Item Flow, Part 1: A new unified concept for layout

CSS Grid and Flexbox brought incredible layout tools to the web, but they don’t yet do everything a designer might want. One of those things is a popular layout pattern called “masonry” or “waterfall,” which currently still requires a Javascript library to accomplish. Masonry layouts in CSS feature was first proposed by Mozilla and implemented in Firefox behind a flag in 2020. From the beginning, there’s been a hot debate about this mechanism. The WebKit team at Apple picked up where Mozilla left off, implemented the drafted spec, and landed it in Safari Technology Preview 163. This reinvigorated the conversation. By October 2024, there were two competing ideas being debated — to “Just Use Grid” or to create a whole “New Masonry Layout”. We wrote extensively about these ideas in a previous article on this website. A lot has happened since October. Now, a third path forward is emerging — a path that would mean the CSS Working Group doesn’t choose either “Just Use Grid” or “New Masonry ... Read full article.