in the layout. It is very common to have divs that are both flex containers and flex items themselves too.
I also recommend using an img element instead of applying the image as a background so you dont have trouble with the aspect ratio in responsive window sizes.
A very nice resource: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/
/* .row & .col from materialize.css */
body {
margin: 0;
}
.full {
height: 100vh;
}
.row {
display: flex;
}
.column {
flex: 1 1 auto;
}
.column2 {
background: #b4c2cf;
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
}
.column1 {
background: #cbb3cc;
}
.column3 {
background: #cbb2b2;
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
}
.art_top {
flex: 1 0 10vh;
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-start
align-self: flex-end;
}
.art_center {
flex: 1 1 auto;
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
}
.art_bottom {
flex: 1 0 10vh;
text-align: right;
}
#cover_art {
max-width: 100%;
max-height: 100%;
width: auto;
height: auto;
}
#song_name {
align-self: flex-end;
}
#artist_name {
align-self: flex-start;
}
.bold-title {
display: block;
font-weight: bold;
padding: 10px;
}
.small-box {
background: #8f588c;
height: 100%;
max-height: 70px;
width: 100%;
max-width: 70px;
}
<div class="row full">
<div class="column column1"></div>
<div class="column column2">
<div class="art_top">
<a id="song_name" class="bold-title">My Album Title</a>
</div>
<div class="art_center">
<img id="cover_art" src="https://picsum.photos/400" />
</div>
<div class="art_bottom">
<a id="artist_name" class="bold-title">Artist Name</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="column column3">
<div class="small-box"></div>
</div>
</div>

CSS Flexbox how to centre divs which are different size? [duplicate]

Imagine the following layout, where the dots represent the space between the boxes:
[Left box]......[Center box]......[Right box]
When I remove the right box, I like the center box to still be in the center, like so:
[Left box]......[Center box].................
The same goes for if I would remove the left box.
................[Center box].................
Now when the content within the center box gets longer, it will take up as much available space as needed while remaining centered. The left and right box will never shrink and thus when where is no space left the overflow:hidden and text-overflow: ellipsis will come in effect to break the content;
[Left box][Center boxxxxxxxxxxxxx][Right box]
All the above is my ideal situation, but I have no idea how to accomplish this effect. Because when I create a flex structure like so:
.parent {
display : flex; // flex box
justify-content : space-between; // horizontal alignment
align-content : center; // vertical alignment
}
If the left and right box would be exactly the same size, I get the desired effect. However when one of the two is from a different size the centered box is not truly centered anymore.
Is there anyone that can help me?
Update
A justify-self would be nice, this would be ideal:
.leftBox {
justify-self : flex-start;
}
.rightBox {
justify-self : flex-end;
}
If the left and right boxes would be exactly the same size, I get the desired effect. However when one of the two is a different size the centered box is not truly centered anymore. Is there anyone that can help me?
Here's a method using flexbox to center the middle item, regardless of the width of siblings.
Key features:
pure CSS
no absolute positioning
no JS/jQuery
Use nested flex containers and auto margins:
.container {
display: flex;
}
.box {
flex: 1;
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
}
.box:first-child > span { margin-right: auto; }
.box:last-child > span { margin-left: auto; }
/* non-essential */
.box {
align-items: center;
border: 1px solid #ccc;
background-color: lightgreen;
height: 40px;
}
p {
text-align: center;
margin: 5px 0 0 0;
}
<div class="container">
<div class="box"><span>short text</span></div>
<div class="box"><span>centered text</span></div>
<div class="box"><span>loooooooooooooooong text</span></div>
</div>
<p>↑<br>true center</p>
Here's how it works:
The top-level div (.container) is a flex container.
Each child div (.box) is now a flex item.
Each .box item is given flex: 1 in order to distribute container space equally (more details).
Now the items are consuming all space in the row and are equal width.
Make each item a (nested) flex container and add justify-content: center.
Now each span element is a centered flex item.
Use flex auto margins to shift the outer spans left and right.
You could also forgo justify-content and use auto margins exclusively.
But justify-content can work here because auto margins always have priority.
8.1. Aligning with auto
margins
Prior to alignment via justify-content and align-self, any
positive free space is distributed to auto margins in that dimension.
Use three flex items in the container
Set flex: 1 to the first and last ones. This makes them grow equally to fill the available space left by the middle one.
Thus, the middle one will tend to be centered.
However, if the first or last item has a wide content, that flex item will also grow due to the new min-width: auto initial value.
Note Chrome doesn't seem to implement this properly. However, you can set min-width to -webkit-max-content or -webkit-min-content and it will work too.
Only in that case the middle element will be pushed out of the center.
.outer-wrapper {
display: flex;
}
.item {
background: lime;
margin: 5px;
}
.left.inner-wrapper, .right.inner-wrapper {
flex: 1;
display: flex;
min-width: -webkit-min-content; /* Workaround to Chrome bug */
}
.right.inner-wrapper {
justify-content: flex-end;
}
.animate {
animation: anim 5s infinite alternate;
}
#keyframes anim {
from { min-width: 0 }
to { min-width: 100vw; }
}
<div class="outer-wrapper">
<div class="left inner-wrapper">
<div class="item animate">Left</div>
</div>
<div class="center inner-wrapper">
<div class="item">Center</div>
</div>
<div class="right inner-wrapper">
<div class="item">Right</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- Analogous to above --> <div class="outer-wrapper"><div class="left inner-wrapper"><div class="item">Left</div></div><div class="center inner-wrapper"><div class="item animate">Center</div></div><div class="right inner-wrapper"><div class="item">Right</div></div></div><div class="outer-wrapper"><div class="left inner-wrapper"><div class="item">Left</div></div><div class="center inner-wrapper"><div class="item">Center</div></div><div class="right inner-wrapper"><div class="item animate">Right</div></div></div>
The key is to use flex-basis. Then the solution is simple as:
.parent {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
}
.left, .right {
flex-grow: 1;
flex-basis: 0;
}
CodePen is available here.
Here's an answer that uses grid instead of flexbox. This solution doesn't require extra grandchild elements in the HTML like the accepted answer does. And it works correctly even when the content on one side gets long enough to overflow into the center, unlike the grid answer from 2019.
The one thing this solution doesn't do is show an ellipsis or hide the extra content in the center box, as described in the question.
section {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 1fr auto 1fr;
}
section > *:last-child {
white-space: nowrap;
text-align: right;
}
/* not essential; just for demo purposes */
section {
background-color: #eee;
font-family: helvetica, arial;
font-size: 10pt;
padding: 4px;
}
section > * {
border: 1px solid #bbb;
padding: 2px;
}
<section>
<div>left</div>
<div>center</div>
<div>right side is longer</div>
</section>
<section>
<div>left</div>
<div>center</div>
<div>right side is much, much longer</div>
</section>
<section>
<div>left</div>
<div>center</div>
<div>right side is much, much longer, super long in fact</div>
</section>
Instead of defaulting to using flexbox, using grid solves it in 2 lines of CSS without additional markup inside the top level children.
HTML:
<header class="header">
<div class="left">variable content</div>
<div class="middle">variable content</div>
<div class="right">variable content which happens to be very long</div>
</header>
CSS:
.header {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: [first] 20% auto [last] 20%;
}
.middle {
/* use either */
margin: 0 auto;
/* or */
text-align: center;
}
Flexbox rocks but shouldn't be the answer for everything. In this case grid is clearly the cleanest option.
Even made a codepen for your testing pleasure:
https://codepen.io/anon/pen/mooQOV
You can do this like so:
.bar {
display: flex;
background: #B0BEC5;
}
.l {
width: 50%;
flex-shrink: 1;
display: flex;
}
.l-content {
background: #9C27B0;
}
.m {
flex-shrink: 0;
}
.m-content {
text-align: center;
background: #2196F3;
}
.r {
width: 50%;
flex-shrink: 1;
display: flex;
flex-direction: row-reverse;
}
.r-content {
background: #E91E63;
}
<div class="bar">
<div class="l">
<div class="l-content">This is really long content. More content. So much content.</div>
</div>
<div class="m">
<div class="m-content">This will always be in the center.</div>
</div>
<div class="r">
<div class="r-content">This is short.</div>
</div>
</div>
Here is another way to do it, using display: flex in the parents and childs:
.Layout{
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
}
.Left{
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-start;
width: 100%;
}
.Right{
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-end;
width: 100%;
}
<div class = 'Layout'>
<div class = 'Left'>I'm on the left</div>
<div class = 'Mid'>Centered</div>
<div class = 'Right'>I'm on the right</div>
</div>
A slightly more robust grid solution looks like this:
.container {
overflow: hidden;
border-radius: 2px;
padding: 4px;
background: orange;
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: minmax(max-content, 1fr) auto minmax(max-content, 1fr);
}
.item > div {
display: inline-block;
padding: 6px;
border-radius: 2px;
background: teal;
}
.item:last-child > div {
float: right;
}
<div class="container">
<div class="item"><div contenteditable>edit the text to test the layout</div></div>
<div class="item"><div contenteditable>just click me and</div></div>
<div class="item"><div contenteditable>edit</div></div>
</div>
And here you can see it in Codepen: https://codepen.io/benshope2234/pen/qBmZJWN
I wanted the exact result shown in the question, I combined answers from gamliela and Erik Martín Jordán and it works best for me.
.parent {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
}
.left, .right {
flex-grow: 1;
flex-basis: 0;
}
.right {
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-end;
}
you can also use this simple way to reach exact center alignment for middle element :
.container {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
}
.container .sibling {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
height: 50px;
background-color: gray;
}
.container .sibling:first-child {
width: 50%;
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
}
.container .sibling:last-child {
justify-content: flex-end;
width: 50%;
box-sizing: border-box;
padding-left: 100px; /* .center's width divided by 2 */
}
.container .sibling:last-child .content {
text-align: right;
}
.container .sibling .center {
height: 100%;
width: 200px;
background-color: lightgreen;
transform: translateX(50%);
}
codepen: https://codepen.io/ErAz7/pen/mdeBKLG
Althought I might be late on this one, all those solutions seems complicated and may not work depending on the cases you're facing.
Very simply, just wrap the component you want to center with position : absolute, while letting the other two with justify-content : space-between, like so :
CSS:
.container {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
align-items: center;
background-color: lightgray;
}
.middle {
position: absolute;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
/* You should adapt percentages here if you have a background ; else, left: 0 and right: 0 should do the trick */
left: 40%;
right: 40%;
text-align: center;
}
/* non-essential, copied from #Brian Morearty answer */
.element {
border: 1px solid #ccc;
background-color: lightgreen;
}
p {
margin: 5px;
padding: 5px;
}
<div class="container">
<p class="element">First block</p>
<p class="middle element">Middle block</p>
<p class="element">Third THICC blockkkkkkkkk</p>
</div>
Michael Benjamin has a decent answer but there is no reason it can't / shouldn't be simplified further:
.container {
display: flex;
}
.box {
flex: 1;
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
}
.box:first-child { justify-content: left; }
.box:last-child { justify-content: right; }
And html
<div class="container">
<div class="box">short text</div>
<div class="box">centered tex</div>
<div class="box">loooooooooooooooong text</div>
</div>

Keep the middle item centered when side items have different widths

Imagine the following layout, where the dots represent the space between the boxes:
[Left box]......[Center box]......[Right box]
When I remove the right box, I like the center box to still be in the center, like so:
[Left box]......[Center box].................
The same goes for if I would remove the left box.
................[Center box].................
Now when the content within the center box gets longer, it will take up as much available space as needed while remaining centered. The left and right box will never shrink and thus when where is no space left the overflow:hidden and text-overflow: ellipsis will come in effect to break the content;
[Left box][Center boxxxxxxxxxxxxx][Right box]
All the above is my ideal situation, but I have no idea how to accomplish this effect. Because when I create a flex structure like so:
.parent {
display : flex; // flex box
justify-content : space-between; // horizontal alignment
align-content : center; // vertical alignment
}
If the left and right box would be exactly the same size, I get the desired effect. However when one of the two is from a different size the centered box is not truly centered anymore.
Is there anyone that can help me?
Update
A justify-self would be nice, this would be ideal:
.leftBox {
justify-self : flex-start;
}
.rightBox {
justify-self : flex-end;
}
If the left and right boxes would be exactly the same size, I get the desired effect. However when one of the two is a different size the centered box is not truly centered anymore. Is there anyone that can help me?
Here's a method using flexbox to center the middle item, regardless of the width of siblings.
Key features:
pure CSS
no absolute positioning
no JS/jQuery
Use nested flex containers and auto margins:
.container {
display: flex;
}
.box {
flex: 1;
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
}
.box:first-child > span { margin-right: auto; }
.box:last-child > span { margin-left: auto; }
/* non-essential */
.box {
align-items: center;
border: 1px solid #ccc;
background-color: lightgreen;
height: 40px;
}
p {
text-align: center;
margin: 5px 0 0 0;
}
<div class="container">
<div class="box"><span>short text</span></div>
<div class="box"><span>centered text</span></div>
<div class="box"><span>loooooooooooooooong text</span></div>
</div>
<p>↑<br>true center</p>
Here's how it works:
The top-level div (.container) is a flex container.
Each child div (.box) is now a flex item.
Each .box item is given flex: 1 in order to distribute container space equally (more details).
Now the items are consuming all space in the row and are equal width.
Make each item a (nested) flex container and add justify-content: center.
Now each span element is a centered flex item.
Use flex auto margins to shift the outer spans left and right.
You could also forgo justify-content and use auto margins exclusively.
But justify-content can work here because auto margins always have priority.
8.1. Aligning with auto
margins
Prior to alignment via justify-content and align-self, any
positive free space is distributed to auto margins in that dimension.
Use three flex items in the container
Set flex: 1 to the first and last ones. This makes them grow equally to fill the available space left by the middle one.
Thus, the middle one will tend to be centered.
However, if the first or last item has a wide content, that flex item will also grow due to the new min-width: auto initial value.
Note Chrome doesn't seem to implement this properly. However, you can set min-width to -webkit-max-content or -webkit-min-content and it will work too.
Only in that case the middle element will be pushed out of the center.
.outer-wrapper {
display: flex;
}
.item {
background: lime;
margin: 5px;
}
.left.inner-wrapper, .right.inner-wrapper {
flex: 1;
display: flex;
min-width: -webkit-min-content; /* Workaround to Chrome bug */
}
.right.inner-wrapper {
justify-content: flex-end;
}
.animate {
animation: anim 5s infinite alternate;
}
#keyframes anim {
from { min-width: 0 }
to { min-width: 100vw; }
}
<div class="outer-wrapper">
<div class="left inner-wrapper">
<div class="item animate">Left</div>
</div>
<div class="center inner-wrapper">
<div class="item">Center</div>
</div>
<div class="right inner-wrapper">
<div class="item">Right</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- Analogous to above --> <div class="outer-wrapper"><div class="left inner-wrapper"><div class="item">Left</div></div><div class="center inner-wrapper"><div class="item animate">Center</div></div><div class="right inner-wrapper"><div class="item">Right</div></div></div><div class="outer-wrapper"><div class="left inner-wrapper"><div class="item">Left</div></div><div class="center inner-wrapper"><div class="item">Center</div></div><div class="right inner-wrapper"><div class="item animate">Right</div></div></div>
The key is to use flex-basis. Then the solution is simple as:
.parent {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
}
.left, .right {
flex-grow: 1;
flex-basis: 0;
}
CodePen is available here.
Here's an answer that uses grid instead of flexbox. This solution doesn't require extra grandchild elements in the HTML like the accepted answer does. And it works correctly even when the content on one side gets long enough to overflow into the center, unlike the grid answer from 2019.
The one thing this solution doesn't do is show an ellipsis or hide the extra content in the center box, as described in the question.
section {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 1fr auto 1fr;
}
section > *:last-child {
white-space: nowrap;
text-align: right;
}
/* not essential; just for demo purposes */
section {
background-color: #eee;
font-family: helvetica, arial;
font-size: 10pt;
padding: 4px;
}
section > * {
border: 1px solid #bbb;
padding: 2px;
}
<section>
<div>left</div>
<div>center</div>
<div>right side is longer</div>
</section>
<section>
<div>left</div>
<div>center</div>
<div>right side is much, much longer</div>
</section>
<section>
<div>left</div>
<div>center</div>
<div>right side is much, much longer, super long in fact</div>
</section>
Instead of defaulting to using flexbox, using grid solves it in 2 lines of CSS without additional markup inside the top level children.
HTML:
<header class="header">
<div class="left">variable content</div>
<div class="middle">variable content</div>
<div class="right">variable content which happens to be very long</div>
</header>
CSS:
.header {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: [first] 20% auto [last] 20%;
}
.middle {
/* use either */
margin: 0 auto;
/* or */
text-align: center;
}
Flexbox rocks but shouldn't be the answer for everything. In this case grid is clearly the cleanest option.
Even made a codepen for your testing pleasure:
https://codepen.io/anon/pen/mooQOV
You can do this like so:
.bar {
display: flex;
background: #B0BEC5;
}
.l {
width: 50%;
flex-shrink: 1;
display: flex;
}
.l-content {
background: #9C27B0;
}
.m {
flex-shrink: 0;
}
.m-content {
text-align: center;
background: #2196F3;
}
.r {
width: 50%;
flex-shrink: 1;
display: flex;
flex-direction: row-reverse;
}
.r-content {
background: #E91E63;
}
<div class="bar">
<div class="l">
<div class="l-content">This is really long content. More content. So much content.</div>
</div>
<div class="m">
<div class="m-content">This will always be in the center.</div>
</div>
<div class="r">
<div class="r-content">This is short.</div>
</div>
</div>
Here is another way to do it, using display: flex in the parents and childs:
.Layout{
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
}
.Left{
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-start;
width: 100%;
}
.Right{
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-end;
width: 100%;
}
<div class = 'Layout'>
<div class = 'Left'>I'm on the left</div>
<div class = 'Mid'>Centered</div>
<div class = 'Right'>I'm on the right</div>
</div>
A slightly more robust grid solution looks like this:
.container {
overflow: hidden;
border-radius: 2px;
padding: 4px;
background: orange;
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: minmax(max-content, 1fr) auto minmax(max-content, 1fr);
}
.item > div {
display: inline-block;
padding: 6px;
border-radius: 2px;
background: teal;
}
.item:last-child > div {
float: right;
}
<div class="container">
<div class="item"><div contenteditable>edit the text to test the layout</div></div>
<div class="item"><div contenteditable>just click me and</div></div>
<div class="item"><div contenteditable>edit</div></div>
</div>
And here you can see it in Codepen: https://codepen.io/benshope2234/pen/qBmZJWN
I wanted the exact result shown in the question, I combined answers from gamliela and Erik Martín Jordán and it works best for me.
.parent {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
}
.left, .right {
flex-grow: 1;
flex-basis: 0;
}
.right {
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-end;
}
you can also use this simple way to reach exact center alignment for middle element :
.container {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
}
.container .sibling {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
height: 50px;
background-color: gray;
}
.container .sibling:first-child {
width: 50%;
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
}
.container .sibling:last-child {
justify-content: flex-end;
width: 50%;
box-sizing: border-box;
padding-left: 100px; /* .center's width divided by 2 */
}
.container .sibling:last-child .content {
text-align: right;
}
.container .sibling .center {
height: 100%;
width: 200px;
background-color: lightgreen;
transform: translateX(50%);
}
codepen: https://codepen.io/ErAz7/pen/mdeBKLG
Althought I might be late on this one, all those solutions seems complicated and may not work depending on the cases you're facing.
Very simply, just wrap the component you want to center with position : absolute, while letting the other two with justify-content : space-between, like so :
CSS:
.container {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
align-items: center;
background-color: lightgray;
}
.middle {
position: absolute;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
/* You should adapt percentages here if you have a background ; else, left: 0 and right: 0 should do the trick */
left: 40%;
right: 40%;
text-align: center;
}
/* non-essential, copied from #Brian Morearty answer */
.element {
border: 1px solid #ccc;
background-color: lightgreen;
}
p {
margin: 5px;
padding: 5px;
}
<div class="container">
<p class="element">First block</p>
<p class="middle element">Middle block</p>
<p class="element">Third THICC blockkkkkkkkk</p>
</div>
Michael Benjamin has a decent answer but there is no reason it can't / shouldn't be simplified further:
.container {
display: flex;
}
.box {
flex: 1;
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
}
.box:first-child { justify-content: left; }
.box:last-child { justify-content: right; }
And html
<div class="container">
<div class="box">short text</div>
<div class="box">centered tex</div>
<div class="box">loooooooooooooooong text</div>
</div>