flexbox

Flexbox Overview

Flexbox is a powerful layout system that allows you to create flexible and responsive layouts in CSS. It is designed to help you lay out items within a container, and it provides a flexible way to distribute and align those items.


At its core, flexbox is based on two main concepts: the flex container and the flex items.

  • The flex container: This is the parent element that contains the flex items. To make an element a flex container, you can use the display: flex property.
  • The flex items: These are the child elements inside the flex container that are laid out using the flexbox layout. To make an element a flex item, you can use the flex property.


Once you have set up the flex container and the flex items, you can use a variety of properties to control the layout of the items within the container. Here are some of the most commonly used properties:

  • justify-content: This property controls the alignment of items along the main axis of the flex container. It allows you to distribute items horizontally, either by spacing them out evenly or by aligning them to one side or the other.
  • align-items: This property controls the alignment of items along the cross axis of the flex container. It allows you to distribute items vertically, either by spacing them out evenly or by aligning them to the top or bottom of the container.
  • flex-direction: This property controls the direction in which the flex items are laid out within the container. It can be set to row for a horizontal layout or column for a vertical layout.
  • flex-wrap: This property controls whether the flex items are wrapped onto a new line when they exceed the width of the flex container. It can be set to nowrap to prevent wrapping, wrap to allow wrapping, or wrap-reverse to wrap items in reverse order.
  • flex-grow: This property controls the amount that a flex item will grow to fill available space in the flex container. A higher value will cause the item to grow more, while a value of 0 will prevent the item from growing.
  • flex-shrink: This property controls the amount that a flex item will shrink when the available space in the flex container is reduced. A higher value will cause the item to shrink more, while a value of 0 will prevent the item from shrinking.
  • flex-basis: This property sets the initial size of a flex item before any available space is distributed among the items.


These are just a few of the many properties available in flexbox, and there are many more that you can use to control the layout of your items. Flexbox can take some time to master, but once you get the hang of it, it can be an incredibly powerful tool for creating flexible and responsive layouts.