Day 9: the inset shorthand property
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It’s time to get me up to speed with modern CSS. There’s so much new in CSS that I know too little about. To change that I’ve started #100DaysOfMoreOrLessModernCSS. Why more or less modern CSS? Because some topics will be about cutting-edge features, while other stuff has been around for quite a while already, but I just have little to no experience with it.
The inset
property is a shorthand for the top
, right
, bottom
, and/or left
properties. It implements the same multi-value syntax like margin
.
<div class="parent">
<div class="child">
At bottom right with 20px offset
</div>
</div>
.parent {
width: 12rem;
height: 12rem;
position: relative;
}
.child {
position: absolute;
/* top: auto; right: 20px; bottom: 20px; left: auto */
inset: auto 20px 20px auto;
width: 50%;
height: 50%;
}
Just like margin, inset
does not respect the reading direction. To work around that, use the inset-inline
and inset-block
shorthands.
.child {
position: absolute;
/* top: auto; bottom: 20px; in ltr */
inset-block: auto 20px;
/* left: auto; right: 20px; in ltr */
inset-inline: auto 20px;
}
<div class="parent" dir="rtl">
<div class="child">
At bottom right with 20px offset
</div>
</div>
Are these shorthands useful? I don't know. I'll cover some use cases later in the series, but I wasn't able to come up with many scenarios where inset
makes things much easier.
Further reading
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Overview: 100 Days Of More Or Less Modern CSS