🗃️U1LA4 Lab: ChefHub Goes Mobile
How can media queries at certain breakpoints be used to make for a responsive webpage?
Last updated
How can media queries at certain breakpoints be used to make for a responsive webpage?
Last updated
Leading up to this Lab, you may want to model again how to inspect a page and use the Toggle Device Toolbar. Point out specifically the dimensions of the webpage at the top so that students can use this to validate that their breakpoints are working. This is explained in step 0.
Students should utilize the Starter Code (repl.it | github) for this project.
You've gotten hired for the web design job you were looking to get! The company that hired you is called ChefHub, a social media platform for chefs to collaborate with other chefs and to share their recipes, menu designs, and more. The person who left the role you're filling created a beautiful website already, but it only looks great when it's in full screen on a laptop. You've been brought in to make it look good at all sizes - especially on a mobile phone.
Screen Sizes For the entirety of the directions, this lab will be refer to 4 screen sizes: x-large (default), large, medium, and small. There are more sizes (eg. x-small and xx-large) but only the 4 mentioned will be used here. These are the breakpoint dimensions for the width of screen that you should refer to when writing the @media queries:
Small : 0px - 768px
Medium : 768px - 992px
Large : 992px - 1200px
X-Large : 1200px +
Directions: Your task is, at each level, to apply breakpoints to change the layout of the page so that smaller screen sizes are accommodated for. The instructions below will guide you through this process incrementally until, at level 5, you have a fully adaptable webpage.
There's two things you should prepare before going into these levels. First, get comfortable adjusting your screen size. The best way to do this is to inspect the page (right click anywhere and click inspect) and click the Toggle Device Toolbar button or on keyboard press CTRL+Shift+M (or CMD+Shift+M on Mac). This will allow you to see the screen width dimensions while adjusting the screen width. The second note to be aware of is that all the CSS has already been written for the X-Large screen size by default for all levels 1-5. You will be writing @media queries with the max-width parameter to account for the relatively smaller screen sizes. For example:
For level 1, the photos are arranged using CSS Grid. Peak at the ruleset for .main for the syntax, and use grid-template-columns to change the photos so that they are arranged into 3 columns when the screen is Large and Medium, and 1 column when the screen is Small. Remember, your @media queries should be at the bottom of your CSS code. Use the links to the exemplar to see what your results should look like. If you're stuck, here's the code for the first breakpoint:
Now that you have the columns sorted, let's fix the margin a bit. At Medium, change the margin of .main to 20px 50px and for Small, change it to 10px. Try it first before reading on. If you're stuck, here is what the other 2 @media queries should look like in full:
For level 2, scroll to the bottom of the page. We'll be adjusting the footer. If you start playing with dimensions making the page smaller, you'll notice that the cards from level 1 already adjust as per the @media queries you just added. The level_one.css is linked for you already on top of the level_two.html. This pattern will continue as you move through the other levels.
For the footer, use flex-direction in the .footer class, and use justify-content and flex-wrap in the .foot-item class so that it looks like the exemplar below at all sizes other than X-Large. These should all be in a single @media query. Notice that the logo and copyright text are below the other items even though it comes first in the level_two.html. You'll have to use flex-direction: column-reverse; to get the two divs to swap in order.
In level 3, adjust the .header class in following two ways:
When the screen is Medium and smaller, use justify-content to center the items.
When the screen is Small, use space-around instead with justify-content. Also, change the font-size to medium, the padding to 10px, and the gap to 20px.
Now, for level 4, as the navbar gets smaller, we want to hide certain items and swap the + icon on the right side of the screen for another image the is currently hidden. We're going to use display: none; to hide an item, and display: inline; to reveal or un-hide it. All of these changes will be made once the screen is size Medium or smaller:
In the level_four.html, find the class name associated with the navbar items Favorite recipes, Comments, What's hot, and Explore. Use display: none; to hide these items.
In the level_four.html, find the class name designated to the plus icon, +, at the right of the screen, and hide this using the same technique.
In the level_four.html, the image that will replace the plus icon has the class name .dropdown. Use display: inline; to make it appear on the navbar.
Lastly, use justify-content: center; in a .main-nav ruleset to center the search bar. The result should look like the exemplar navbar below:
Head over to the extensions for level 5.
When you're done, the page should look like this at full screen (x-large) and like this for example on a large mobile device (medium).
This is a technical lab without a lot of choice, but students can still consider layouts and settings that may best serve their own design sensibilities and needs in future projects.
Not seeing your changes on the screen? Make sure you are typing your @media queries below all the other code in the CSS. If this is already true, try changing something drastic like font color or font-size before something more subtle to test that the breakpoint is working. Lastly, since we're adjusting the webpage from a big size to all the smaller sizes, you should be using max-width for all the changes.
Directions:
Surprise, as you can see by the new addition of the sidebar, this is actually Gordon Ramsey's ChefHub page. For level 5, be especially sure to look at the exemplars to get a good idea of what the design should look like. When the screen size is Medium or smaller, the sidebar turns into a second navbar! The goal is to use what you've learned with CSS Grid up until now to reformat the page at this breakpoint. There are two ways you can do this:
Method 1: using grid-template-areas and grid-area. This way is easier, most commonly used, and is the most efficient way, but it is trickier to first learn. Regardless, this is the way we recommend doing it, and the site is currently formatted using grid-area. Checkout this video for an example on how to use it. HINT: In the @media query, you will need to only change the one parent div.
Method 2: using grid-template-columns and grid-column. This way will most likely feel more familiar to you. It is easier to learn, but harder to implement. In the @media query, you would need to change all the changed child div's grid-columns.
Choose which ever route you feel comfortable exploring. If you choose to use grid-template-columns, be sure to change the pre-written level_five.css to be consistent with this method.
Currently, if you reduce the screen down to below 400px, Things start looking a bit weird. Go back and add another breakpoint X-Small to all the individual parts of the page that need adjusting so that things still look okay in this new screen size. The x-small and small sizes should be defined as follows now:
X-Small: 0px - 576px
Small: 576px - 768px
Reflection Questions:
Why is it important to have breakpoints in your code?
Whats the difference between starting with a small sized website and building up ("mobile-first") and starting with an x-large sized website and building down ("desktop-first")? Do a little bit of research and see what you can find on which is better or worse and why. Which one makes the most sense and at what time is one approach more sensible than the other?
