Weeknotes 26:30

Posted 5 hours ago

Week of July 19–25

flex-wrap: balance shipped in Chrome

Una Kravets

@una.im

Shipped in Chrome last month 🙂 (Referring to flex-wrap: balance)

I was very excited to hear from Una Kravets that flex-wrap: balance shipped in Chrome last month. I have been excited about this CSS feature since Una first announced in May 2025. It is similar to text-wrap: balance. It is a great addition to the flex layout.

“flex-wrap:balance allows developers to distribute content between flex-lines so that it appears more balanced (similar to text-wrap:balance).

– Chrome Platform Status

I added it to several layouts on the Revive Our Hearts website on Friday (not yet pushed to production). It does exactly what it says, it balances out a layout.

I have come to like using flex layouts inside of CSS grid layouts when there are a dynamic number of items. You can center the items on the last row and now with flex-wrap: balance, it will center multiple items. It looks a bit nicer than having orphans using CSS grid layout.

flex-wrap: balance only works in Chrome and Edge currently so I am adding it as a progressive enhancement.

Around the workshop

• I worked on a lot of small projects this week at work
• I added sponsors to the Mujer Verdadera ’26 site
• I wrote a report for the front-end team for a board report for Revive Our Hearts. I enjoyed reviewing our accomplishments over the past years.
• I finished up some changes on our podcast landing page to expose more of the content and make it more SEO friendly. The changes have not yet been published to production. We plan to test it on a staging site and then push to the live server later this week.

Articles I read

• Works & Wonders: Bluebirds, The Rarest Books on Earth, Berries Everywhere. (Tim Challies)
• Over 15 years of conference speaking (Rachel Andrew)
• Last week in the studio (CW29-26) (Andy Clarke)
• What Will It Be Like to Cross from This Life to the Next? (Randy Alcorn)
• Rocking the Cradle and Tending the Grave (Tim Challies)
• They Don’t Need to Go On Forever (Jonathan Snook)
• Something Greater Than Outrage (Derek Brown)
• The American town that keeps rising from the ashes (CNN) – An article about Lawrence, Kansas. I lived in Lawrence for six years while attending The University of Kansas.
• Rebuilding FIFA Standings Layout with CSS Subgrid (Ahmad Shadeed) – I liked Ahmad’s solution which was a combination of grid, subgrid, and flexbox. I had built a layout with CSS Grid for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in 2019.
• Notes from Thursday at Comic Con (Joe Crawford)
• Studio Notes #94 (Dan Cederholm)
• Prodigal Sabbath Rest (O. Alan Noble)
• Dust to Dust by Jen Wilkin (Review): Aging Wisely (Tim Challies)

What I watched

• The most fun I’ve had with CSS in a while thanks to offset-path (Kevin Powell) – This is pretty cool.
• Transition to and from display: none (Kevin Powell) – This is similar to Chris Coyier article I read several weeks ago. The important part is getting the order correct of the “states.” Kevin uses the same idea, just explains it differently.
• Budapest Completely Surprised Me… (Making Maricles, YouTube) – I enjoyed this travel video to Budapest. I ate at Masel Tov when I was there two years ago. Walking across the Chain Bridge is one of my favorite things to do in Budapest.
• Budapest, Oh How Graceful You Are (Costa de Gracia, YouTube)
• Spain vs. Argentina: World Cup Final (FOX)
• Quarterback: Season 3 (Netflix)
• Monsters, Inc. (Disney+)
• All Creatures Great & Small (PBS App)
• Spider-Man: Far from Home (Disney+)
• American Pickers (Samsung TV Plus)

Books I am reading

• The Discipline of Grace (Jerry Bridges) 
• Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (Cory Doctorow)
• Everything Is Never Enough: Ecclesiastes’ Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness (Bobby Jamieson)
• Enjoying Jesus (Tim Chester)

Walking

• Tuesday – 1.57 miles in 30 minutes
• Wednesday – .8 miles in 15 minutes – A quick walk before a late morning meeting.

What I played

• MLB The Show 23 (Orioles) – I went 1-2 in a series against the Astros this week.
• FC 26 (Norway)
• FC 26 (FC Barecelona) – I started a season with Barca on Friday.