Flexbox Patterns: Build user interfaces with CSS flexbox

Re:Flexbox Patterns: Build user interfaces with CSS flexbox by mdorazio on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @12:26PM (#11528062)

Flexbox is great, but honestly I'm not going to spend any time trying to master it until IE supports it well. I know there are workarounds with conditional styling rules and other fallbacks, but that just means I would need to write more code instead of less. Hopefully IE11 will patch some of the bugs and then when IE 8+9 finally drop to a small enough percentage of share in another year or so, it will be time to jump on the flexbox bandwagon.

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Re:Flexbox Patterns: Build user interfaces with CSS flexbox by OniBait on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @03:25PM (#11529476)

Every time I run into this or look up something on caniuse[1], I get a (most likely irrational) annoyance that we're comparing things like IE9 which came out in 2011 (predating the official flexbox spec) against modern versions of Chrome and Firefox. I think the way caniuse's interface is set up, IE9 currently lines up next to Firefox 44 and Chrome 49.

My though process goes something like: Is it because Internet Explorer is sucky? Partially. Is it because people/companies aren't updating? Absolutely. Is it because Microsoft made it hard to update? Partially.

I can't help but think that if a lot of people/companies didn't update their iPhones or Linux desktops for 5+ years, we'd be seeing the same issue and blaming Apple for being so shitty.

BTW, looks like all the flexbox bugs in IE11 have been fixed in Edge[2]. I doubt that IE11 will get patched.

[1] http://caniuse.com [2] https://github.com/philipwalton/flexbugs

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Re:Flexbox Patterns: Build user interfaces with CSS flexbox by juliangoldsmith on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @12:32PM (#11528108)

You could always use a polyfill: https://github.com/10up/flexibility

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Re:Flexbox Patterns: Build user interfaces with CSS flexbox by ncallaway on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @12:56PM (#11528308)

I just discovered this yesterday. I'm excited to dig in and make sure it works well, but if it does it's very likely that we'll start using flexbox in our production stuff sooner rather than later.

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Re:Flexbox Patterns: Build user interfaces with CSS flexbox by mdorazio on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @12:45PM (#11528220)

Interesting. I'll have to take a deeper look at this. Thanks.

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Re:Flexbox Patterns: Build user interfaces with CSS flexbox by jordanlev on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @04:02PM (#11529789)

I understand what you're saying about making more work for yourself (when a big selling point of flexbox is that it will simplify your layout code). But, there are some situations where flexbox lets you achieve things you can't otherwise do. (Some vertical centering situations; making equal height sibling divs; etc)

I tend to wait a long time before I take up new browser features, but as of 2016 I've decided that flexbox has enough support. As long as I have some kind of fallback for IE8-10 (usually "display: inline-block" or some basic floating/clearing does the trick).

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Re:Flexbox Patterns: Build user interfaces with CSS flexbox by marklawrutgers on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @12:59PM (#11528349)

I've just been using the meta tag:

More Info: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6771258/whats-the-differ...

Works fine for me in new projects as long as there's no need for those conditionals and specific legacy code.

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Re:Flexbox Patterns: Build user interfaces with CSS flexbox by lojack on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @01:33PM (#11528625)

I use it for stuff that would be impossible to do without javascript. For me, I'm willing to accept graceful degradation and the technical debt involved in making it graceful outweighs the technical debt (and bugginess) in using javascript for layout.

Of course, there's other approaches, such as removing design elements that would require this in the first place.

We all have our own tolerances for this type of stuff, and I'm probably more of an early adopter than most, but I find that lately flexbox has been starting to help my code more than hurt it.

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Re:Flexbox Patterns: Build user interfaces with CSS flexbox by mkane848 on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @02:44PM (#11529174)

Is Microsoft still putting that much effort into IE? I thought they were transitioning to Edge. Regardless, I'm in the same boat as you. I have to target IE11, and my friend got me really hyped about flexbox until the cross-browser support came to light.

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