Plaid is a robust and tailor-able grid system, ready to align your most complex layout. LESS variables allow for tailoring the number and width of columns and gutters and, thanks to the power of LESS, columns can be infinitely nested. When designing responsively, LESS mixins paired with media queries make it simple to changes column widths.

To create a grid, add the grid-row class to any element. Then, add child elements with col-N classes where N is the number of columns to span.

In addition to the col-N class, add a skip-N class to skip N columns.

Creating a complex nested grid with Plaid is easy: simply add col-N elements inside other col-N elements. If you want to support IE7, add the last-col class to the last element in a row.

There are a few LESS variables that allow the grid to be tailored to fit your needs:

• @grid-columns – The number of columns. 12 is the default.
• @grid-column-width – The column width. Don't add a unit; the width will be converted to a percentage (relative to the gutter width).
• @grid-gutter-width – The gutter width. Again, no unit needed.

After setting the aforementioned variables and compiling you LESS files (if necessary), you will have most of the classes you need to start building fluid layouts. If you need to apply column styling to other elements or adapt your layout to act responsively at certain breakpoints, you can use the column mixin. There are three parameters:

• [int] Number of columns to span – If left blank, this defaults to one.
• [int] Total number of columns in context – This defaults to @grid-columns. If you are nesting columns, this is the width of the containing parent.
• [string] Position – The column's horizontal position in the grid. The valid options are first, middle, and last. This determines the correct CSS to manipulate the gutters and margins, depending on the column's position in the grid.

In this example, we're overriding the default column width for col-2 columns at a 500px breakpoint. We're giving them a width of 4 columns, based on the global grid width, essentially doubling their width to adapt to a narrowing screen.

@media screen and (max-width: 500px) {
    .col-2 {
        .column (4, @grid-columns);
    }
}

Copyright 2013 Intermedix Corporation.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.