Get Ready for CSS Grid Layout

A Book Apart Briefs #1

by Rachel Andrew

By the time CSS Grid Layout was supported by all major browsers in 2017, Rachel Andrew had already thoroughly parsed the spec and, with the release of the first edition of Get Ready for CSS Grid Layout in 2016, helped legions of readers put the new two-dimensional layout system to work in their designs. CSS Grid Layout, also known simply as Grid, tamed CSS' longtime Achilles' layout. Now that the technique has matured, Rachel is back with a fresh survey of the landscape-what's new in the spec, and what's next for Grid.

Genres: Website Design, Design, Technology, Computers, Nonfiction

70 pages, Paperback

Published August 26, 2019

About the author

Rachel Andrew is a British web developer, author and speaker. She is an Invited Expert to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) CSS Working Group, Google Developer Expert, and a former member of the Web Standards Project. She is the editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine.

Reviews

[Eystein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm giving this book 4 starts only because I read it too late. It was absolutely a 5 star book when it came out. But now (2018) there have been a couple changes to the spec. Especially that we now have grid-gap, something which almost every example includes a wordy work-around for. That said, I still learned a lot, and had more pieces fall into place. CSS Grid covers an enourmous surfuce, and for a book this short it does a great job of covering it. The author, Rachel Andrew, is also my go-to for in-depth articles and conference talks on the subject.

To get a more up-to-date and better perpective on layout in CSS, I'm positive The New CSS Layout, again by Rachel Andrew, is a better choice. It also happens to be the book that I meant to buy when I accidentally picked this one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit late to the game in getting to this book, however, I finally carved out some time to start looking into CSS Grid and for that reason alone, this book is a very nice introduction into understanding the basic ideas and syntax behind its usage. Looking forward to starting to implement more grid layouts moving forward.

[Julia]

I found it to be a wonderful documentation-like book about grids. However, here is my unsolicited opinion about CSS grids: they’re too much imperative and too way verbose. Flex boxes do just the same thing for you in a couple of lines.
Alright, you might have heard that grids are made for layouts whereas flexboxes are for the content; I partially agree.
For more column-like layouts (those which resembles newspapers or unequal gallery tiles) grids reduce the number of containers flexboxes forces us to have, as well as give us the ability to expand our content making use of grid areas.
Another thing: dynamically configured components on the page. With flex boxes, they’ll just fit within, resizing the outer content a bit. With grids, we have to know in advance how our content is laid out, and adding something new will ruin the appearance.

[Miikka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice, easy-to-understand introduction to CSS grids. However, the book was published in 2016 and it's now slightly out of date in 2019. If you're experienced with CSS (esp. if with Flexbox) already, before reading this book check out A Complete Guide to Grid and see if that's enough for you.

[Jeff Bridgforth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helped me get up and going with CSS Grid.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sprinted through this after watching a grid course on Lynda.com. It's good to read an expert, but better to see code examples and layouts in stream.

[Clive Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good but rather short summary of CSS Grid layout methods.

[Harold Maduro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buena introducción a CSS grid. Lástima que ya casi no armo sites, está para abandonar del todo Bootsrap y cualquier otro framework y hacer todo con CSS Grid

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I have finished reading this book, it may be a reference for the years to come. It will become more clear with the spec is released soon. Great practical read. Recommend it for anyone who wants to stay on the cutting edge of web design/front-end development.

[Robert Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed, not by the book but by the reality that the spec is only now, fully being implemented in browsers. This is more than a full year since the books publication or maybe 2 since the author began writing.

Any front-end designer will tell you that such is the pace of CSS spec development. As it stands I really won't be able to begin using this in production soon.

That is the rub.

Rachel Andrew makes her case and it's not even hard to do really, why Grid Layout is the future of CSS. It's that good so read up because you'll be using it soon enough, if not hopefully sooner.