I want to set up a certain CSS layout described by the following:
it is table-structured, so there are a number of rows each having certain amount of cells; cells borders in different rows possibly do not align;
it is fullscreen; not like occupying whole device display, but rather using all the window space present - the window height should be divided in rows and its length should be divided in cells (full-window would be a more precise term)
it is adaptive; meaning, heights and lengths are given as percentage from window dimensions; this also applies to margins, paddings, etc.
More accurately, I am trying to make a web-chat application consisting of message area, list of online users, text input and "send" button. I want each of these components to have space of certain (relative to window dimesions) length between them and between window borders and components adjacent to them (that is, margins). I want this layout to persist precisely after zooming or resizing the window.
I do realize that this could be achieved with Javascript (which I am capable of), but I assume that would be ugly and less efficient, so I would like to use CSS (if possible).
So far I tried:
marking up the window with inline-block wrappers containing the actual visible elements; didn't really work because setting wrapped content's width and height to 100% results in them expanding the wrappers (regarding borders and margins), which ruins the layout instantly; I understand I could try 98%, 97.5%, 97.2%, etc. but this is not precise so it really bugs me
using floating divs (same as above)
using table, table-row and table-cell divs; did not satisfy my requirements because only absolute values work this way
I am really a newb, so I might have missed a number of obvious points here.
Could you use the vh and vw measurments,
they can be used like this:
height 10vh;
width 100vw;
this would make a row that's 1/10th of the screen tall and 100% wide.
Okay, using Javascript looks like the only reasonable option here.
Related
After a 30 minutes searching in Stack Overflow i could not find a solution to my problem, so here is it:
I have a static blog, and it's almost 99% responsive. The problem comes with a larger titles with wider words (like "documentfragments", in my case), they make a horizontal scrollbar in screens with a width below 400px.
Here the example:
As you can see, the width is (in that specific case), 320px and the header breaks the layout.
Im not a specialist in stylesheets, i'm learning but whatever i do (adjust the width, font size, etc) i cant give a solution to the problem.
Any idea?
You have a few options here.
1. Make the font-size smaller.
You could reduce the font-size to something that is not likely to result in overflowing text.
2. Hyphen-Wrap your words
Using CSS you can set your element to hyphenate your words so they wrap when they run out of space. Just add word-wrap: break-word to the element in your css.
3. Use Javascript
You could write some javascript that calculates the width that it needs to fit into, then alter the font-size appropriately.
I have created my website as a fixed layout, with a width of 1600px,
but the webpage on a smaller resolution looks too big.
What am I supposed to do to make it looks good in every resolution?
Thanks for help
Use relative measures, like width: 100%. You can constrain this even more by using min-width and max-width.
Apart from that, you can use CSS media queries to make styles that only apply if certain conditions are met, like a minimum or maximum width. If you use that, you can change the whole look and feel of your website, for instance by hiding parts on smaller devices or change from a 2 column to a 1 column text presentation on smaller devices.
A percentage-based width would change the width depending on the screen size, but you should also use min-width to ensure the page doesn't become too thin that it ruins your content.
Your options:
Use a narrower fixed width. Staying under 1,000 pixels is fairly safe though not perfect
Use percentages for page width instead, though this is difficult if you need to have a set width for child elements to look right
Do a combination of the above and use media queries in your CSS to make your site responsive. It'll fit every screen width you specify AND you'll have full control over your layout at each trigger point.
Here is a great resource for learning about responsive sites - this is the way to build a modern website, so though it might seem confusing it's worth every minute you spend on it.
http://bradfrost.github.com/this-is-responsive/resources.html
Good luck.
What's the basic difference between [width and height] and max/min[width and height] and where should we use each of them?
Thanks in advance........
The basic difference is that width and height will specify the exact width and height of an object. Max/min width and height will specify the maximum or minimum height and width that an object needs to be.
Say you had a div that you wanted to load images into, but you wanted all images to be the no larger and no smaller then a specific width or height, then using min/max calls would be ideal.
In other cases, where you know the width and height (say for only a specific image) then you do not need max or min height/width calls.
It is also important to note that max/min height and width calls will over-ride height and width calls.
Here is some more information:
CSS Height and Width
CSS Tests - Min and Max
width/height give you the strict constraints. max-height/max-width tell your element to be not wider/higher than a certain value, but the element can still be smaller than that value.
max-height/width are commonly used when you want to make the site behave according to the screen it is viewed on, but to not be super huge on the large screens anyway. The same about the elements - you might want to accept images of any size, but want to make sure they are not breaking your site layout. Hence you use max-width/height.
They don't work in IE6 though. If you need to support min-width/height in IE6 you can use regular width/height. IE6 will treat them as minimum values anyway and will expand them in case content needs more space. Both min/max width/height work fine in IE7+
I am using Yahoo's UI Grids to structure most of my pages. One of my pages is a Google map and I need about a 400 pixel fixed left column to put map legend information into. YUI Grids however only offers 3 columns for their 100% page layouts, namely 160px, 180px and 300px.
Is there a way that I can customize their 'template 3' which provides the 300px column to get my 400px column I need?
I've determined how to do this. Kudos for Nate in the YUI forums for pointing me in the right direction.
To set a fixed left column, you need to divide the column pixel width by 13 to determine the em's for all non-IE browser's. For IE, divide the column width by 13.3333
e.g. wanting a fixed 480px width, 480/13 gives me 36.9231em for non-IE and 480/13.33 is exactly 36em for IE
Using template 3, the CSS is:
.yui-t3 .yui-b {
float: left;
width: 12.3207em; *width: 12.0106em;
}
.yui-t3 #yui-main .yui-b {
margin-left: 36.9231em; *margin-left: 36em;
}
Also, if you want to tweak margin's e.g. zero margin, you can do something like:
#doc3 {
margin: auto 0;
}
Grids is presently deprecated in YUI 3 - a bit of a shock when I saw that. There will be some browser(s) that drop off the A category in July and as a result, Grids will be reworked given that some of the initial design decisions were based on older browsers of course.
There is definitely a way. I think its just a matter of tweaking the CSS to either add in another 400px column, or modifying an existing column to fit your needs. If you are adding another column, be sure to account for the additional width (plus margin) and either reduce width on other elements, or increase the width of your containing element.
If the layout is using 100% width of the browser, width may not be an issue, but if your content is wrapped in a container element which holds all of your columns, be sure to adjust the existing elements to make up for the size of your new column.
EDIT: Also if you are dealing with 100% width layouts, its probably better to size your columns using percentage, instead of a fixed pixel size. Since the containing element for your columns will be the user's screen, if you use percentage then the column sizes should adjust relative to their resolution/window size.
If you want your new column to appear on the left of the your other columns, typically you would place it before the other columns in your markup, and apply a "float:left" property. But, take a look at how the other columns are set up in the YUI CSS, and follow their method.
I hope that helps.
Acorn
I'm displaying some tabular data on my website so I decided to use some tables. Is it a best practice to use fixed width for your table columns (i.e., 100px) or to use percentage based widths?
I would not recomment fixed widths, as the browsers text size may be different.
The correct thing is to do nothing at all! Leave the table to size itself. Forcing the table to be 100% wide is an option, but can leave alot of whitespace.
How big will the table be on my mobile phone, TV set or desktop PC? The more you force a layout the worse it looks on unexpected platforms.
I agree with Quigley, however the "right" approach depends very much on your specific context. If you have to just display plain data on a website, basically just printing out HTML formatted data, I would also leave the table as it is. What you should do is to set it's width to 100% s.t. it expands on the whole width of the page. If it resides inside another container (such as div or other tag), it will expand to the width of that container.
If however you want to have your table just expand to a certain width, I would go for percent values instead of fixed tables, mainly because of the fact that your users will have different display sizes and resolution and therefore the according browser window with may vary. In such a case I would however consider attributes such as min-width that specifies the minimum width that your table will get. The attribute works perfectly on Firefox, Safari etc.. however on IE (as usual) you have to do a trick to achieve min-width by adding something like the following to your CSS class (which you add to the enclosing container of your HTML table or to the table itself):
width: expression( this.scrollWidth < 70 ? "70px" : "auto" );
This is just an example that specifies a minimum width of 70px, otherwise it doesn't set any width. You can customize it to your needs.
Fixed pixel widths are definitely the worst option. Percentages are much better. If you want to define column widths relative to other elements on your page, the best option is to use CSS and a unit like em that is relative to the text size.
For tabular data, I think relative (percentage) should be good.
But if u feel screen size may screw up your tables, go for the fixed approach.
I use(d) proportional widths extensively with HTML that has to work in browsers and CSS2XSLFO.
However Firefox 3.x has removed support for PCW widths in table columns.
See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=333352
So you'll have to use % widths.
I never use fixed widths (such as 50px), however I do use em or ex units in addition to pcw or percentage widths.
In regards to DeadAccount's answer, don't use W3Schools, they have a habit of having half-correct information.
http://w3fools.com/
Also, I'm pretty sure best practice is making a percentage instead of a fixed width, because as others said fixed will mess up in other browsers if they're using different settings than yours. Best practice could just be to leave it alone, however.