Angular Material Grid Layout Responsive

Angular Material is a powerful extension onto Angular for UI design. I personally fell in love with it before I ever used it. When I started using it I knew I would find things I would want to improve. Material Grid List is so handy to use and makes layouts excellent for use. However it’s not responsive.

<mat-grid-list cols="2" rowHeight="350px">

Making it responsive was something I realized I would need for my project. Looking around I found a lot of different ways people were doing it. However, none gave the flexibility that I wanted. I decided a Directive would be best that would complete the cols value for me. I had to spend some time looking up a few things but it has certainly taught me a few new things.

Below you will find my implementation of gridCols directive. You can pass in a value or you can use the default which will use the values for number of columns: {xs: 1, sm: 2, md: 4, lg: 6, xl: 8}

<mat-grid-list [gridCols] rowHeight="350px">

Or you can pass in a set of values to specify your own:

<mat-grid-list [gridCols]="{xs: 1, sm: 2, md: 3, lg: 4, xl: 5}" rowHeight="350px">

Either case you will the number of columns that your screen size dictates. Below is the implementation for gridCols:

import {Directive, Input, OnDestroy, OnInit} from '@angular/core';
import { MatGridList } from '@angular/material';
import { BreakpointObserver, Breakpoints } from '@angular/cdk/layout';

export interface GridColumns {
  xs: number;
  sm: number;
  md: number;
  lg: number;
  xl: number;
  selector: '[gridCols]'
export class GridColsDirective implements OnInit {
  private gridCols: GridColumns = {xs: 1, sm: 2, md: 4, lg: 6, xl: 8};

  public get cols(): GridColumns {
    return this.gridCols;

  public set cols(map: GridColumns) {
    if (map && ('object' === (typeof map))) {
      this.gridCols = map;

  public constructor(private grid: MatGridList, private breakpointObserver: BreakpointObserver) {
    if(this.grid != null) {
      this.grid.cols =;

  public ngOnInit(): void {
    if(this.grid != null) {
      this.grid.cols =;
    ]).subscribe(result => {

      if (result.breakpoints[Breakpoints.XSmall]) {
        this.grid.cols = this.gridCols.xs;
      if (result.breakpoints[Breakpoints.Small]) {
        this.grid.cols =;
      if (result.breakpoints[Breakpoints.Medium]) {
        this.grid.cols =;
      if (result.breakpoints[Breakpoints.Large]) {
        this.grid.cols = this.gridCols.lg;
      if (result.breakpoints[Breakpoints.XLarge]) {
        this.grid.cols = this.gridCols.xl;
  • Ghostprogrammer
  • I am known for being able to quickly decipher difficult problems to assist development teams in producing a solution. I have been called upon to be the Team Lead for multiple large-scale projects. I have a keen interest in learning new technologies, always ready for a new challenge.

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