Creating sidebars with variable height using Flexbox

Using Flexbox is one of the best methods for creating modern and flexible layouts. This method allows you to have sidebars that automatically adjust their height according to the content within them. Here, we will briefly discuss how to utilize Flexbox to create sidebars with variable heights.

First, we place all content inside a container that has a flex display property. This feature causes all flex items to be automatically aligned beside each other. Now, we can use other properties like flex-grow to determine how the space between elements is distributed.

Another important property in Flexbox is align-items, which can be used to align items along the cross axis. For example, we can determine whether the items should be aligned at the top or bottom of the container.

Additionally, we can use the justify-content property to define how the items will be laid out horizontally. Overall, these properties give us significant control over horizontally laying out elements on the page.

Below is a practical example of using Flexbox to create sidebars with variable heights that automatically adjust themselves.

<div class="flex-container">
  <div class="flex-item">Content 1</div>
  <div class="flex-item">Content 2</div>
  <div class="flex-item">Content 3</div>
</div>

<style>
  .flex-container {
    display: flex;
    justify-content: space-between;
    align-items: stretch;
  }
  .flex-item {
    background-color: #f0f0f0;
    margin: 5px;
    padding: 20px;
    flex-grow: 1;
  }
</style>

Initially, we create a container named flex-container that has the property display: flex, which causes all flex items to be placed side by side. Then, three items with the class flex-item are defined, each containing its content. These items will be situated within the Flexbox container.
Property justify-content: space-between ensures that the space between the items is distributed evenly; however, in this case, the first and last items will be closer to the container edges.
align-items: stretch means that all items will have the same height as the tallest item inside the container, which ensures that they all share variable heights but remain uniform.
flex-grow: 1 gives each item the potential to expand and fill any extra space available within the container.