Day 97: animating grids

posted on 07.02.2023

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.

It’s possible to animate gap, grid-template-columns, and grid-template-rows.

Almost 6 years ago I wrote a blog post on CodePen titled “Animating CSS Grid Layout properties”. A lot has changed since then, especially recently, and I wanted to update the post, but the blogging feature on CodePen has been sunset and I can’t edit the post anymore. Since animating grids is topical again, I added it to the series.

According to the CSS Grid Layout Module Level 1 specification there are 5 animatable grid properties:

• grid-gap, grid-row-gap, grid-column-gap
  as length, percentage, or calc.
• grid-template-columns, grid-template-rows
  as a simple list of length, percentage, or calc, provided the only differences are the values of the length, percentage, or calc components in the list.

Animating these properties will most likely affect larger areas of the screen. That's why it's important to only show animation to those who have no preference for reduced motion.

.grid {
  --col: 9.5rem;
  --row: 8rem;
  --gap: 2rem;

  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, var(--col));
  grid-template-rows: repeat(4, var(--row));
  grid-gap: var(--gap);
}

.grid--full {
  --col: 30%;
  --row: 4rem;
  --gap: 1rem;
}

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference) {
  .grid {
    transition: all 1s;
  }
}

See the Pen CSS Grid Layout: Animation by Manuel Matuzovic (@matuzo) on CodePen.

Other demos

See the Pen Animated Mondrian (CSS grid-template-columns|rows interpolation) by web.dev (@web-dot-dev) on CodePen.

See the Pen Animated CSS Grid by web.dev (@web-dot-dev) on CodePen.

See on CodePen

Further reading

• CSS Animated Grid Layouts
• Animating CSS Grid (How To + Examples)

Do you want to learn even more awesome CSS?

I'm running a workshop with my friends at Smashing Magazine in which I introduce you to the most useful modern features in CSS and show how you can implement them today in your code base to improve scalability, maintainability, and productivity.

Learn more about the workshop!

Overview: 100 Days Of More Or Less Modern CSS