Do not use "flex: 1" or "flex-basis: 0" inside "flex-direction: column" when you need to support IE11
Flexbox is awesome. Most of it even works in IE11, but flex: 1
won't work reliably in Internet Explorer.
This it because implicitly sets flex-basis: 0
which IE fails to support properly.
Example
Consider the following HTML and CSS.
Copy<div class="container"> <div class="child"> foo </div> <div class="bar"> bar </div> </div>
Copy.container { display: flex; flex-direction: column; } .child { flex: 1; }
See it in action at Plunker.
Background
flex: 1
is a shortcut to flex-grow: 1
+ flex-shrink: 1
+ flex-basis: 0
. A base size of zero is okay because the element would grow when needed.
In Internet Explorer, this only works when the flex container uses flex-direction: row
. For flex-direction: column
, children will overlap as if they would not consume any height.
How to fix
What works, and what you probably want anyway, is flex-basis: auto
.
We recommend you use the flex
shorthand property with all 3 values:
Copy.container { display: flex; flex-direction: column; } .child { flex: 1 1 auto; }
In the example above, the flex children are allowed to grow and shrink, so the result will be the same. But using auto
, it finally works in IE11.
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