Items grid with inner padding only

Question

What techniques are there for creating a products grid that has padding between each item, but only within the grid? For example, what I am trying to achieve is the below:

Sample markup:

<div id="container">
    <div class="item">
         <!-- content -->
    </div>
</div>

CSS:

#container { width: 100%; min-width: 960px; }
.item { float: left; width: 300px; height: 100px; }

(in the above, .item is going to be output 9 times).

The solution would need to be IE8+ compatible and preferably using a technique that isn't a hack. I have tried using display: table with border-spacing property - but this outputs the padding on the outer sides too.

I know I can also add specific classes to items to control whether the padding is shown for that item, but I was hoping for a more 'automated' solution.

Edit: The padding width should be calculated dynamically, so for example if the container is 960px, the padding is going to be 30px wide.

Secondly, if there are less than 3 items on the last row, these should not appear centered on the row, i.e. if there are only two items then the last 'cell' should just be empty.

EDIT: All the solutions so far insist on specfying the width of the gap/padding. I want to have the padding calculated dynamically. The only width I need to specify is that of .item, which is currently a fixed with of 300px.

Answer 1

I have somewhat of a solution, but it's not exactly what you're looking for, because I don't think what you want can be done without a solution that makes use of :nth-child (either natively or with a JS polyfill).

Take a look at my sample: http://jsfiddle.net/ncA64/1/

I've built product grids just like this many times. It gives you a fixed margin of 30px around each tile, and the width of each tile flexes to accommodate the width of the parent.

Code, for reference. HTML:

<div id="container">
    <div class="item">
        <div class="inner">
            <!-- -->
        </div>
    </div>
    <div class="item"><div class="inner"></div></div>
    <div class="item"><div class="inner"></div></div>
    <div class="item"><div class="inner"></div></div>
    <div class="item"><div class="inner"></div></div>
    <div class="item"><div class="inner"></div></div>
    <div class="item"><div class="inner"></div></div>
    <div class="item"><div class="inner"></div></div>
    <div class="item"><div class="inner"></div></div>
    <div class="item"><div class="inner"></div></div>
    <div class="item"><div class="inner"></div></div>
</div>

and CSS:

/* basic box model reset */
* {
    -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
    -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    padding: 0;
    margin: 0;
    border: none;
}

#container {
    min-width: 960px;
    margin: -30px -15px 0;
    overflow: hidden;
}

.item {
    width: 33.333333%;
    float: left;
    background: #fff;
}
    .item .inner {
        min-height: 100px;
        margin: 30px 15px 0;
        border: 1px solid #000;
        background: #ffc;
    }

Answer 2

I thought I'd throw in a quick responsive example for usage in Bootstrap.

Using Bootstrap's grid system, the following CSS will remove any margin on the outer touching columns of a 3-column (per row) grid:

.tight-grid div[class*='col-']{
  margin-top:15px;
  margin-bottom:15px;
}

.tight-grid .row:first-child div[class*='col-'] {
  margin-top:0;
}

.tight-grid div[class*='col-']:nth-child(3n+3){
  margin-right:0;
} 
.tight-grid div[class*='col-']:nth-child(3n + 1) {
  margin-left:0;
}

.tight-grid .row:last-child div[class*='col-'] {
  margin-bottom:0;
}

Keep in mind that columns already have left and right padding applied by bootstrap (15px worth). So if this is not the desired amount, override it in the first style rule of the above css snippet.

---

DEMO | CODE

_{NOTE: I know OP didn't ask for bootstrap, specifically. I just wanted to provide a simple way to do is using bootstrap for fun :)}

Answer 3

Responsive grid with :

1. fluid width items
2. inner fluid gaps between them
3. IE8+ support (at least)

DEMO

1. add a general percent margins to the items with percent widths, make sure elements widths + left/right magins = 100%;
2. compensate the outer margins (between container and items) by setting a negative margin of the same value on the container
3. add a general wrapper with overflow:hidden;

This is simple and doesn't use any properties unsuported by IE8. I am pretty sure it can have a decent output in IE7 if you remove the borders and the box-sizing property.
Just to make sure, negative margins are not a "hack" :

Negative values for margin properties are allowed source : w3.org

HTML :

<div id="wrapper">
    <div id="container">
        <div class="item"></div>
        <div class="item"></div>
        ...
    </div>
</div>

CSS :

#wrapper {
    overflow:hidden;
}
#container {
    margin: -1.5%;
    background:lightgrey;
}
#container:after {
    content:'';
    display:block;
    clear:both;  /* clear the floats */
}
.item {
    margin:1.5%;
    width:30.3333%;
    padding-bottom:10%;  /* to simulate height on the empty items */
    background:grey;
    border: 1px solid #000;
    float:left;

    /* following only if you want to add borders to the items */
    box-sizing:border-box;
}

After, you just need to change the width of the .items with media query to rearange the number of elements in one row on the desired breakpoints.

Example :

@media screen and (max-width: 600px) {
    .item {
        width:47%;
    }
}

Answer 4

text-align: justify for the container and display:inline-block for the items with no float (it float anyway... it's inline now).

Simple, responsive and works on lot of older browsers

EDIT: Forgot to say "and a additional div, to clear at the end, also display-inline, but 100% width"

http://jsfiddle.net/qFEB7/1/

Answer 5

Test this code:

body {
   margin:0;
   padding:0;
 }
 #wrapper {
  overflow:hidden;
  width:1200px;
  margin:100px auto;
  padding:10px;
  display:table;
  }
  #container {
   display:table-row;
  }
 .item {
   width: 33.3333%;
   min-height: 20px;
   height: auto !important;
   max-height: 200px;
   word-wrap: break-word;
   border-right:1px solid #ffffd;
   display:table-cell;
   padding:10px;
   border-bottom:1px solid #ffffd;
   border-top:1px solid #fff;
  }
  #container .item:first-child{
  border-left:1px solid #ffffd;
  }
  #container:first-child .item{
    border-top:1px solid #ffffd;
  }

// use the html 

  <div id="wrapper">
    <div id="container">
        <div class="item">1</div>
        <div class="item">2</div>
        <div class="item">3</div>
    </div>
    <div id="container">
        <div class="item">4</div>
        <div class="item">5</div>
        <div class="item">6</div>
    </div>
    <div id="container">
        <div class="item">7</div>
        <div class="item">8</div>
        <div class="item">9</div>
    </div>
    <div id="container">
        <div class="item">10</div>
        <div class="item">11</div>
        <div class="item">12</div>
    </div>
</div>

Answer 6

Please don't consider this a formal answer. Josh's is clearly elegant.

I like these types of questions because it gives me an opportunity to think of a variety of ways to approach a problem. I've used tables and floated divs to give a total of 4 other ways to do this. If I can think of any more, I'll add them.

The FIDDLE.

The first table in HTML, just to fulfill the SO requirements.

HTML

<table class='table1'>
    <tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
    <tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
    <tr><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
</table>

"Tables are inelegant" -(except for tabular data)