Responsive Web Design - Building a Grid View
What is a Grid-View?
Many web pages are based on a grid-view, which means that the page is divided into rows and columns.
A responsive grid-view often has 6 or 12 columns, and will shrink and expand as you resize the browser window.
Building a Grid View
Lets start building a grid-view.
First ensure that all HTML elements have the box-sizing property set to
border-box.
This makes sure that the padding and border are included in the total width and height of
the elements.
Add the following at the top of your CSS:
* {
box-sizing: border-box;
}
Read more about the box-sizing property in our CSS Box Sizing chapter.
The HTML
We create a grid container with five grid items (header, menu, content, facts, footer):
HTML
Here is the complete HTML:
<div class="grid-container">
<div class="header"><h1>Chania</h1></div>
<div class="menu">
<ul>
<li>The
Flight</li>
<li>The City</li>
<li>The Island</li>
<li>The Food</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="content">
<h1>The City</h1>
<p>Chania is the capital of the Chania region on the island of Crete.</p>
<p>The city can be divided in two parts, the old town and the modern city. The
old town is situated next to the old harbour and is the matrix around which
the whole urban area was developed.</p>
<p>Chania lies along the
north west coast of the island Crete.</p>
</div>
<div
class="facts">
<h2>Facts:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Chania is a city on the island of Crete</li>
<li>Crete is a Greek island in the Mediterranean Sea</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="footer"><p>A footer.</p></div>
</div>
The CSS
Add some styles and colors to make it look better:
Note: Look at the next chapter to add mediaqueries and breakpoints for different screen sizes!
Example
Here is the complete CSS:
* {
box-sizing: border-box;
}
body {
font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif;
font-size: 17px;
}
.grid-container {
display: grid;
grid-template-areas:
'header'
'menu'
'main'
'facts'
'footer';
background-color: white;
gap: 10px;
}
.header {
grid-area: header;
background-color: purple;
text-align: center;
color: #ffffff;
}
.header > h1 {
font-size: 40px;
}
.menu {
grid-area: menu;
}
.menu ul {
list-style-type: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
.menu li {
padding: 8px;
margin-bottom: 7px;
background-color: #33b5e5;
color:
#ffffff;
}
.menu li:hover {
background-color: #0099cc;
}
.content {
grid-area: main;
}
.content > h1 {
font-size: 30px;
margin-bottom: 7px;
}
.content > p {
margin-bottom: 7px;
}
.facts {
grid-area: facts;
border: 1px solid #0099cc;
background-color: beige;
padding: 10px;
}
.facts > h2 {
font-size: 20px;
}
.facts li {
margin-bottom: 5px;
}
.footer {
grid-area: footer;
background-color: #0099cc;
color:
#ffffff;
text-align: center;
}
Try it Yourself »
