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Flex

Flex is Box with display: flex and comes with helpful style shorthand. It renders a div element.

Import#

  • Flex: A Box with display: flex.
  • Spacer: Creates an adjustable, empty space that can be used to tune the spacing between child elements within Flex.

Usage#

Using the Flex components, here are some helpful shorthand props:

  • flexDirection is direction
  • flexWrap is wrap
  • flexBasis is basis
  • flexGrow is grow
  • flexShrink is shrink
  • alignItems is align
  • justifyContent is justify

While you can pass the verbose props, using the shorthand can save you some time.

Box 1

Box 2

Box 3

Editable Example

Using the Spacer#

As an alternative to Stack, you can combine Flex and Spacer to create stackable and responsive layouts.

Box 1
Box 2
Editable Example

Flex and Spacer vs Grid vs Stack#

The Flex and Spacer components, Grid and HStack treat children of different widths differently.

  • In HStack, the children will have equal spacing between them but they won't span the entire width of the container.
  • In Grid, the starting points of the children will be equally spaced but the gaps between them will not be equal.
  • With Flex and Spacer, the children will span the entire width of the container and also have equal spacing between them.

Flex and Spacer: Full width, equal Spacing

Grid: The children start at the beginning, the 1/3 mark and 2/3 mark

HStack: The children have equal spacing but don't span the whole container

Editable Example

A good use case for Spacer is to create a navbar with a signup/login button aligned to the right.

Chakra App

Editable Example

Props#

NameTypeDescriptionDefault
alignSystemProps["alignItems"]Shorthand for `alignItems` style prop-
basisSystemProps["flexBasis"]Shorthand for `flexBasis` style prop-
cssInterpolation<{}>The emotion's css style object-
directionSystemProps["flexDirection"]Shorthand for `flexDirection` style prop-
growSystemProps["flexGrow"]Shorthand for `flexGrow` style prop-
justifySystemProps["justifyContent"]Shorthand for `justifyContent` style prop-
shrinkSystemProps["flexShrink"]Shorthand for `flexShrink` style prop-
wrapSystemProps["flexWrap"]Shorthand for `flexWrap` style prop-
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