An Interactive Guide to CSS Container Queries
Another terrific interactive tutorial from Ahmad, this time on container queries.
Link tags: container
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Getting started with CSS container queries | MDN Blog
Michelle has written a detailed practical guide to container queries here.
On Container Queries, Responsive Images, and JPEG-XL – Cloud Four
Container queries can’t be used in the sizes attribute for responsive images. Here, Jason breaks down why that is (spoiler: it’s the lookahead pre-parser) and segues into a truly long term solution: a “magical” image format.
If you’ve ever thought it felt weird to put media conditions inside the HTML for responsive images, this will resonate.
The Guide To Responsive Design In 2023 and Beyond - Ahmad Shadeed
Instead of thinking about responsive design in terms of media queries, I like to think of responsive design in these categories.
- Responsive to the content
- Responsive to the viewport
- Responsive to the container
- Responsive to the user preferences
Container Queries and Typography
I feel like we need a name for this era, when CSS started getting real good.
I think this is what I’ve been calling declarative design.
Solving “The Dangler” Conundrum with Container Queries and :has() - daverupert.com
The algorithm I’m going after is pretty simple: If the grid of items has an odd number of items, then make the first item full-width. But CSS can’t do logic… right? Well… hold my proverbial beer.
Container Queries in Web Components | Max Böck
The point of this post is to show how nicely container queries can play with web components, but I want to also point out how nice the design of the web component is here: instead of just using an empty custom element, Max uses progressive enhancement to elevate the markup within the custom element.
All Them Switches: Responsive Elements and More
Container queries are like buses: you’re waiting for ages and then two come along at once.
This switch() syntax looks interesting.
Intent to Prototype: Container Queries
Hell has frozen over! Container queries might actually happen!
The Origin Story of Container Queries—zachleat.com
Everyone wants it, but it sure seems like no one is actively working on it.
Zach traces the earliest inklings of container queries to an old blog post of Andy’s—back when he was at Clearleft—called Responsive Containers:
For fun, here’s some made-up syntax (which Jeremy has dubbed ‘selector queries’)…
Intrinsically Responsive CSS Grid with minmax() and min()
When min() gets better support (it’s currently in Safari), we’ll be able to create container queryish declarations like this:
grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fill, minmax(min(10rem, 100%), 1fr));
Understanding the Albatross - Snook.ca
Jonathan shares his notes on that great flexbox container queries article from Heydon that I linked to.
The Flexbox Holy Albatross | HeydonWorks
Er …I think Heydon might’ve cracked it. And by “it”, I mean container queries.
This is some seriously clever thinking involving CSS custom properties, calc, and flexbox. The end result is a component that can respond to its container …and nary a media query in sight!
Facebook Container Extension: Take control of how you’re being tracked | The Firefox Frontier
A Firefox plugin that ring-fences all Facebook activity to the facebook.com domain. Once you close that tab, this extension takes care of garbage collection, ensuring that Facebook tracking scripts don’t leak into any other browsing activities.
Responsive Components: a Solution to the Container Queries Problem — Philip Walton
Here’s a really smart approach to creating container queries today—it uses ResizeObserver to ensure that listening for size changes is nice and performant.
There’s a demo site you can play around with to see it in action.
While the strategy I outline in this post is production-ready, I see us as being still very much in the early stages of this space. As the web development community starts shifting its component design from viewport or device-oriented to container-oriented, I’m excited to see what possibilities and best practices emerge.
0825 — ericportis.com
Well, well, well …following on from my post about container queries, it turns out that Eric has also been thinking about wrangling custom properties. He’s even written some code.
Container Query Discussion | CSS-Tricks
Chris rounds up the discussion that’s been happening around container queries, for and against.
Personally, I’d like to see about 100 different use cases fleshed out. If it turns out some of them can be done sans container queries, awesome, but it still seems highly likely to me that having container queries available to us would be mighty handy.
A bit more on container queries. — Ethan Marcotte
Ethan wrote about container queries on his website. Paul wrote his counter-argument on his website. Now Ethan responds. It’s fun to watch two gentlemen engage in civilised discourse.
Blogs, man. They’re gonna big, I tells ya.
Questioning Container Queries / Paul Robert Lloyd
Paul’s being contrary again.
Seriously though, this is a good well-reasoned post about why container queries might not be the the all-healing solution for our responsive design problems. Thing is, I don’t think container queries are trying to be an all-encompassing solution, but rather a very useful solution for one particular class of problem.
So I don’t really see container queries competing with, say, grid layout (any more than grid layout is competing with flexbox), but rather one more tool that would be really useful to have in our arsenal.
On container queries. — Ethan Marcotte
Unsurprisingly, I completely and utterly agree with Ethan’s assessment here:
I’ve written some code that’s saying, “Once the screen is this size and the element appears in a different, smaller container, use a narrower layout on this element.”
But, well, that’s weird. Why can’t we apply styles based on the space available to the module we’re designing, rather than looking at the shape of the viewport?
I also share his frustration with the “math is hard; let’s go shopping” response from browser vendors:
There’s an incredible clamor for container queries, with folks from every corner of the responsive community asking for something that solves this problem. So personally, I’d love to see at least one browser vendor partner with the RICG, and get properly fired up about this.
We had to drag browser makers kicking and screaming to responsive images (to this day, Hixie maintains it’s not a problem that needs solving) and I suspect even more activism is going to be needed to get them to tackle container queries.