css - How can I create multiple rows using semantic markup in Bootstrap 3?

Question

I have eight "simple" panels that I want to layout using Bootstrap 3. The markup is

<div class="dashboard">
    <div class="dashboard-panel">
        <h1>Panel 1</h1>
        <p>This is panel 1 (and a random piece of text)</p>
    </div>

    <div class="dashboard-panel">
        <h1>Panel 2</h1>
        <p>This is panel 2 (and a random piece of text)</p>
    </div>

    // ...and so on - up to panel 8.
</div>

I'd like two two rows of four in md column size and four rows of two in sm column size.

I'm using this following LESS rules:

.dashboard {
    .make-row();
}

.dashboard-panel {
    .make-sm-column(6);
    .make-md-column(3);
}

However, this creates problems in that the panels don't always form two rows of four. It depends on how much content is in the respective panels. If one of the panels is relatively short, a third row gets created with other panels until the short panels.

I thought that, as I'm filling up all 12 slots with the first four panels, the next four would move cleanly to the second row.

What am I doing wrong? And how can I make this work while retaining the semantic markup?

Answer 1

The problem you describe is documented here: http://getbootstrap.com/css/#grid-responsive-resets

The grid-responsive-resets add additional div's to your html which will break your semantic markup.

I have never tried to append (for example with :after) the grid-responsive-resets properties conditional. With conditional i mean every fourth element for the md-grid. Theoretical i think i should be possible, we should ask @ScottS maybe :)

Something like this (won't work, example)

.col-md-3:nth-child(4n+0):after
{
    content: ".";
    display: block;
    height: 0;
    clear: both;
    visibility: hidden;
}

Alternative is to give all your panels the same height, which don't work if you don't know the max possible height in the case of dynamic content. If you don't know the max height you could fix this with javascript / jQuery. (see: https://stackoverflow.com/a/19777087/1596547)