css columns / flexbox with no gaps between items

Question

I need to get rid of gaps between elements in my column layout. I can use the latest css3 as the site is targeted at modern browsers/devices but I need to avoid a javascript solution such that the page as delivered from the server doesn't need to be re-rendered based on the width of the client.

Using flexbox, css columns, and other tricks I need to coax a pinterest-like layout. (Pinterest uses javascript and absolute positioning for their layout, it doesn't even render with js turned off.) The site has boxes with a known width but variable height. The number of columns needs to vary based on browser width. (I can do this via media queries if I know what css attribute to change.) Here's what this looks like: via

Also note that I can't just increase the height of the containers to fill the empty space. I want to bring the item below it UP, not make all the heights match. (So stretching items 1, 3, and 4 in the picture above is NOT what I want.)

Things I've tried:

• CSS 3 columns. This looks great, but the items are in the wrong order, with the second item being under the first. If this can be changed to a different order such that they go left-to-right, great!

• Flexbox various flexbox configurations, I've tried just about every setting that I was able to change.

• Javascript. Yes, I know I can manually create columns and re-render them on resize. I'm looking to avoid an expensive re-render operation that requires a manual balancing of columns and display. I can resort to this for older browsers that don't support a css3 solution. I'm also wanting to avoid manually positioning all of the items. Gross.

I've put a comment link to JSFiddle because I can't put it in here as "links to jsfiddle require code".

Answer 1

check this demo. This is pure css3 masonry effect. http://w3bits.com/labs/css-masonry/

spinet from above link

body {
    font: 1em/1.67 'Open Sans', Arial, Sans-serif;
    margin: 0;
    background: #e9e9e9;
}

.wrapper {
    width: 95%;
    margin: 3em auto;
}

.masonry {
    margin: 1.5em 0;
    padding: 0;
    -moz-column-gap: 1.5em;
    -webkit-column-gap: 1.5em;
    column-gap: 1.5em;
    font-size: .85em;
}

.item {
    display: inline-block;
    background: #fff;
    padding: 1em;
    margin: 0 0 1.5em;
    width: 100%;
    height: 150px;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
    -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
    box-shadow: 2px 2px 4px 0 #ccc;
}
.item.black{
background-color: #000; height:200px;}
.item.blue{
background-color:blue; height:250px;}
.item.green{
background-color:green; height:300px;}

@media only screen and (min-width: 400px) {
    .masonry {
        -moz-column-count: 2;
        -webkit-column-count: 2;
        column-count: 2;
    }
}

@media only screen and (min-width: 700px) {
    .masonry {
        -moz-column-count: 3;
        -webkit-column-count: 3;
        column-count: 3;
    }
}

@media only screen and (min-width: 900px) {
    .masonry {
        -moz-column-count: 4;
        -webkit-column-count: 4;
        column-count: 4;
    }
}

@media only screen and (min-width: 1100px) {
    .masonry {
        -moz-column-count: 5;
        -webkit-column-count: 5;
        column-count: 5;
    }
}

@media only screen and (min-width: 1280px) {
    .wrapper {
        width: 1260px;
    }
}

<div class="masonry">
   <div class="item">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit.</div>
   <div class="item black">...</div>
   <div class="item blue">...</div>
   <div class="item green">...</div>
  <div class="item black">...</div>
   <div class="item blue">...</div>
   <div class="item green">...</div>
  <div class="item black">...</div>
   <div class="item blue">...</div>
   <div class="item green">...</div>
</div>

Hope this is helpful to you.

Answer 2

You can achieve it by flexbox:

HTML:

<div class="container">
  <div class="item">1</div>
  <div class="item">2</div>
  <div class="item">3</div>
  <div class="item">4</div>
  <div class="item">5</div>
  <div class="item">6</div>
</div>

CSS:

.container {
  max-width: 900px;
  height: 470px;
  display: flex;
  flex-flow: column wrap;
  align-items: flex-start;
}

.item {
  height: 150px;
}

http://codepen.io/asim-coder/pen/vXzKgg