CSS Grid auto placement in IE/EDGE

Question

While using the old CSS grid spec that is supported by IE 11 and EDGE. Is it possible for the grid items to be auto placed like the current spec?

i.e. to not have to define the column on a grid item:

.item:nth-child(1) {
    -ms-grid-column: 1;
}
.item:nth-child(2) {
    -ms-grid-column: 2;
}
.item:nth-child(n) {
    -ms-grid-column: n;
}

https://codepen.io/JoeHastings/pen/mMPoqB

Answer 1

The answer is NO (unfortunately).

Old specs section about auto-placement has such preamble

This section describes early thinking around automatic placement of Grid Items. Multiple algorithms are possible for such a feature. One is proposed here.

Run this code in IE/Edge and you'll see a lot of rows with 1 in console because IE/Edge stacks all grid items in first cell and you can't force IE/Edge to place grid items automatically. Setting -ms-grid-column and -ms-grid-row to auto won't change anything, because this value is not supported (as you can see in MSDN links). Demo:

var gridItems = document.querySelectorAll(".grid__item");
for (var i = 0; i < gridItems.length; i++) {
  var gridItem = gridItems[i];
  console.log(window.getComputedStyle(gridItem)["-ms-grid-row"]);
  console.log(window.getComputedStyle(gridItem)["-ms-grid-column"]);
}

.grid {
  display: -ms-grid;
  -ms-grid-columns: 100px 100px 100px;
  -ms-grid-rows: 100px 100px 100px;
}

.grid__item {
  -ms-grid-row: auto;
  -ms-grid-column: auto;
  background-color: tomato;
  color: white;
  font-size: 20px;
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
}

<div class="grid">
  <div class="grid__item">One</div>
  <div class="grid__item">Two</div>
  <div class="grid__item">Three</div>
  <div class="grid__item">Four</div>
  <div class="grid__item">Five</div>
  <div class="grid__item">Six</div>
  <div class="grid__item">Seven</div>
  <div class="grid__item">Eight</div>
  <div class="grid__item">Nine</div>
</div>