Flex box container width doesn't grow [duplicate]

Answer 1

I've actually found a CSS-only solution to this but it isn't the most perfect thing in the world. Here it is: http://codepen.io/anon/pen/vEPBKK

The trick here is to create a visibility: collapsed container. In flex, visibility: collapsed objects take themselves out of the normal flex flow but retain their dimensions for the purpose of layout. This widens the flex container to the desired width but leaves the flex items unaffected. There are a few caveats, however:

1. This requires a bit of fiddling. As you can see, the magic <div> is a set width but it uses :nth-child to determine how many boxes are before it. If your actual design breaks at more or less than 3 rows, you'll have to adjust this and you'll most certainly have to adjust the width of the object.
2. Because of a rendering bug, this does not work in IE. Luckily, IE's incorrect implementation does exactly what you wanted in the first place without any changes so all you have to do is give IE it's own stylesheet with some conditional statements and shoot the div.magic some good old display: none.

HTML

<div id="container">
  <div class="fb"></div>
  <div class="fb"></div>
  <div class="fb"></div>
  <div class="fb"></div>
  <div class="fb"></div>
  <div class="fb"></div>
  <div class="fb"></div>
  <div class="magic"></div>
</div>

CSS

#container {
  position: absolute;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  border: 1px solid #f00;
  height: 650px;
  padding: 1px;
}

#container div.fb {
  border: 1px solid #555;
  flex: 0 0 200px;
  background-color: #ccc;
  width: 200px;
  margin: 1px;
  height: 200px;
}

#container > div.magic {
  height: 0;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  visibility: collapsed;
}

#container > div.magic:nth-child(5),
#container > div.magic:nth-child(6),
#container > div.magic:nth-child(7) {
  width: 408px;
}

#container > div.magic:nth-child(8),
#container > div.magic:nth-child(9),
#container > div.magic:nth-child(10) {
  width: 612px;
}

#container > div.magic:nth-child(11),
#container > div.magic:nth-child(12),
#container > div.magic:nth-child(13) {
  width: 816px;
}

Answer 2

I think this is the CSS you're looking for:

#container {
  display: flex;
  flex-flow: row wrap;
  border: 1px solid #f00;
  padding: 1px;
}

#container > * {
  border: 1px solid #555;
  background-color: #ccc;
  height: 200px;
  width: 200px;
  margin: 1px;
}

The "Container" will always the the width of it's container, in this case the page, but now the boxes will adjust within it properly.

Let me know if I misunderstood your question.

Update

I've been playing with what you're asking for for several days now, and it really seems like it's not possible to do what you're asking... at least not in the direction that you're asking.

The container wants to be the maximum width possible. Unless you force the container to be the exact width, at which point it wont be the full width, but it wont flex with the flexing content either.

Answer 3

.flex-container {
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
  list-style: none;
  
  display: -webkit-box;
  display: -moz-box;
  display: -ms-flexbox;
  display: -webkit-flex;
  display: flex;
  
  -webkit-flex-flow: row wrap;
  justify-content: space-around;
  border: 1px solid #f00;
}

.flex-item {
  background-color: #ccc;
  padding: 5px;
  width: 200px;
  height: 150px;
  line-height: 150px;
  color: white;
  font-weight: bold;
  font-size: 3em;
  text-align: center;
  border: 1px solid #555;
}

<div id="container" class="flex-container">
  <div class="flex-item">1</div>
  <div class="flex-item">2</div>
  <div class="flex-item">3</div>
  <div class="flex-item">4</div>
  <div class="flex-item">5</div>
  <div class="flex-item">6</div>
  <div class="flex-item">7</div>
</div>

The first try I do not understand what you mean as reference material you can see this tutorial https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/