The Holy Grail format earned its title as it was irritating to construct. Designers sought after a blank header and footer with two sidebars flanking a first-rate content material column, however making the ones columns behave, particularly responsively, incessantly required hacks and workarounds.

That’s precisely the type of downside Divi 5‘s Grid System is supposed to unravel. CSS Grid has all the time been one of the most perfect gear for this format, and Divi 5 brings Grid controls at once into the Visible Builder so you’ll set column ratios, spacing, and responsive conduct with out leaving your workflow. On this publish, we’ll construct the Holy Grail format step-by-step and fine-tune it for each and every instrument. Let’s get began!

What Is The Holy Grail Format?

The Holy Grail format includes a header on the most sensible, a footer on the backside, and 3 columns within the center. Your major content material is situated within the heart column, which is in most cases the widest, whilst the left and proper columns include parts equivalent to navigation or commercials.

In 2001, Rob Chandanai created the primary natural CSS model of this three-column design. Eric Costello later gave it the “Holy Grail” title, and that label captured the disappointment completely. Designers sought after this format badly. Getting it to paintings proper used to be some other tale.

The early strategies used background photographs, JavaScript to compare column heights, and an over the top selection of nested divs. They were given the task carried out, type of. However each and every way had issues.

What Makes The Holy Grail Format So Fascinating

The equivalent top columns made this format essential. Content material appeared balanced, regardless of how a lot textual content every column contained. Websites with a lot of content material benefited from the transparent construction.

Information portals may just arrange articles along advertisements and navigation. Blogs were given blank sidebars for classes and up to date posts. On-line retail outlets discovered house for product filters and proposals.

The middle column stored your central content material entrance and heart. Readers excited by what mattered whilst nonetheless having fast get admission to to navigation and extras. The design labored simply as neatly on telephones because it did on desktops. Columns may just stack or reorder in accordance with display screen measurement.

Meet Divi 5’s CSS Grid Machine

Divi 5 places CSS Grid at once into the Visible Builder. Sections, rows, columns, and teams all paintings as grid packing containers now. Drop any module within any such packing containers, and it turns into a grid merchandise. Textual content blocks, photographs, and buttons all snap into the grid construction you create.

Whilst you upload a bit or row, you’ll see Grid templates along Flex options. Pick out a three-column template, a four-column format, or a sidebar construction. The templates take care of the setup. You drop in content material, and the grid mechanically positions the whole thing appropriately. This auto placement fills cells so as. The primary merchandise is going within the first cellular, the second one in the second one cellular, and so forth down the road.

What makes Divi 5’s Grids stand out is:

Column And Row Controls

Hole controls take care of spacing. Horizontal Hole places house between columns. Vertical Hole areas out rows. Set each to 20px, and also you get constant respiring room throughout all of your grid. The Visible Builder shows those adjustments reside as you’re making changes.

Column Widths provide you with 5 choices. Equivalent Width Columns make the whole thing uniform. Auto Width Columns measurement in accordance with content material. Guide Width Columns permit you to write your individual CSS values like 1fr 2fr 1fr for customized proportions. Equivalent Minimal Width and Equivalent Mounted Width take care of different sizing wishes.

Row Heights paintings the similar manner. Auto adjusts to content material, Equivalent makes all of them fit, Minimal units a baseline, and Mounted locks in explicit measurements. Combine a four-column grid with auto top rows, and also you get a format that adapts to no matter content material you throw at it.

Software Particular Settings

Each grid surroundings works throughout all display screen sizes. Exchange column counts for capsules, regulate gaps for telephones, or trade all of the Grid Path on cellular gadgets. The responsive controls take a seat proper within every surroundings. Click on the instrument icon, select your breakpoint, and alter that individual display screen measurement with out touching the others.

Guide Regulate Via Offset Regulations

Auto placement works till you want one thing other. Grid Offset Regulations assist you to smash pieces out of the automated glide. You’ll be able to make an merchandise span more than one columns, pin it to a selected row, or shift its place without reference to the place it sits for your code.

Goal the primary merchandise, goal each and every 3rd merchandise, or write customized nth kid selectors for complicated patterns. Set a Column Span of two, and that merchandise stretches throughout two columns. Pin it to Row Get started 3, and it jumps to the 3rd row. Those laws create asymmetrical layouts the place positive items stand out, whilst others adhere to the usual grid.

The program handles the Holy Grail format we mentioned previous. 3 columns on desktop, stacked on cellular, with exact keep an eye on over each and every size and spacing price. It all occurs via dropdowns, sliders, and quantity fields. Divi cuts out the CSS so you’ll center of attention on construction your aspired layouts visually.

If you wish to discover the entire choices to be had for Grids, right here’s a deep dive that is going over every of those choices.

Making A Holy Grail Format In Divi 5

The grid controls we simply lined paintings in combination to create this Holy Grail format with out a lot effort. We’re going to construct this step-by-step, and to turn you ways briefly the items fall into position as soon as the preliminary construction is ready. Take a look:

Upload A Grid Phase To Your Web page

Get started through including a bit for your web page through clicking at the blue (+) icon in your web page. Clicking on it finds a host of premade format templates for each Flexbox and Grid.

Because the Holy Grail format works perfect with CSS Grids, we can make a selection one of the most premade Grid templates, which will likely be marked with a yellow badge.

Pick out the four-column template. This template options 4 columns organized throughout two rows.

Delete the fourth column through clicking at the delete icon within the settings.

Then, head to the Collection of Columns box and set it to three beneath Format Settings within the Design tab. You’ll be left with a blank, three-column construction the place every column occupies equivalent house.

Divi 5 if truth be told features a grid template that resembles the Holy Grail format. It comes with header and footer columns already inbuilt.

We’re skipping it so you’ll see the way to construct the construction from scratch. Disposing of the additional header and footer spaces additionally calls for further steps past the scope of this walkthrough. On the other hand, in case you are having a look to construct a touchdown web page or want to use the header and footer house for one thing else, be happy to make use of the mentioned template.

Set Proportions

Now, the 3 columns we added have equivalent widths. However the Holy Grail design is other. Your major content material will have to be positioned within the heart, the place it receives probably the most house. The sidebars on every aspect will have to be narrower, as they simply include navigation, advertisements, or further hyperlinks.

To succeed in this, navigate to the Design tab and find Column Widths beneath Format. Click on the dropdown and make a selection Guide Width Columns. This selection means that you can write customized values for every column, relatively than protecting them uniform.

Sort 1fr 2fr 1fr into the Grid Column Template box. The fr unit stands for fractional unit, and it divides your container’s to be had house into portions. Those 3 values upload as much as a complete of four portions.

The left sidebar takes 1 phase out of four, which equals 25% of the width, whilst your heart column takes 2 portions out of four, which equals 50%. The fitting sidebar takes the overall phase, some other 25%. This ratio creates the vintage Holy Grail glance with a distinguished content material house flanked through narrower sidebars.

You’ll be able to regulate those numbers later if you wish to have other proportions. Take a look at 1fr 3fr 1fr for a fair wider heart, or 2fr 3fr 2fr for somewhat larger sidebars.

Modify Gaps And Spacing

Your 3 columns at the moment are sized appropriately, however the format seems to be cramped. That occurs as a result of Divi units rows to 80% width through default. Head to the Sizing tab beneath Design. Exchange Width and Max Width to 99%. This makes your row span the whole width of the container whilst nonetheless leaving some respiring house.

It’s essential to additionally use 99vw, which stretches the row throughout all of the viewport without reference to mum or dad packing containers. The 99% price works higher right here because it respects your web site’s content material width settings and doesn’t create horizontal scrollbars.

Now for the gaps between columns. In finding the Horizontal Hole box beneath Format. Content material-heavy websites, equivalent to blogs, paintings neatly with gaps of 40px to 60px. Portfolios and symbol galleries seem extra visually interesting with a tighter spacing of round 20px to 30px. Minimalist designs can cross even wider at 80px or extra.

Pixels paintings fantastic, however you’ll wish to regulate them manually for every display screen measurement. Divi 5 supports rem, em, percentages, clamp, and calc functions here, which will scale higher.

If you wish to take this additional and automate those spacing selections throughout all of your web site whilst keeping up responsiveness, take a look at our information on making a gap-based spacing system in Divi 5.

Set Up Major And Sidebar Content material

The Holy Grail format divides pages into 3 practical zones. The middle column receives probably the most width to show number one content material like articles, product listings, or portfolios.

Other web site varieties want other content material configurations. A weblog facilities articles within the center column. The left sidebar displays publish classes, archives through date, and a seek serve as. The fitting sidebar holds creator bios, common posts, and electronic mail signup bureaucracy. Information websites practice identical patterns however incessantly upload breaking information widgets or trending subjects to a unmarried sidebar.

Whilst sidebar roles would possibly turn in accordance with regional personal tastes, the middle all the time dominates:

• Blogs illustrate this through hanging articles or publish content material within the center, archives and seek at the left, and bios or common posts at the proper.
• Information websites incessantly use identical configurations however continuously upload breaking information widgets or trending subjects to their sidebars.
• Portfolio websites exhibit paintings within the heart column the usage of galleries or challenge grids. The left sidebar comprises filters through challenge sort, shopper, or yr. The fitting sidebar options shopper testimonials, awards, touch bureaucracy, and social evidence.
• Industry and repair websites prominently function provider descriptions or case research. The left sidebar organizes services and products through class or business. The fitting sidebar drives conversions with touch bureaucracy, industry hours, and consider badges or shopper trademarks to determine authority.
• Club websites and finding out platforms position path content material within the central column. The left sidebar shows continual module navigation, growth monitoring, and lesson lists. The fitting sidebar displays trainer data, upcoming reside classes, or dialogue boards, assisting pupil retention.

Including Modules To Your Columns

Click on the black plus icon for your columns to peer the entire modules Divi 5 provides.

Modules equivalent to Textual content, Photographs, and Blurbs give a boost to dynamic content that retrieves main points out of your database. It’s essential to assign dynamic content material to a Identify because the Put up Identify, and it’s going to show the identify of your publish mechanically.

Divi 5 additionally comprises modules like Put up Sliders for exhibiting content material. For extra keep an eye on, you must pair the Group and Group Carousel modules with Divi 5’s Loop Builder.

The Loop Builder offers you explicit content material filters when you want them. It’s essential to permit the Loop choice for your column settings earlier than including modules. From there, set your question sort to “posts,” select your publish sort, and filter out through class, tag, or customized box. This setup works neatly for featured content material sections, curated collections, or any state of affairs the place automated chronological ordering doesn’t meet your wishes.

For navigation, you must use the Menu module and configure which menu to show within the module settings. An Icon Record module additionally works neatly for arranged navigation parts. It’s essential to upload an Electronic mail Optin module on the most sensible for e-newsletter signups and position a Social Media Practice module beneath for engagement. Symbol modules are nice for banners or visible callouts all the way through your format.

Position those modules in whichever column is sensible in your web site and desire. Your content material sort, target market wishes, and design personal tastes will have to information those selections. Use animations and sticky results to make those layouts extra fascinating.

You will have to check other preparations and assume out of your customer’s viewpoint, and regulate the module placement in accordance with how other people if truth be told use your web site, now not simply the way you assume they are going to.

After hanging your modules, taste them together with your favorite colours, fonts, border types, and extra, making them extra interesting. You’ll be able to additionally use Design Variables for those parts or even create or use present Option Group and Element Presets.

Configure How The Format Seems On Units

Now that your Holy Grail format is coming in combination, you want to regulate it for all display screen sizes to make it actually responsive. Divi 5 offers you seven customizable breakpoints. Each and every breakpoint means that you can preview and edit the precise display screen measurement vary.

It additionally features a Responsive Editor that allows you to keep an eye on settings throughout all breakpoints concurrently. Search for the small icon subsequent to any surroundings box. Click on it to open the responsive editor panel.

You’ll be able to regulate values for every breakpoint with out switching to another view mode. The icon turns blue when a surroundings has changed values throughout other breakpoints.

That 40px spacing works on desktop however feels too free on a 375px telephone display screen. Click on the responsive editor icon subsequent to the Vertical Hole box. Scale back it to 20px for the Telephone breakpoint. Your Horizontal Hole received’t topic since columns stack vertically on cellular. No matter adjustments you’re making most effective persist for the breakpoints at which they had been made. This received’t impact how your desktop format seems.

Stacking Your Format To Higher Have compatibility Constraints

The Holy Grail format works neatly on desktops, however calls for changes for telephones and capsules, because the horizontal house isn’t readily to be had.

Your 3 columns wish to stack vertically on telephones. Transfer to the Telephone breakpoint the usage of the instrument icons on the most sensible of the Visible Builder, then open your row settings. Navigate to Content material and click on Exchange Column Construction. Make a selection the single-column choice. This converts your 3 columns right into a stacked format for telephones whilst conserving the desktop construction.

On the other hand, this will every so often disrupt the content material glide, because it pushes the principle content material a long way beneath, particularly in case your sidebars are full of modules. To handle this, chances are you’ll open every column’s settings and to find the Order tab. Modify the order values to keep an eye on the series. Set your heart column to one, left sidebar to two, and proper sidebar to three. Columns will reorder on cellular with out affecting desktop.

Finally, if wanted, you’ll all the time disguise modules on cellular gadgets and capsules through going to Complex > Visibility. This may well be helpful to make the principle content material seem briefly on positive gadgets.

Upload A Header And Footer With Theme Builder

Your Holy Grail format calls for a header on the most sensible and a footer on the backside. Divi’s Theme Builder looks after the whole thing that displays up throughout more than one pages. You construct a header as soon as and it sounds as if on each and every web page mechanically. The similar applies to footers, weblog publish layouts, product pages, and some other template you want to make use of sitewide.

Head to Divi > Theme Builder for your WordPress dashboard. You’ll see the default template sitting there on the most sensible. Click on Upload International Header or Upload International Footer, and the Visible Builder opens up identical to whilst you constructed that three-column grid previous.

Drop for your menu modules, trademarks, social icons, and call buttons. Taste them on the other hand you wish to have.

The footer works the similar manner.

And identical to that, the format as soon as thought to be onerous is now only a topic of a couple of clicks with Divi 5.

Right here’s the place it will get helpful. That Holy Grail construction you simply constructed can turn out to be your exact weblog publish template. Create a brand new template, assign it to All Posts, and upload a Put up Content material module proper for your heart column.

Now each and every weblog publish you submit fills that heart house whilst your sidebars hang navigation and widgets precisely the place you positioned them.

You’ll be able to additionally specify the place templates seem. Show one header in your homepage and switch it out for one thing other on store pages. Construct customized layouts for WooCommerce merchandise or class archives. Set stipulations to show templates most effective on explicit publish varieties, exclude them from positive pages, or goal person classes and tags.

Take a look at CSS Grid In Divi 5 These days!

The Holy Grail format examined builders’ persistence for years. Getting the ones 3 columns to act took actual talent and persistence.

Neatly, happily, you could have Divi 5‘s Grid System. You get column layouts, responsive stacking, customized proportions, and exact keep an eye on over each and every facet of your design. The Visible Builder displays your adjustments reside.

The whole lot we walked via right here works with out requiring any code adjustments. Construct what used to take hours of CSS in simply mins with Divi 5.

The publish How To Create ‘The Holy Grail’ Grid Page Layout With Divi 5 gave the impression first on Elegant Themes Blog.

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