Weird table column positioning using fixed column - html

I have a dashboard that I'm working on that contains a table of width 100%. Under normal usage, the table has more columns than screen real estate and the dashboard scrolls through the results. However, under a new requirement, I only show selected servers. This is where I discovered my issue.
The table has a number of columns, but the main left handed column lists each row and is positioned absolutely on the left hand side of the page. I have attached some sample code:
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
.headercol {
position:absolute;
width: 15%;
left: 0;
top: auto;
padding-right: 0;
padding-left: 0;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<body style="height: 90%">
<table style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid blue;">
<tr>
<td style="width: 200px;" class="headercol">asdf</td>
<td style="width: 200px;">adsf</td>
<td style="width: 200px;">adsf</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>
The problem is, under this organization, all columns in the table that are not headercol now become right justified creating a huge space in the middle of the table. I would like them to return to their left justified positions. Does anyone know of a work around for this? The layout goes back to normal when not using the position:absolute, but then we lose our fixed column. This is not an issue under normal conditions where there are columns to make up for the blank space in the table. This behavior was noted in both IE11 and Firefox 32.

Ok, so if you are using a stabile width for each <td> and position: absolute; in the first one, so you can do the same for the rest of the <td>.
And maybe get rid of <table> and use <div> instead, it will be easier and better :)

I ended up floating all of the TD's over to the left and specifying an offset of the static column for the 2nd column. After that the remaining columns just float: left and all was well. An odd way of doing things, but it worked like a charm.

Related

Outlook 2007 completely ignores width and height for elements in table cell

I’m going through the horror of trying to make HTML e-mail templates that look acceptable in Outlook, and quickly nearing the point of hara-kiri.
I have a basic table setup: three columns, with all content in the middle one. The columns on the side are just there to give spacing. The table has a width of 100% so it takes up the entire width of the reading window. So essentially this (with all the Outlook-specific crud left out):
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="leftsidespacer"></td>
<td class="maincontent">
<p>All the content here</p>
<div class="thisisabox">
<p>Something here too</p>
</div>
</td>
<td class="rightsidespacer"></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
In any normal e-mail client, this is a piece of cake. You set a width on the middle column and that’s pretty much it. Outlook 2007 (and probably other versions) instead collapses all three columns so the middle column takes up 100% of the body width. Basically, setting a width on a table cell has no effect.
All right, so I fall back on really old-time ways of adding an image in the empty cells to force them to have some width. Ugly and stupid, but at least it sorta-kinda works.
The problem I’m facing now, which I mysteriously cannot find anyone even mentioning online, is that any element that I put inside a td always ends up being 100% of the width of the cell and the height of the content, no matter what I do.
The div with the class thisisabox in the example above, for example, always ends up being just one line of text in height and 100% of the table cell, even if I define it thus:
<div width="200" height="200"
style="display: block;
width: 200px;
height: 200px;
background: red;">
Everything in me screams that this should produce a 200 × 200 pixel red box, but it doesn’t. It just gets ignored completely.
As far as I can tell, there is nothing in my styles which ought to have any influence on this. The entirety of the styles declarations I have for the bits in the HTML snippet above is this:
table {
width: 100%;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
table, tr, td {
border-collapse: collapse;
}
td {
padding: 35px 0;
border: 0;
}
(It gets inlined and HTML-attributified by the Premailer API before sending, so it’s not because the styles are only declared in the head.)
Is there some way of making Outlook notice specified width and height of elements inside a table cell?
Or am I missing something really obvious that’s making Outlook behave in this infuriating way?
Outlook does not work with div and it in some instances ignores padding.
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/box-model/padding/
The way to fix this is simple and it will work with every email client:
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Untitled</title>
</head>
<body>
<table width="200" height="200" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="leftsidespacer" width="30"></td>
<td class="maincontent" width="140">
<p>All the content here</p>
<div class="thisisabox">
<p>Something here too</p>
</div>
</td>
<td class="rightsidespacer" width="30"></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</body>
</html>
I would create a style sheet and add the values which will be picked up by most modern email clients, but Outlook desktop versions like 2007-2016 require a few inline aids to function properly.
Edit: Base table in Outlook 2007
This is the base table in Outlook 2007 with no extra css that I posted above:
This image came out of Litmus.
I only used the code I posted above. If you are not seeing this, something in your CSS or HTML is causing an issue.
Good luck.
Here is something you can try.
Code:
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="200" height="200" bgcolor="#000000">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td height="200"></td>
<td valign="top" style="color:#ffffff;">
All content here
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Result in Outlook version 1803 (tested: 20/04/2018)
What I have done is added a height to the table element as well as one of the cells. You can either populate the left column with a spacer image or keep it as it is.
Note: You can make do without the left column if you wish but do add the height
Hope this is the answer you were looking for.

tables and spacing

I have created a couple of tables. now i need both tables to be next to each other and not one table on top of each other. how can i position the second table next to the first one (to the right) but with sufficient space in between?
this is some code of my second table:
<table>
<h3>Personaldaten</h3>
<tr>
<td>Externe Referenz:</td>
<td colspan="2">
<input class="LargeText" type="text" style="width: 150%">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Titel:</td>
<td colspan="2">
<input class="LargeText" type="text" style="width: 150%">
</td>
</tr>
above are 2 entities from the first table, how do i proceed like this?
Try to use a wrapper around the tables and use float:left;
//margin: top right bottom left
<div style="width:500px; margin: 30px 0px 0px 320px">
<table style="width:240px; float:left; margin-right:20px;">
</table>
<table style="width:240px; float:left;">
</table>
</div>
get rid of your absolute positioning if you don't really need it and use CSS like
table{
float:left;
margin:0px 5px;
}
You have two choices really.
If you're happy creating your layout with tables, then put both of your tables within another table. i.e.
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<table>{ table 1 stuff }</table>
</td>
<td>
<table>{table 2 stuff }</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Or you can start looking into 'float'ing your elements.
You can create a new table with 1 row and 2 columns and place your first table inside the first column and your second table inside the second column.That way both tables can be displayed side by side
If it were me, I would surround your tables in a div layer, specifying the width and height of the div layer to force the tables next to each other.
For example:
<div id="tablecontainer">
<table id="lefttable"></table>
<table id="righttable"></table>
</div>
And in the CSS:
table
{
margin: 5px;
}
#lefttable
{
float: left;
}
Obviously, this code isn't going to be exactly what OP wants, but you get the idea.
Either use float: left or display: inline-block.
#1:
table {
margin: 10px;
float: left
}
#2:
table {
margin: 10px;
display: inline-block
}
See http://shaquin.tk/experiments/tables2.html and http://shaquin.tk/experiments/tables3.html.
First, fix the syntax and styling. A table element cannot have an h3 child. Either put the h3 inside a cell (which is inside a tr), or turn it to a caption. Don’t set a width of 150%, as this would make the a cell occupy 150% of the width of the available space. The width of an input field set is best set in characters, using the size attribute in HTML.
Then you can float the tables in CSS as suggested in other answers, or by using align=left in table tags. To create horizontal spacing between the tables, you can set e.g. margin-right on the first table.
Note that for usability and accessibility, forms should normally be presented so that there is one input item with its label on one line, so that filling out the form proceeds vertically in a simple manner. So you might be solving the wrong problem.

Positioning nested table to right in cell

the best way to show you what I want to achive is showing the picture:
I tried to position nested tables to each side of row. I looked for solution but didn't find anything interesting.
When I played with "position: absolute;" i did more damage than good results. Is it possible to do it like in the picture?
EDIT: It's not my project and I don't have any influence on design. It's based on table and I have to deal with it :)
you could float it.. or you could probably just have that cell holding it set to text-align: right depends on what else is in it the cell whether you need just the nested table to the right.. (that doesn't work in all browsers)
<table width="100%" border="1">
<tr>
<td>
<table style="background: red;">
<tr>
<td>left</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<td>
<table style="background: green; float: right">
<tr>
<td>right</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
If you are able to use divs instead of table tags to contain the two, have a left and right div instead of your two TD tags like so:
<div class="left"><table></table></div>
<div class="right"><table></table></div>
Then just add some CSS
<style type="text/css">
.left, .right {
width:300px;
}
.left {
float:left;
}
.left table, .right table {
width:63%;
}
.right table {
float:right;
}
</style>
I would go that route as supposed to using tables. If it doesnt work though, you might need to change the display type of the td tags to block. That said, I haven't tried that before and I'm not sure how well it would work.
If you don't have any more content in the containing <td> you could float it to the right;
/* select nested tables in td's that have a preceding td sibling, effectively the second column */
table td + td table {
float: right;
}
jsfiddle demo
Keep these notes in mind:
Absolute positioning and floated children cause Great Collapse. So, your cell could get unpredictable for you.
Nested tables are not common these days. Maybe your design is wrong. Have you considered other designs. Maybe div elements inside a table cell, nesting a table inside a list item?
Table is a block level element in nature. That is, a table tries to fill its parent's width by default. So, to get to your result, you need to specify width for them.
My suggestion, keep far from tables. Use CSS positioning.

html table should overflow

I have a table with two columns. The first (which contains a menu) should have a
fixed width, while the second (containing some page content) can vary in width. The table should overflow the window (which it doesn't by default), because otherwise the browser reduces the width of the menu column if the content is very broad. But I cannot define a fixed width for the table (causing it to overflow) because I don't know the width of the content.
Overflow:scroll
does not seem to work with tables. I would be thankful for workarounds/solutions.
<table class="rootTableContent">
<tr>
<td id="rootTableMenu">
</td>
<td id="rootTableContent">
</td>
</tr>
The solution to this problem is to use proper CSS (Divs/Spans, etc) to layout your website as opposed to tables. I'm all for using tables to display tabular data and you'll see me arguing for them in places that they're valid, but this is not one of them.
This is easily done with something like this:
<div style="float:left; width: 150px">
Navigation Code Here
</div>
<div style="float: left">
Other Content Here
</div>
<div style="clear:both"></div>
Obviously, I'm oversimplifying this solution, you're going to have more specific code to deal with your layout (need more detail to help more specifically) But, it's important to use the right tools for the job.
As others have stated, please don't use <table> layouts. It's old, clunky, and confuses screen readers and other accessibility software.
If you absolutely insist on using your method, you can try this:
Live Demo
<style type="text/css">
div.wrap {
overflow-y: auto;
width: 75%;
}
div.wrap table {
border: 1px solid #000;
width: 100%;
}
div.wrap table td {
padding: 20px;
}
</style>
<div class="wrap">
<table class="rootTableContent">
<tr>
<td id="rootTableMenu">rootTableMenu</td>
<td id="rootTableContent">rootTableContent</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>

Site wider than browser without horizontal scrollbars

I've got a site that I am working on that has greebles on the top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right corners. The full width of this is roughly 1100px. The actual content area is within the 960px layout.
I want the site to be properly centered right down to 960px, with the extra imagery disappearing out the right and left, but not causing any horizontal scrolling provided it is over 960px.
All four images are seperate files (can't really join them) and there is already a background image. Did I mention that they are added through CSS, rather than as in-file images?
Thanks!
Edit: This really has to work in IE6. Not my choice :(
You can use overflow: hidden in the CSS for your body tag (or whatever container tag you have your main content in) to prevent scrollbars. Some browsers allow you to constrain that just to horizontal or vertical content (-ms-overflow-x and overflow-x in your case, because you're dealing with the horizontal overflow; there are corresponding y styles). I think these are / are going to be part of CSS3, according to this link.
I'm sorry folks, but the only way I can see this working including IEs 6 and 7 is using tables.
Working example: Here
The "Greeble" text (I don't really know what a greeble is :) distorts the resizing somewhat, that'll disappear when the columns have background images only.
Issues: The columns need to contain something to be rendered by IE. The I built in will prevent the complete disappearance of the right and left columns. You will have to find a way around that, maybe with a 1x1 Pixel image or something. You will always have to have some content - even if just 1 pixel wide - in all columns.
Relies on: Tables with an unspecified width rendering the way they do. I think this is pretty reliable, tough.
Tested in: IE 5.5 and greater, Firefox
To anybody who dares downvote this because tables are evil: Find me a better, CSS-based solution that works in IE6 as well, and I will gladly remove mine.
HTML: No separation between markup and CSS, no semantics, just the working prototype.
<body style="margin: 0px">
<table style="width: 100%; height: 100%" border="0"
cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td style="background-color: orange; height: 50%; color: white">
Greeble top left
</td>
<!-- The content area -->
<td style="width: 960px" rowspan="2">
<!-- This is important, serves as min-width replacement. -->
<div style="width: 960px; text-align: center">
I will always be 960 pixels wide
</div>
</td>
<td style="background-color: blue; color: white">
Greeble top right
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="background-color: blue; height: 50%; color: white">
Greeble bottom left
</td>
<td style="background-color: green; height: 50%; color: white">
Greeble bottom right
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
I think I've worked out a ludicrously simple way of doing it: Add an empty div for each corner element, position it relatively and then give it a negative (or high positive for the rhs) margin - seems to work in IE 6 too.
Thanks for all the ideas though.
Not sure if you solved this, but I think it is possible using background images. If you layer the images on top of one another, without specifying a width for their containing divs, you should be able to pull it off. Here's the basics:
<body style="background: url(body-bg.png);">
<div style="background: url(greeble1.png);"></div>
<div style="background: url(greeble2.png);"></div>
<div style="background: url(greeble3.png);"></div>
<div style="background: url(greeble4.png);"></div>
<div class="wrapper" style="width: 960px;">
<p>Main Content Area</p>
</div>
</body
I think you'd need to use a bit of JS to position each of the greeble background images depending on the size of the image and the viewport, but it should be possible.