Related
this is what I'm trying to achieve.
I already know positioning, centering and stuff. The problem I have here, and which I want to ask you guys, is: what's the best practise to have a centered div and everything inside it to be centered while having a single one's background color exceed to the full width of the page always keeping it centered?
It's a super common layout in fact, I just don't know what's the correct way of "thinking" it.
Should I think the layout as "I make a big box with 1280px width, center it with margin: 0 auto; and then do something special for that div's background - and only the background, content should stay in place - to exceed or should I make something like a class to center every single element the same way but repeating my code?
So basically, should be all inside a single box and that div exceed in the background only or it's actually better to center everything separately by repeating the code?
Keep in mind the site is not responsive and doesn't need to adapt/scale and also that the light grey area is also the "body" colore so the dark grey area is the only special case in the page that should exceed.
My suggestion:
I would create three basic containers for the full width support. Then nest content in it!
html, body{
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
border: 0; /*ie older versions*/
}
header {
background-color: antiquewhite;
}
section{
background-color: ActiveCaption;
}
footer{
background-color: aquamarine;
}
.inner-wrapper{
max-width: 300px;
margin: 0 auto;
border-left: 1px solid black;
border-right: 1px solid black;
height: 80px;
text-align: center;
}
section .inner-wrapper{
height: 200px;
}
<header>
<div class="inner-wrapper">
<div>some content</div>
</div>
</header>
<section>
<div class="inner-wrapper">
<div>some content</div>
</div>
</section>
<footer>
<div class="inner-wrapper">
<div>some content</div>
</div>
</footer>
This is a absolut basic but robust layout an i used it several times. It is very easy to make it responsive with media queries or fluid with percentage settings!
In my opinion you should give to the body or to a container div the background color property and that div to be full width and height then the div that is in the middle you should give a margin:0 auto; and a specific width, this is what I would do, but it depends on what you are trying to do, what is the most common way you do it in order to you to know to how to do it the same next time, faster.
Can anyone help me with position my content block?
It looks good if there are a lot of content, but not when window higher than content block.
Actualy I need that "content" block on my picture teked all free space (height) and thats why footer stick to the bottom.
I have next HTML markup:
<div>
<header></header>
<nav class="breadcrumbing"></nav>
<section class="left_nav"></section>
<section class="content"></section>
<footer></footer>
</div>
With this CSS:
html,body{width:100%;margin:0;padding:0;}
body{background-color:#629302}
body>div{width:400px;height:100%;margin:0 auto;background-color:#FFF;}
body>div>header{height:50px;background-color:#9dc155}
body>div>nav.breadcrumbing{display:block;height:10px;margin:0;padding:0;}
body>div>section.left_nav{width:172px;margin:8px 20px;float:left;background-color:#cdef88}
body>div>section.content{width:168px;float:left;}
body>div>footer{padding:19px 19px 22px;background-color: #e58b04;clear:left;}
I allready tried answers from Is it possible to get a div's height to be 100% of an available area? and some same questions but with no luck.
ALso my live HTML has backgroun-images, so I can't just put footer to the bottom with position:absolute.
There I post my HTML to preview: jsfiddle.
UPD: scaled live preview:
You will have to set the html and body height property to 100%; then you can set the footer height to 100%; this will tell the main container elements the real meaning of 100% and it will work.
Your updated fiddle
Basically, these are the rules you have to add:
html, body {
height: 100%;
}
footer {
height: 100%;
}
Update
Ok, I might have misunderstood your requirements, here is a cleaner example:
Working example
Basically, what you additionally do in this example is having your wrapper element display:table with an height: 100%, then you make your footer display as table-row.
Important note: This solution uses display-table which is compatible only for IE8+. If supporting IE7 is an issue for you, then you have two solutions that I can think of out of my head:
Either you use a fixed-width footer, push it below the content and then pull it back with a combination of negative margin and padding.
Or you fallback to support of older browser by putting your footer in position using some javascript.
This the breakdown of the code:
HTML
<div class="wrapper">
<header></header>
<section class="main-content">
{child elements of your main-content area}
</section>
<footer></footer>
</div>
CSS
html, body {
height: 100%;
margin: 0;
}
.wrapper {
display: table;
margin: 0 auto;
height: 100%;
}
.main-content {
display: table-row;
height: 100%;
}
footer {
display: table-row;
}
Here's an updated fiddle
The crux of this is setting the body to be absolutely positioned to the viewport. From there, if you wanted to allow it to scroll as you normally would, then you would change the footer's position to fixed and the content div's CSS to this:
body>div>div{width:400px;height:100%;margin:0 auto;background-color:#FFF;
position:absolute; top: 0; bottom: 0; overflow-y:auto;}
I've wrapped your content div in another to allow for the automatic margins to center your page, and then defined the footer's box sizing as border-box to account for the padding you're adding to it as well.
I want to add space in the HTML document like the ones inside the orange rectangle. I don't know the technical term for what it's professionally called. Apologies.
If you are looking to center your web page and you are using a fixed width on your main container this can easily be achieved.
CSS
.container {
margin:0 auto; /* this will center the page */
width:960px; /* use your width here */
}
HTML
<body>
<div class="container">
<!-- all your great content here -->
</div>
</body>
If you need help applying this to your html/css please post your html and I would be glad to help you.
Why not do this? :
<style type="text/css">
html, body {
margin: 0;
border: 0;
width: 100%;
}
body {
padding: 0 20px;
}
#main {
margin: 0 auto; /* in case you want to set a fixed width on this as well */
}
</style>
<body>
<div id="main"></div>
</body>
This way, depending on the width on the window, the main div will resize and there will always be a fixed space on both sides. If you want the main div have a fixed width and the spacing on the sides to be resized automatically, use the other solutions.
Those would be margins. But your better option would be to wrap the main area in a div or other block element/sectioning root, set it to the width that you want, and then center it with margin: 0 auto;
you need margins. set the style to margin:0 auto; that will center your div
I have heard a lot of my friends talk about using wrappers in CSS to center the "main" part of a website.
Is this the best way to accomplish this? What is best practice? Are there other ways?
Most basic example (live example here):
CSS:
#wrapper {
width: 500px;
margin: 0 auto;
}
HTML:
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
Piece of text inside a 500px width div centered on the page
</div>
</body>
How the principle works:
Create your wrapper and assign it a certain width. Then apply an automatic horizontal margin to it by using margin: 0 auto; or margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;. The automatic margins make sure your element is centered.
The best way to do it depends on your specific use-case.
However, if we speak for the general best practices for implementing a CSS Wrapper, here is my proposal: introduce an additional <div> element with the following class:
/**
* 1. Center the content. Yes, that's a bit opinionated.
* 2. Use `max-width` instead `width`
* 3. Add padding on the sides.
*/
.wrapper {
margin-right: auto; /* 1 */
margin-left: auto; /* 1 */
max-width: 960px; /* 2 */
padding-right: 10px; /* 3 */
padding-left: 10px; /* 3 */
}
... for those of you, who want to understand why, here are the 4 big reasons I see:
1. Use max-width instead width
In the answer currently accepted Aron says width. I disagree and I propose max-width instead.
Setting the width of a block-level element will prevent it from stretching out to the edges of its container. Therefore, the Wrapper element will take up the specified width. The problem occurs when the browser window is smaller than the width of the element. The browser then adds a horizontal scrollbar to the page.
Using max-width instead, in this situation, will improve the browser's handling of small windows. This is important when making a site usable on small devices. Here’s a good example showcasing the problem:
/**
* The problem with this one occurs
* when the browser window is smaller than 960px.
* The browser then adds a horizontal scrollbar to the page.
*/
.width {
width: 960px;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
border: 3px solid #73AD21;
}
/**
* Using max-width instead, in this situation,
* will improve the browser's handling of small windows.
* This is important when making a site usable on small devices.
*/
.max-width {
max-width: 960px;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
border: 3px solid #73AD21;
}
/**
* Credits for the tip: W3Schools
* https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_max-width.asp
*/
<div class="width">This div element has width: 960px;</div>
<br />
<div class="max-width">This div element has max-width: 960px;</div>
So in terms of Responsiveness, is seems like max-width is the better choice!-
2. Add Padding on the Sides
I’ve seen a lot of developers still forget one edge case. Let’s say we have a Wrapper with max-width set to 980px. The edge case appears when the user’s device screen width is exactly 980px. The content then will exactly glue to the edges of the screen with not any breathing space left.
Generally, we’d want to have a bit of padding on the sides. That’s why if I need to implement a Wrapper with a total width of 980px, I’d do it like so:
.wrapper {
max-width: 960px; /** 20px smaller, to fit the paddings on the sides */
padding-right: 10px;
padding-left: 10px;
/** ... omitted for brevity */
}
Therefore, that’s why adding padding-left and padding-right to your Wrapper might be a good idea, especially on mobile.
Or, consider using box-sizing so that the padding doesn’t change the overall width at all.
3. Use a <div> Instead of a <section>
By definition, the Wrapper has no semantic meaning. It simply holds all visual elements and content on the page. It’s just a generic container. Therefore, in terms of semantics, <div> is the best choice.
One might wonder if maybe a <section> element could fit this purpose. However, here’s what the W3C spec says:
The element is not a generic container element. When an element is needed only for styling purposes or as a convenience for scripting, authors are encouraged to use the div element instead. A general rule is that the section element is appropriate only if the element's contents would be listed explicitly in the document's outline.
The <section> element carries it’s own semantics. It represents a thematic grouping of content. The theme of each section should be identified, typically by including a heading (h1-h6 element) as a child of the section element.
Examples of sections would be chapters, the various tabbed pages in a tabbed dialog box, or the numbered sections of a thesis. A Web site's home page could be split into sections for an introduction, news items, and contact information.
It might not seem very obvious at first sight, but yes! The plain old <div> fits best for a Wrapper!
4. Using the <body> Tag vs. Using an Additional <div>
Here's a related question. Yes, there are some instances where you could simply use the <body> element as a wrapper. However, I wouldn’t recommend you to do so, simply due to flexibility and resilience to changes.
Here's an use-case that illustrates a possible issue: Imagine if on a later stage of the project you need to enforce a footer to "stick" to the end of the document (bottom of the viewport when the document is short). Even if you can use the most modern way to do it - with Flexbox, I guess you need an additional Wrapper <div>.
I would conclude it is still best practice to have an additional <div> for implementing a CSS Wrapper. This way if spec requirements change later on you don't have to add the Wrapper later and deal with moving the styles around a lot. After all, we're only talking about 1 extra DOM element.
You don't need a wrapper, just use the body as the wrapper.
CSS:
body {
margin:0 auto;
width:200px;
}
HTML:
<body>
<p>some content</p>
<body>
<div class="wrapper">test test test</div>
.wrapper{
width:100px;
height:100px;
margin:0 auto;
}
Check working example at http://jsfiddle.net/8wpYV/
The easiest way is to have a "wrapper" div element with a width set, and a left and right margin of auto.
Sample markup:
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<style type="text/css">
.wrapper { width: 960px; margin: 0 auto; background-color: #cccccc; }
body { margin: 0; padding: 0 }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="wrapper">
your content...
</div>
</body>
</html>
a "wrapper" is just a term for some element that encapsulates all other visual elements on the page. The body tag seems to fit the bill, but you would be at the mercy of the browser to determine what displays beneath that if you adjust the max-width.
Instead, we use div because it acts as a simple container that does not break. the main, header, footer, and section tags in HTML5 are just div elements named appropriately. It seems that there could (or should) be a wrapper tag because of this trend, but you may use whichever method of wrapping you find most suitable for your situation. through classes, ids and css, you can use a span tag in a very similar way.
There are a lot of HTML element tags that we do not use often or possibly even know about. Doing some research would show you what can be done with pure HTML.
Are there other ways?
Negative margins were also used for horizontal (and vertical!) centering but there are quite a few drawbacks when you resize the window browser: no window slider; the content can't be seen anymore if the size of the window browser is too small.
No surprise as it uses absolute positioning, a beast never completely tamed!
Example: http://bluerobot.com/web/css/center2.html
So that was only FYI as you asked for it, margin: 0 auto; is a better solution.
Centering content has so many avenues that it can't really be explored in a single answer. If you would like to explore them, CSS Zen Garden is an enjoyable-if-old resource exploring the many, many ways to layout content in a way even old browsers will tolerate.
The correct way, if you don't have any mitigating requirements, is to just apply margin: auto to the sides, and a width. If your page has no content that needs to go outside those margins, just apply it to the body:
body {
padding: 0;
margin: 15px auto;
width: 500px;
}
https://jsfiddle.net/b9chris/62wgq8nk/
So here we've got a 500px wide set of content centered at all* sizes. The padding 0 is to deal with some browsers that like to apply some default padding and throw us off a bit. In the example I do wrap the content in an article tag to be nice to Screen Readers, Pocket, etc so for example the blind can jump past the nav you likely have (which should be in nav) and straight to the content.
I say all* because below 500px this will mess up - we're not being Responsive. To get Responsive, you could just use Bootstrap etc, but building it yourself you use a Media Query like:
body {
padding: 0;
margin: 15px;
#media (min-width: 500px) {
margin: 15px auto;
width: 500px;
}
}
Note that this is SCSS/SASS syntax - if you're using plain CSS, it's inverted:
body {
padding: 0;
margin: 15px;
}
#media (min-width: 500px) {
body {
margin: 15px auto;
width: 500px;
}
}
https://jsfiddle.net/b9chris/62wgq8nk/6/
It's common however to want to center just one chunk of a page, so let's apply this to only the article tag in a final example.
body {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
nav {
width: 100%;
box-sizing: border-box;
padding: 15px;
}
article {
margin: 15px;
#media (min-width: 500px) {
margin: 15px auto;
width: 500px;
}
}
https://jsfiddle.net/b9chris/62wgq8nk/17/
Note that this final example also uses CSS Flexbox in the nav, which is also one of the newer ways you could center things. So, that's fun.
But, there are special circumstances where you need to use other approaches to center content, and each of those is probably worth its own question (many of them already asked and answered here on this site).
/******************
Fit the body to the edges of the screen
******************/
body {
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
header {
background:black;
width:100%;
}
.header {
height:200px;
}
nav {
width:100%;
background:lightseagreen;
}
.nav {
padding:0;
margin:0;
}
.nav a {
padding:10px;
font-family:tahoma;
font-size:12pt;
color:white;
}
/******************
Centered wrapper, all other content divs will go inside this and will never exceed the width of 960px.
******************/
.wrapper {
width:960px;
max-width:100%;
margin:0 auto;
}
<!-------- Start HTML ---------->
<body>
<header>
<div id="header" class="wrapper">
</div>
</header>
<nav>
<div id="nav" class="wrapper">
</div>
</nav>
</body>
I am trying to lay out a table-like page with two columns. I want the rightmost column to dock to the right of the page, and this column should have a distinct background color. The content in the right side is almost always going to be smaller than that on the left. I would like the div on the right to always be tall enough to reach the separator for the row below it. How can I make my background color fill that space?
.rightfloat {
color: red;
background-color: #BBBBBB;
float: right;
width: 200px;
}
.left {
font-size: 20pt;
}
.separator {
clear: both;
width: 100%;
border-top: 1px solid black;
}
<div class="separator">
<div class="rightfloat">
Some really short content.
</div>
<div class="left">
Some really really really really really really
really really really really big content
</div>
</div>
<div class="separator">
<div class="rightfloat">
Some more short content.
</div>
<div class="left">
Some really really really really really really
really really really really big content
</div>
</div>
Edit: I agree that this example is very table-like and an actual table would be a fine choice. But my "real" page will eventually be less table-like, and I'd just like to first master this task!
Also, for some reason, when I create/edit my posts in IE7, the code shows up correctly in the preview view, but when I actually post the message, the formatting gets removed. Editing my post in Firefox 2 seems to have worked, FWIW.
Another edit: Yeah, I unaccepted GateKiller's answer. It does indeed work nicely on my simple page, but not in my actual heavier page. I'll investigate some of the links y'all have pointed me to.
Ahem...
The short answer to your question is that you must set the height of 100% to the body and html tag, then set the height to 100% on each div element you want to make 100% the height of the page.
Actually, 100% height will not work in most design situations - this may be short but it is not a good answer. Google "any column longest" layouts. The best way is to put the left and right cols inside a wrapper div, float the left and right cols and then float the wrapper - this makes it stretch to the height of the inner containers - then set background image on the outer wrapper. But watch for any horizontal margins on the floated elements in case you get the IE "double margin float bug".
Give this a try:
html, body,
#left, #right {
height: 100%
}
#left {
float: left;
width: 25%;
}
#right {
width: 75%;
}
<html>
<body>
<div id="left">
Content
</div>
<div id="right">
Content
</div>
</body>
</html>
Some browsers support CSS tables, so you could create this kind of layout using the various CSS display: table-* values. There's more information on CSS tables in this article (and the book of the same name) by Rachel Andrew: Everything You Know About CSS is Wrong
If you need a consistent layout in older browsers that don't support CSS tables, you need to do two things:
Make your "table row" element clear its internal floated elements.
The simplest way of doing this is to set overflow: hidden which takes care of most browsers, and zoom: 1 to trigger the hasLayout property in older versions of IE.
There are many other ways of clearing floats, if this approach causes undesirable side effects you should check the question which method of 'clearfix' is best and the article on having layout for other methods.
Balance the height of the two "table cell" elements.
There are two ways you could approach this. Either you can create the appearance of equal heights by setting a background image on the "table row" element (the faux columns technique) or you can make the heights of the columns match by giving each a large padding and equally large negative margin.
Faux columns is the simpler approach and works very well when the width of one or both columns is fixed. The other technique copes better with variable width columns (based on percentage or em units) but can cause problems in some browsers if you link directly to content within your columns (e.g. if a column contained <div id="foo"></div> and you linked to #foo)
Here's an example using the padding/margin technique to balance the height of the columns.
html, body {
height: 100%;
}
.row {
zoom: 1; /* Clear internal floats in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* Clear internal floats */
}
.right-column,
.left-column {
padding-bottom: 1000em; /* Balance the heights of the columns */
margin-bottom: -1000em; /* */
}
.right-column {
width: 20%;
float: right;
}
.left-column {
width: 79%;
float: left;
}
<div class="row">
<div class="right-column">Right column content</div>
<div class="left-column">Left column content</div>
</div>
<div class="row">
<div class="right-column">Right column content</div>
<div class="left-column">Left column content</div>
</div>
This Barcamp demo by Natalie Downe may also be useful when figuring out how to add additional columns and nice spacing and padding: Equal Height Columns and other tricks (it's also where I first learnt about the margin/padding trick to balance column heights)
I gave up on strictly CSS and used a little jquery:
var leftcol = $("#leftcolumn");
var rightcol = $("#rightcolumn");
var leftcol_height = leftcol.height();
var rightcol_height = rightcol.height();
if (leftcol_height > rightcol_height)
rightcol.height(leftcol_height);
else
leftcol.height(rightcol_height);
Here's an example of equal-height columns - Equal Height Columns - revisited
You can also check out the idea of "Faux Columns" as well - Faux Columns
Don't go the table route. If it's not tabular data, don't treat it as such. It's bad for accessibility and flexibility.
I had the same problem on my site (shameless plug).
I had the nav section "float: right" and the main body of the page has a background image about 250px across aligned to the right and "repeat-y". I then added something with "clear: both" to it. Here is the W3Schools and the CSS clear property.
I placed the clear at the bottom of the "page" classed div. My page source looks something like this.
body
-> header (big blue banner)
-> headerNav (green bar at the top)
-> breadcrumbs (invisible at the moment)
-> page
-> navigation (floats to the right)
-> content (main content)
-> clear (the quote at the bottom)
-> footerNav (the green bar at the bottom)
-> clear (empty but still does something)
-> footer (blue thing at the bottom)
I hope that helps :)
No need to write own css, there is an library called "Bootstrap css" by calling that in your HTML head section, we can achieve many stylings,Here is an example:
If you want to provide two column in a row, you can simply do the following:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/css/bootstrap.min.css">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-6">Content</div>
<div class="col-md-6">Content</div>
</div>
Here md stands for medium device,,you can use col-sm-6 for smaller devices and col-xs-6 for extra small devices
The short answer to your question is that you must set the height of 100% to the body and html tag, then set the height to 100% on each div element you want to make 100% the height of the page.
A 2 column layout is a little bit tough to get working in CSS (at least until CSS3 is practical.)
Floating left and right will work to a point, but it won't allow you to extend the background. To make backgrounds stay solid, you'll have to implement a technique known as "faux columns," which basically means your columns themselves won't have a background image. Your 2 columns will be contained inside of a parent tag. This parent tag is given a background image that contains the 2 column colors you want. Make this background only as big as you need it to (if it is a solid color, only make it 1 pixel high) and have it repeat-y. AListApart has a great walkthrough on what is needed to make it work.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fauxcolumns/
I can think of 2 options
Use javascript to resize the smaller column on page load.
Fake the equal heights by setting the background-color for the column on the container <div/> instead (<div class="separator"/>) with repeat-y
Just trying to help out here so the code is more readable.
Remember that you can insert code snippets by clicking on the button at the top with "101010". Just enter your code then highlight it and click the button.
Here is an example:
<html>
<body>
<style type="text/css">
.rightfloat {
color: red;
background-color: #BBBBBB;
float: right;
width: 200px;
}
.left {
font-size: 20pt;
}
.separator {
clear: both;
width: 100%;
border-top: 1px solid black;
}
</style>
This should work for you: Set the height to 100% in your css for the html and body elements. You can then adjust the height to your needs in the div.
html {
height: 100%;
}
body {
height: 100%;
}
div {
height: 100%; /* Set Div Height */
}
It's enough to just use the css property width to do so.
Here is an example:
<style type="text/css">;
td {
width:25%;
height:100%;
float:left;
}
</style>
.rightfloat {
color: red;
background-color: #BBBBBB;
float: right;
width: 200px;
}
.left {
font-size: 20pt;
}
.separator {
clear: both;
width: 100%;
border-top: 1px solid black;
}
<div class="separator">
<div class="rightfloat">
Some really short content.
</div>
<div class="left">
Some really really really really really really
really really really really big content
</div>
</div>
<div class="separator">
<div class="rightfloat">
Some more short content.
</div>
<div class="left">
Some really really really really really really
really really really really big content
</div>
</div>