Gain insights into designing mobile-responsive web layouts using Flexbox. Delve into Box Model basics, Flexbox containers, and item alignment, and apply your knowledge to create stunning, mobile-first websites.

CBCA - CSS with Flexbox (Intermediate)-01.jpg

In this course, you will get hands-on experience in designing mobile-responsive web layouts using Flexbox. You will start with the basics like the Box Model and the process of layouting.

You will then move on to advanced concepts such as Flexbox containers, and aligning individual Flexbox items. Near the end of the course, you will put everything you just learned into practice. You will work on a project that focuses on developing a mobile-first website where you’ll experiment with page layout, headers, footers, and a lot more.

By the end of this course, you will be able to use Flexbox in your own projects to create beautiful layouts.

Designing Web Layouts with CSS and Flexbox

# Creating a form

Replace the contents of the form area with an HTML form. We will not make use of the `action` attribute of the form for now. If you would like to make the form work by collecting data, you can use a free service on formspree.io. 

```html 
<form 
   action="#" 
   method="POST" 
   class="contact-form">
</form>
```

Inside the form, create four containers for the form flex-items:

```html 
<form 
   action="#" 
   method="POST" 
   class="contact-form">
  <div class="form-flex-item"></div>
  <div class="form-flex-item"></div>
  <div class="form-flex-item"></div>
  <div class="form-flex-item"></div>
</form>
```

Inside the divs, we will have a Name, an Email, and a Message field. Note the Email field has a type `email`, while the Message field is a `textarea`.

```html 
<form 
   action="#" 
   method="POST" 
   class="contact-form">
  <div class="form-flex-item">
    <label class="form-label">
      Name
      <input 
         type="text" 
         name="name" 
         class="form-input" />
    </label>
  </div>
  <div class="form-flex-item">
    <label class="form-label">
      Email
      <input 
         type="email" 
         name="email" 
         class="form-input" />
    </label>
  </div>
  <div class="form-flex-item">
    <label class="form-label">
      Message
      <textarea name="message" class="form-textarea"></textarea>
    </label>
  </div>
  <div class="form-flex-item">
    <button class="btn-send">
      Send
    </button>
  </div>   
</form>
```

# Styling the form

Use Flexbox to place the three Flex items below each other and center them horizontally. While the border around the form area will also be centered, this should not bother us, because later we will remove these borders to see the end result.

```css
.contact-form {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  align-items: center;
}
```

The label and input are styled such that they are below each other. While the label and input field positioning uniformly works for both text fields and text areas, it makes sense to set the height of the text area individually.


```css
.form-label {
    margin: 20px;
    display: block;
    font-size: 14px;
    line-height: 24px;
}

.form-input, .form-textarea {
    display: block;
    padding: 6px;
}

.form-textarea {
  height: 125px;
}

.btn-send {
  border: none;
  box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, .5);
  padding: 12px;
  margin: 12px 0;
  cursor: pointer;
}
```

The final result looks as follows:



# Creating a form

Replace the contents of the form area with an HTML form. We will not make use of the `action` attribute of the form for now. If you would like to make the form work by collecting data, you can use a free service on formspree.io. 

```html 
<form 
   action="#" 
   method="POST" 
  >
</form>
```

Inside the form, create four containers for the form flex-items:

```html 
<form 
   action="#" 
   method="POST" 
  >
  <div></div>
  <div></div>
  <div></div>
  <div></div>
</form>
```

Inside the divs, we will have a Name, an Email, and a Message field. Note the Email field has a type `email`, while the Message field is a `textarea`.

```html 
<form 
   action="#" 
   method="POST" 
  >
  <div>
    <label>
      Name
      <input 
         type="text" 
         name="name" 
         />
    </label>
  </div>
  <div>
    <label>
      Email
      <input 
         type="email" 
         name="email" 
         />
    </label>
  </div>
  <div>
    <label>
      Message
      <textarea name="message"></textarea>
    </label>
  </div>
  <div>
    <button>
      Send
    </button>
  </div>   
</form>
```

# Styling the form

Use Flexbox to place the three Flex items below each other and center them horizontally. While the border around the form area will also be centered, this should not bother us, because later we will remove these borders to see the end result.

```css
.contact-form {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  align-items: center;
}
```

The label and input are styled such that they are below each other. While the label and input field positioning uniformly works for both text fields and text areas, it makes sense to set the height of the text area individually.


```css
.form-label {
    margin: 20px;
    display: block;
    font-size: 14px;
    line-height: 24px;
}

.form-input, .form-textarea {
    display: block;
    padding: 6px;
}

.form-textarea {
  height: 125px;
}

.btn-send {
  border: none;
  box-shadow: 3px 3px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, .5);
  padding: 12px;
  margin: 12px 0;
  cursor: pointer;
}
```

The final result looks as follows:



In this lesson, we will create a contact form using Flexbox.

Getting Started

Using Flexbox Containers

Aligning Individual Flexbox Items

Designing a Mobile-first Website Using Flexbox

Flexbox Conclusion and Next Steps

Contact Form Markup

Creating a form