In CSS Flexbox, why are there no "justify-items" and "justify-self" properties?
I know this is not an answer, but I'd like to contribute to this matter for what it's worth. It would be great if they could release justify-self
for flexbox to make it truly flexible.
It's my belief that when there are multiple items on the axis, the most logical way for justify-self
to behave is to align itself to its nearest neighbours (or edge) as demonstrated below.
I truly hope, W3C takes notice of this and will at least consider it. =)
This way you can have an item that is truly centered regardless of the size of the left and right box. When one of the boxes reaches the point of the center box it will simply push it until there is no more space to distribute.
The ease of making awesome layouts are endless, take a look at this "complex" example.
Methods for Aligning Flex Items along the Main Axis
As stated in the question:
To align flex items along the main axis there is one property:
justify-content
To align flex items along the cross axis there are three properties:
align-content
,align-items
andalign-self
.
The question then asks:
Why are there no
justify-items
andjustify-self
properties?
One answer may be: Because they're not necessary.
The flexbox specification provides two methods for aligning flex items along the main axis:
- The
justify-content
keyword property, and auto
margins
justify-content
The justify-content
property aligns flex items along the main axis of the flex container.
It is applied to the flex container but only affects flex items.
There are five alignment options:
flex-start
~ Flex items are packed toward the start of the line.flex-end
~ Flex items are packed toward the end of the line.center
~ Flex items are packed toward the center of the line.space-between
~ Flex items are evenly spaced, with the first item aligned to one edge of the container and the last item aligned to the opposite edge. The edges used by the first and last items depends onflex-direction
and writing mode (ltr
orrtl
).space-around
~ Same asspace-between
except with half-size spaces on both ends.
Auto Margins
With auto
margins, flex items can be centered, spaced away or packed into sub-groups.
Unlike justify-content
, which is applied to the flex container, auto
margins go on flex items.
They work by consuming all free space in the specified direction.
Align group of flex items to the right, but first item to the left
Scenario from the question:
making a group of flex items align-right (
justify-content: flex-end
) but have the first item align left (justify-self: flex-start
)Consider a header section with a group of nav items and a logo. With
justify-self
the logo could be aligned left while the nav items stay far right, and the whole thing adjusts smoothly ("flexes") to different screen sizes.
Other useful scenarios:
Place a flex item in the corner
Scenario from the question:
- placing a flex item in a corner
.box { align-self: flex-end; justify-self: flex-end; }
Center a flex item vertically and horizontally
margin: auto
is an alternative to justify-content: center
and align-items: center
.
Instead of this code on the flex container:
.container {
justify-content: center;
align-items: center;
}
You can use this on the flex item:
.box56 {
margin: auto;
}
This alternative is useful when centering a flex item that overflows the container.
Center a flex item, and center a second flex item between the first and the edge
A flex container aligns flex items by distributing free space.
Hence, in order to create equal balance, so that a middle item can be centered in the container with a single item alongside, a counterbalance must be introduced.
In the examples below, invisible third flex items (boxes 61 & 68) are introduced to balance out the "real" items (box 63 & 66).
Of course, this method is nothing great in terms of semantics.
Alternatively, you can use a pseudo-element instead of an actual DOM element. Or you can use absolute positioning. All three methods are covered here: Center and bottom-align flex items
NOTE: The examples above will only work – in terms of true centering – when the outermost items are equal height/width. When flex items are different lengths, see next example.
Center a flex item when adjacent items vary in size
Scenario from the question:
in a row of three flex items, affix the middle item to the center of the container (
justify-content: center
) and align the adjacent items to the container edges (justify-self: flex-start
andjustify-self: flex-end
).Note that values
space-around
andspace-between
onjustify-content
property will not keep the middle item centered in relation to the container if the adjacent items have different widths (see demo).
As noted, unless all flex items are of equal width or height (depending on flex-direction
), the middle item cannot be truly centered. This problem makes a strong case for a justify-self
property (designed to handle the task, of course).
#container {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
background-color: lightyellow;
}
.box {
height: 50px;
width: 75px;
background-color: springgreen;
}
.box1 {
width: 100px;
}
.box3 {
width: 200px;
}
#center {
text-align: center;
margin-bottom: 5px;
}
#center > span {
background-color: aqua;
padding: 2px;
}
<div id="center">
<span>TRUE CENTER</span>
</div>
<div id="container">
<div class="box box1"></div>
<div class="box box2"></div>
<div class="box box3"></div>
</div>
<p>The middle box will be truly centered only if adjacent boxes are equal width.</p>
Here are two methods for solving this problem:
Solution #1: Absolute Positioning
The flexbox spec allows for absolute positioning of flex items. This allows for the middle item to be perfectly centered regardless of the size of its siblings.
Just keep in mind that, like all absolutely positioned elements, the items are removed from the document flow. This means they don't take up space in the container and can overlap their siblings.
In the examples below, the middle item is centered with absolute positioning and the outer items remain in-flow. But the same layout can be achieved in reverse fashion: Center the middle item with justify-content: center
and absolutely position the outer items.
Solution #2: Nested Flex Containers (no absolute positioning)
.container {
display: flex;
}
.box {
flex: 1;
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
}
.box71 > span { margin-right: auto; }
.box73 > span { margin-left: auto; }
/* non-essential */
.box {
align-items: center;
border: 1px solid #ccc;
background-color: lightgreen;
height: 40px;
}
<div class="container">
<div class="box box71"><span>71 short</span></div>
<div class="box box72"><span>72 centered</span></div>
<div class="box box73"><span>73 loooooooooooooooong</span></div>
</div>
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 givenflex: 1
in order to distribute container space equally. - 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 outerspan
s 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. From the spec:
8.1. Aligning with
auto
marginsPrior to alignment via
justify-content
andalign-self
, any positive free space is distributed to auto margins in that dimension.
justify-content: space-same (concept)
Going back to justify-content
for a minute, here's an idea for one more option.
space-same
~ A hybrid ofspace-between
andspace-around
. Flex items are evenly spaced (likespace-between
), except instead of half-size spaces on both ends (likespace-around
), there are full-size spaces on both ends.
This layout can be achieved with ::before
and ::after
pseudo-elements on the flex container.
(credit: @oriol for the code, and @crl for the label)
UPDATE: Browsers have begun implementing space-evenly
, which accomplishes the above. See this post for details: Equal space between flex items
PLAYGROUND (includes code for all examples above)