When I try putting an hr
element inside a container with display: flex
, it disappears. (If I remove display: flex
, it reappears, so I’m confident that is the cause.)
I read on a blog post that flex causes the hr
to have a width of zero, which I confirmed by giving it a width of 100% (making it reappear), but no explanation was given.
Out of curiosity (I simply put the hr
outside the flex container to solve the problem), why does this occur? Will using flexbox cause other random elements to disappear as well?
I don’t think something else in my code is causing this, but in here’s my full code just in case:
* {
/* Makes width and height include padding, border */
box-sizing: border-box;
}
body {
font-family: "Quicksand", sans-serif;
margin: 0;
}
h1,
h2,
h3,
h4,
h5,
h6 {
color: #2d3c49;
text-transform: uppercase;
}
h1 {
font-weight: 200;
/* Browsers typically display h1 as 2em */
font-size: 2.6em;
margin-bottom: 0;
}
/* Adds a bit of space above subtitle (set h1 bottom margin to 0) */
header h4 {
margin-top: 7px;
}
/* Top content */
header {
display: flex;
max-width: 1000px;
margin: 0 auto;
margin-top: 1em;
/* Vertically centers logo */
align-items: center;
}
/* logo img */
.logo {
height: 90px;
width: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}
/* Only subtitle isn't aligned all the way to the right; this fixes it. TODO: figure out why doesn't apply to h1 text */
.header-text {
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-end;
}
hr {
background-color: #7d97ad;
max-width: 1000px;
margin-bottom: 1em;
border: none;
height: 3px;
}
.main-image {
max-width: 1000px;
height: auto;
}
/* Applies to content within <main> element (excludes header, footer) */
.container {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
max-width: 1000px;
margin: 0 auto;
}
/* Applies to project section (including header text) */
.container-projects {
display: flex;
/* Parent container needs this for flex-item to take full width in row */
flex-wrap: wrap;
flex-direction: row;
justify-content: space-between;
margin: 2em 0;
}
.portfolio-header {
/* Puts header in its own row without removing from container with row flex direction (setting parent container to wrap also required) */
width: 100%;
text-align: left;
color: #7d97ad;
}
/* Div containing single project's title, image, text */
/* TODO: add declarations */
.project {
width: 300px;
height: auto;
}
.project p,
h3 {
text-align: center;
}
/* Images cropped with 3:2 ratio, scaled resolution down to 600 x 400 */
.project-image {
width: 300px;
height: auto;
}
footer {
text-align: center;
margin-top: 1em;
background-color: #ccc;
color: white;
padding: 2em;
font-size: 1.1em;
}
/* Remove default 1em margin-top */
footer p {
margin-top: 0;
}
/* Applies to Font Awesome social icons */
.fab {
margin: 0 0.5em;
color: white;
}
/* Changes social icon color to dark grey on hover */
.fab:hover {
color: #2d3c49;
}
/* Media queries (breakpoints correspond to Bootstrap breakpoints). 1rem = 16px */
/* Small devices (landscape phones) */
@media screen and (max-width: 767px) {
h1 {
font-size: 2em;
}
h2 {
font-size: 1.5em;
}
h3 {
font-size: 1.3em;
}
h4 {
font-size: 1.1em;
}
/* Doesn't seem to be doing anything TODO: find out why */
.portfolio-header {
margin-bottom: 1em;
}
/* TODO: make slightly wider */
.container-projects {
margin: 1.5em 0 0 0;
}
header {
margin: 0 1em 0 0;
}
header,
.container,
footer {
max-width: 100%;
}
/* Must specify max-width for img even though parent .container has the same declaration because max-width isn't inherited */
.container img {
max-width: 100%;
}
.project {
/* Centers projects (aligned left otherwise) */
margin: 0 auto;
}
/* Aligns portfolio header text flush left of portfolio rows */
.portfolio-header {
width: 300px;
margin: 10px auto;
}
.logo {
height: 50px;
width: auto;
}
}
/* Tablets */
@media screen and (max-width: 991px) {
h1 {
font-size: 1.7rem;
}
}
/* Small laptops */
@media screen and (max-width: 1199px) {
h1 {
font-size: 2rem;
}
}
<header>
<img src="https://image.ibb.co/jVeP4S/udacity_logo.png" alt="Udacity logo" class="logo">
<!-- Header is set to display: flex, and it only works on direct children. Without the div, its default row alignment puts header text side by side, but inside a div, it works on the div as a block and since header text items are no longer direct children, it has no effect on them -->
<div>
<h1>Natalie Cardot</h1>
<h4 class="header-text">Front-End Web Developer</h4>
</div>
</header>
<!-- TODO: put inside main? But makes it disappear -->
<main class="container">
<hr>
<img src="https://image.ibb.co/cTcuM7/using_laptop_large.jpg" alt="Woman using laptop at home during the day" class="main-image">
<section class="container-projects">
<h2 class="portfolio-header">Featured Work</h2>
<div class="project">
<img class="project-image" src="https://image.ibb.co/hv4c8n/santorini_small.jpg" alt="View from island of Santorini on a sunny day">
<h3>Project No. 1</h3>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</p>
</div>
<div class="project">
<img class="project-image" src="https://image.ibb.co/c9sKM7/coast_small.jpg" alt="Distant view of a rugged island with a sailboat nearby">
<h3>Project No. 2</h3>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</p>
</div>
<div class="project">
<img class="project-image" src="https://image.ibb.co/eO9oES/mediterranean_small.jpg" alt="Bird's eye view of a rocky beach with clear turquoise waters">
<h3>Project No. 3</h3>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</p>
</div>
</section>
<!-- End of container-project -->
</main>
<footer>
<p>Created by me</p>
<!-- "fab" prefix new in Font Awesome version 5 (released 3/18) -->
<a href="https://github.com/nataliecardot" target="_blank"><i class="fab fa-github fa-lg"></i></a>
<a href="https://codepen.io/nataliecardot/"><i class="fab fa-codepen fa-lg"></i></a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/nataliecardot/"><i class="fab fa-twitter fa-lg"></i></a>
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-cardot/" target="_blank"><i class="fab fa-linkedin-in fa-lg"></i></a>
</footer>
2
Answers
Flex breaks the margin-left: auto and margin-right: auto of the HR tag. Try adding this to your CSS.
The
hr
element has default styles set by the browser. For example, here is what Chrome does:In a flex container,
auto
margins consume all free space in the direction of the margin.So
-webkit-margin-start: auto
(in LTR, the equivalent ofmargin-left: auto
) and-webkit-margin-end: auto
(in LTR, the equivalent ofmargin-right: auto
), consume all free space to the left and right of thehr
element, compressing it towidth: 0
(since there is no content inside).You could override these
auto
margins withwidth: 100%
. But it’s probably more efficient to simply overridemargin: auto
withmargin: 0
.But even then, in this case, once you remove the
auto
margins,align-items: center
kicks in from the parent.This overrides the default
align-items: stretch
and does the same thing the left/rightauto
margins were doing. Again, thehr
is compressed towidth: 0
.So make these two adjustments to your
hr
rule:Note that flex
auto
margins take precedence over keyword alignment properties (such asjustify-content
andalign-items
). If anauto
margin is set, that applies first, consuming all free space on the line.align-items
goes second, but there is no free space left, so it can’t do anything.That’s why, in the code above,
align-items
does nothing until theauto
margins are removed.More details about flex
auto
margins: