HTML/CSS: 3 columns, variable sides and fixed centered middle column - html

Question

My problem is with the header. So I basically have 3 columns of divs. I want the middle one to have a constant width of 980px, and then I want the left of the header to extend to the end of the browser window with a blue background color. As for the right of the header, I want that to extend to the end of right side of the browser with a black background color. It kind off looks like this:
<------------------------------[blue][center header][black]---------------------------->
I've done my research and all I could find so far are two columns with a fixed left column with the right column filling up the rest of the space. I wonder how this can be applied to my problem?
Would it be like:
<div style="width:100%;">
<div style="display:table-cell; background-color:blue;"></div>
<div style="width: 980px;">my header</div>
<div style="display:table-cell; background-color:black;"></div>
</div>
Thank you!

Answer 1

A simple solution - basicaly using your exact stying, but putting another block in the central table-cell element, something like this span here:
<div class="wrapper">
<div class="left"></div>
<div class="center"><span>my header</span></div>
<div class="right"></div>
</div>
I moved all the inline style to a separate CSS block and used class selectors:
.wrapper {
display:table;
width:100%;
}
.left {
display:table-cell;
width:50%;
background-color:blue;
}
.right {
display:table-cell;
width:50%;
background-color:black;
}
.center {
display:table-cell;
}
.center span {
display:inline-block;
width:900px;
}
here is a jsfiddle
and here I made the center much narrower for a better illustration: jsfiddle
Hope this helps =)

Answer 2

Unfortunately there isn't a super smooth way of doing this that is also has wide cross compatibility support. There is a CSS spec for display called flex or flexbox which would do what you want beautifully and elegantly, but it has very limited support at the moment. Here is some resources on flexbox for your perusal...
http://css-tricks.com/old-flexbox-and-new-flexbox/
In the meantime, you can achieve the layout you want with some basic CSS jiggery-pokery that will get you what you want, but it requires absolute positioning your middle div.
Heres the JSFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/CW5dW/
Here's the CSS:
.left {
width: 50%;
height: 300px;
float: left;
padding-right: 160px;
box-sizing: border-box;
background: red;
}
.right {
width: 50%;
height: 300px;
float: right;
padding-left: 160px;
box-sizing: border-box;
background: blue;
}
.middle {
position: absolute;
width: 300px;
height: 300px;
left: 50%;
padding: 10px;
margin-left: -150px;
box-sizing: border-box;
background: orange;
}
What is going on here you might ask?
Basically, we are taking the div with class middle and removing it from the flow of the document. This allows us to float our left div left, and our right div right, with widths of 50% in order to fluidly take up ALL space of the browser.
We then tell the middle div to take up 300px of space (in your case 980), and we tell it to go 50% of the total width of your browser from the left. This doesn't center it though, because its calculated from the left edge of your div. So we give it a negative margin space of half it's width, to sort of "move" that left edge to the center of the div.
Then, since we know the middle div has a width of 300px (in your case 980), we can then say that the left div should have some padding on its right edge greater than or equal to half the middle divs width, in my example that's 150px, and I added 10px more so text couldn't come right to the edge of the div, so 160px total. We do the same for the right div but for it's left side. This limits the content of those two divs from falling underneath our middle div.

Answer 3

This answer is not an "answer" as such - it's an extended comment to #Michael's post. I have, however, posted another answer - a jQuery solution.
Regarding #Michael's answer (which is a very tidy solution indeed) there is a tiny issue that if you remove your height declaration (which the OP undoubtedly will) then the backgrounds for the various columns become exposed - this method relies on the backgrounds all levelling out at their bottom edge in order to make the design coherent. If the OP's design doesn't have backgrounds behind the columns then this solution should be fine. If backgrounds are required (which they might be judging by the question wording) then it could be awkward. Two solutions to this...
a simple javascript that scans the page for column length, finds the longest, and matches all shorter ones to the maximum.
The other (and probably better) solution is to drop a background into your with the columns already on it (it only needs to be 1px high I guess) - just make sure the central white band is 980px wide and the side columns extend off a thousand or so pixels to accommodate even the largest of browsers

Answer 4

OK, here's my solution. This will present a "common or garden" three column fixed width layout to all users and then adjust it for users with javascript enabled (which, let's face it, is the vast majority of users). The benefits of this solution are that the layout will behave like any ordinary 3 solumn layout without the quirks you can experience from using more advanced CSS tweaks like absolute positioning and fixed heights.
Fiddle here... http://jsfiddle.net/vuary/
You should be able to see what's going on with the HTML and CSS... it's basic stuff. The jQuery is pretty straight forward too:
$(document).ready(function(){
// find the width of the browser window....
var docuWidth = $(window).width();
// find the width of the central column as set by the CSS...
// (you could hard code this as 980px if desired)
var centerWidth = $('#center').width();
// figure out how many pixels wide each side column should be...
sideColWidth = (docuWidth-centerWidth) / 2;
// then set the width of the side columns...
$('#left,#right').css({
width:sideColWidth+'px'
});
})
EDIT
Converted the jQuery to a function that is called when the document is ready, and again if the viewport is resized... just in case:
http://jsfiddle.net/aKeqf/