I've found the best way of equalizing heights/widths is just using display:table/table-row/table-cell. It handles resizing (responsiveness) and doesn't require any JavaScript.
Yes, that's the correct CSS way.
Besides, this plugin does not work with box-sizing border-box. Which is unacceptable at (almost) 2013.
But if in need to do this kind of things with Javascript, please take a look at https://github.com/atirip/jquery.pp
This repo is not solely of dimensions, but you will find many useful and normalized (all your tags may even be mixed of content-box and border-box) dimension methods inside, both to measure and to set dimensions.
As with <table> markup, wouldn't that prevent content from reflowing? I might be missing something, but normally when I do this, I want the number of elements per row to vary depending on what fits, whether that's 10 elements on a large screen or 3 on a phone. Hardcoding the assumption that there will always be X per row (say, 5) seems to miss the point.
As opposed to your layout being entirely dependent on JavaScript? I'm not sure I see the difference between requiring JavaScript code to manipulate the layout versus using CSS to do the same. Why is one better/worse than the other?
Well that's what CSS was supposed to do, but since it never gave us a way of equalizing heights except for tables...
Then tables are obviously the way to go.
Resorting to JavaScript hacks when HTML/CSS provides you with a solution, despite it being "non-semantic" in some people's eyes, seems unnecessary. (Of course, there are cases where tables won't work either, and JS is your only option.)
If you don't like this you could still use elem.style.(width|height) (and maybe even detach the container beforehand to prevent unnecessary reflows), which will be faster and doesn't require a 90KB lib.
Good call on a non-js version, this was abstracted from some code for a larger project. When I find the time I'll update the repo with a branch for a non-jQuery version, but there are plenty of simple scripts out there.
Also, jQuery is 32KB minified and gzip'd AND that's if it's not already cached. Using the Google CDN helps as well, chances are you may not even be downloading it. Not looking to get into a jQuery vs. js debate.
"I don't always write jQuery, but when I do, I use Javascript"
I know that. In fact I use jQuery in almost every website I'm writing, because I need backwards compatibility with older browsers. But since I started working on a certain website which only supports IE9, I'm pretty much only using jQuery for $.fn.animation. I just feel like it's a huge waste of computing time. Apart from that I think it's important to write "cross-library" plugins.
