I am playing with the table-layout:fixed, it works almost perfectly for my needs. However, apparently I can not have a column of fixed size that won't change when I add or remove columns dynamically from the table.
Here is the example. If you add some columns you can see that the first column shrinks and the checkboxes kind of pop out of the columns. How can I make the first column have a fixed size while keeping the table-layout:fixed behavior on the other columns?
I am using table-layout:fixed because once I add enough columns, it will add a horizontal scroll bar and will guarantee that the columns have at least the width I specified.
You can try a different approach by not using table-layout: fixed and achieve almost the same result. Also, instead of using width property for the <th>, you can define min-width.
Check this updated fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/L9rudjng/5/. I moved the inline CSS into CSS box too.
The table will maintain the 500px until it can't hold enough <th>'s with 100px width. Then it will expand and force the horizontal scroll.
Related
Demo
I'm trying to make a table that contains a horizontal scrollbar where the width of any individual row can be set to whatever I want. I've tried two different approaches to achieve this and they each give me problems:
If I assign a width to my table that is larger than its containing div and apply overflow-x: scroll, the table exceeds the width of its container. However, I have no control over the width of my cells. Setting td{width:'x'px;} doesn't do anything.
If instead I apply table-layout:fixed to the table, I can now adjust the width of individual rows but cannot exceed the width of the table container.
How do I get the best of both worlds? I need the table to exceed the width of the container in order to get the scrollbar, while also being able to set the width of different rows to any value.
HTML table and table cells work this way by design - cells will always be confined to within the width of the table. If you want to size them like you do to normal inline-block elements, you can either:
Use <div class="table"> and <div class="cell"> to markup and style tables.
OR
Change the display mode in CSS. {display: block} for tables, {display: inline-block} for cells. You'd probably also need to fiddle with the display modes of other elements like <tr>, <th>, <thead>, <tbody>...
A little note: just in case you are using tables as a means to layout your page content, please stop and strongly reconsider changing your approach. Tables are a nasty crutch for layout, and should really ONLY be used to display actual tabular data.
Set the position: absolute; for the element that you want to exceed it's container width. But also set position: relative; to its parent, so you can adjust the position.
I have a table with entire columns I'd like to hide from view.
The real-life scenario is mobile platforms. I desire a table's less useful information to be hidden so that it fits on a narrow screen.
I've played around with it but there doesn't seem to be a true way to get this to happen.
http://jsfiddle.net/3712Ledn/
Even if I apply the class to all cells of the same column and then apply hidden or collapse, they still take up space.
If I turn display: none;, then the columns do collapse, but auto width columns do not expand to take up the new space.
Is there any way to achieve this without using JS?
Maybe this helps if i understand you. The seconds column is hidden and the first column stretches over the full page.
http://jsfiddle.net/uow30orv/
<table id="real" width="100%">...
You will need a tag inside the cell you want to collapse, then use a table-layout: fixed; on your <table>, this way, you will be able to set a width: 0; to the column you want to hide.
I have a pretty nested structure of tables from a CMS. Each column has a specified width e.g. width="61" for the first column.
Nevertheless Chrome ignores the width and adds random spacing so none of the columns have the right width in the end and it looks like this:
Other browsers display the code just fine.
I have tried to use table-layout: fixed but that made everything worse.
Here's the fiddle
http://jsfiddle.net/xv8U5/
Help greatly appreciated.
I believe there is a difference of rules depending on the browser. Most browser will scale the TD to the largest TD of the same column. Chrome, however, seems to use the first TD's width as column width.
Hence, if you specify the width of a TD after the first row, that width will be ignored if the first row already contained a TD for that column.
The solution is to specify the width right from the first row.
I have been trying to lay out a table with the following:
two or three columns that automatically size to fit the content in them
anywhere from 1 to 4 columns that resize according to the width of the table, and which truncate the text inside them
one column that contains three buttons and which I want to be exactly 220 pixels wide
I got it pretty much working thanks to the answers on this question. I set "min-width" on the first two or three columns, and "width" on the last column, and in the middle columns I wrap the text in a div, and then set "max-width" on the td and on the div I set width: 100%;text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; overflow: hidden;. All that works fine on Chrome and Firefox and Safari and even IE 10.
The problem happens on IE7, 8, and 9. On all three "browsers", the middle divs don't truncate, they instead push out the width of columns to fit all the text, which blows out the table wider than the page.
I tried putting a table-layout: fixed; on the table on IE, but instead of getting what I expected or indeed anything sane at all, instead what I get is that all the columns are given the same width, ignoring the "width: 220px" on the last column's tds, and then after everything is laid out the last column expands to 220px, and blows out the table. If you don't understand what I'm saying, have a look at
http://jsfiddle.net/ptomblin/rHJk9/
in IE debugger or "Inspect Element" in Chrome or Firefox. If you look at the "Layout" of a td of last column, and it shows a small width same as all the other columns, even though the contents are 220px wide.
On the live site, putting the "ie8" class on the body is done using conditional <IF IE8> code, but jsfiddle doesn't seem to like that.
What I'm looking for is either a way to make the table work the same way on IE7-9 as it does on real browsers (without table-layout:fixed) or some "good enough" work-around that would at least fit on the screen, with or without table-layout:fixed.
http://imgur.com/44DeZv5 has a screen shot showing it on IE9. I've added a red line to show the actual edge of the table. Note how the button bar, which is in a td in that table, extends beyond not just the table, but beyond the actual screen width. (The browser is set to 1024x768, the table is inside a .content div that's 940 pixels wide)
http://imgur.com/0Zielaf is what it looks like in IE9 when you don't have the "table-layout: fixed"
http://imgur.com/K8Ob6VR is what it looks like on Chrome without the "table-layout: fixed". Note how it all fits on the screen and in the table. That's what I'm aiming for.
I found out what the problem was that caused table-layout: fixed to allocate all the columns exactly the same width, no matter what the width parameter on the actual column values: It was happening because the first row on the table had a single column with colspan="7". I figured it out because on W3Schools in the description of table-layout: fixed they mentioned:
The browser can begin to display the table once the first row has been received
which made me realize that it was probably only looking at the first row. I stuck in a dummy first row with empty columns, but with the appropriate classes on each one to give them appropriate widths, and it laid them out much better. (I also set the font size, height, and line-height, top and bottom margins and padding to 0 for this dummy row so it isn't distracting)
My table is fixed at 100%
table-layout:fixed
width:100%
You should remove the table-layout:fixed.
Fixed is specifically for ignoring the contents..
look at https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS/table-layout
As answered already you would still have to remove table-layout:fixed;
but, as I think you are saying, this means the table column widths will likely be calculated by the first row "heading" widths, which is not always optimal what you might have to do, depending on how many columns is to use the the col & colgroup elements - reference - to set percentage widths for each column, that way your preferences will be used over the browsers "first pass".. make sure they total 100% and your table should be OK
a code example from you would help see if this is an option, or indeed if there's a better one!