I need to create a one-lined 2-column layout. The first column should display a potentially lengthy string, truncated so that it fits in the one-line layout. Similary to How to Create Automatically Expanding Block I did the following:
HTML:
<div class="container">
<div class="left">Lengthy string</div>
<div class="right">Short</div>
</div>
CSS:
.container {
white-space: nowrap;
overflow: hidden;
}
.left {
overflow: hidden;
}
.right {
float: right;
}
In contrast to this solution I would like the right column not to be on the far right but directly behind the content of the left column.
Any ideas how this could be done?
EDIT:
Example to clarify what I mean with 'directly behind':
'Lengthy string' may be a category in an online shop, 'Short' may be a number of available items in this category. Since category name + number may be wider than the width of their container the category names might need to be truncated, e.g.
<div class="container">
<div class="left">Electronic equipment for consumer</div>
<div class="right">(599)</div>
</div>
should be rendered as
Eletronic equipment... (599)
With directly behind I mean that for short category names, say 'Books', this should look like
Books (29)
and not like
Books (29)
I'm not positive I understand what you mean by "directly behind", but I think this may be what you're after:
.left {
overflow: hidden;
display: inline;
}
.right {
float: right;
display: inline;
}
Making the <div>'s inline will eliminate the need for floats, generally making your life easier.
You will have to assign a fixed width or, if your browser supports that, a maximum width for this to work.
The way you defined it right now, the browser is free to make the left element as wide as it wants.
You should also consider to float left on the left and not float right. Or use display: inline for both and don't float anything.
The below CSS creates a one-line 2 column layout
#wrapper { display: table }
#wrapper > div { display: table-cell; }
#wrapper > div:first-child { min-width: 200px; /*Using min-width allows expantion */ }
#wrapper > div:last-child { min-width: 200px; }
#wrapper > div p { white-space:nowrap; } //One line text
<div id="wrapper">
<div><!-- Left menu? --></div>
<div><p>very long text very long text etc..</p></div>
</div>
Related
I have a two column layout set up, and I want to have both columns automatically stretch to fill parent div of the two columns, The reason being that the left column has a background and border to it, and i want it to take up the entire side of the page so it won't look messy and such. I use inline-block to align the two columns, not float or anything (I can't use overflow:hidden because it messes up some of my features that may go out of the div, ex: dropdown menus) So I need to find a simple way to do this, using this method.
jsfiddle:
http://jsfiddle.net/sFBGX/
You can use CSS table layout (not HTML table layout, that would be poor semantics):
.container {
display: table;
table-layout: fixed;
width: 944px;
font-size: 0.75em;
}
.col {
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: top;
}
.container .left
{
width: 236px;
background-color:grey;
}
.container .right
{
width: 708px;
background-color:yellow;
}
<div class="container">
<div class="col left">Left</div>
<div class="col right">Right
</br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br></br>Hey
</div>
</div>
Compatibility is IE8+ and fallback for IE6/7 if needed is exactly the same as for inline-block
Longer explanations in previous answers: here and there with also the good old method of faux-columns (your design must be thought with this technique in mind)
Try this: http://jsfiddle.net/scrimothy/Y2ZsJ/
Just add this to your css:
.container { overflow: hidden; }
.container div {
padding-bottom: 9999px;
margin-bottom: -9999px;
}
(from: http://css-tricks.com/fluid-width-equal-height-columns/ under the heading: One True Layout Method)
I would consider myself to be an intermediate/advanced CSS/HTML coder but I'm stumped on how to do the following scenario.. I'm starting to think it is impossible but I really want to believe it is..
Let's say the wrapper width is 1000px.
Within it is three columns. The two outside columns are the same width, this width is decided by the center column. The center column is the only one with content, just one line of text with 30px of padding on either side. So if the line of content is 100px with padding, than the other two columns would be (1000-100)/2 each..
Is there a dynamic way to have the two outside columns adjust to the varying width of the center column that is defined by its varying contents, one line of text?
Graphic of what I am trying to accomplish:
The very closest I could come up with was to use display: table; and table-cell. This creates the dynamic effect you're looking for, but I don't think you can get your desired effect without setting an explicit width to the center element.
HTML:
<div id="wrap">
<div id="left">
Left
</div>
<div id="center">
center
</div>
<div id="right">
Right
</div>
</div>
CSS:
#wrap
{
width: 1000px;
display: table;
}
#wrap div
{
display: table-cell;
border: 1px solid #000;
width: auto;
}
#center
{
padding: 0 30px;
text-align: center;
}
You can check out my attempt here, it has some buttons for you to see the different states, width on/off and add text etc. (the jQuery has nothing to do with the solution)
I think this is as close as you're going to get with pure CSS.
Good 'ole tables to the rescue:
http://jsfiddle.net/hgwdT/
Actually I think tables are the devil, but this works as you described. And so here it is using display: table-cell on the child divs, so it is functionally the same using nicer markup:
http://jsfiddle.net/XXXdB/
The center element can indeed have a dynamic width; to prevent the content from being squished, I simply added a white-space: nowrap to the p containing the text.
I also confirmed that this solution works in IE8 and FF, in addition to Chrome.
This not the most elegant solution, but it works. I wanted to go the pure CSS route, but couldn't figure it out. Nice work, jblasco and Kyle Sevenoaks, on figuring that out!
Here is my jsFiddle demo. If you don't mind using a little JavaScript though (utilizing jQuery in my example):
HTML:
<div id="wrapper">
<div class="side"></div>
<div id="middle">One line of text.</div>
<div class="side"></div>
</div>
CSS:
#wrapper {
margin: 0 auto;
width: 1000px;
}
#wrapper div {
float: left;
height: 300px;
}
.side {
background: #ddd;
}
#middle {
background: #eee;
padding: 0 30px;
text-align: center;
}
JavaScript:
var adjustSize = function(){
// Declare vars
var wrapper = $('#wrapper'),
middle = $('#middle'),
totalWidth = wrapper.width(),
middleWidth = middle.width(),
middleOuterWidth = middle.outerWidth(),
remainingWidth = totalWidth - middleOuterWidth,
sideWidth;
if(remainingWidth % 2 === 0){
// Remaining width is even, divide by two
sideWidth = remainingWidth/2;
} else {
// Remaining width is odd, add 1 to middle to prevent a half pixel
middle.width(middleWidth+1);
sideWidth = (remainingWidth-1)/2;
}
// Adjust the side width
$('.side').width(sideWidth);
}
I'm wondering what the best way to go about doing this is...
I have 3 divs:
a div#container with width=100%; that holds 2 inner divs
a div#inner_left with width changing dynamically, but no wider than 200px (will hold a product image)
an div#inner_right where the width should fill the rest of the space in the container (will contain text to describe the product shown)
#container {
width:100%
}
#inner_left {
display:inline-block:
max-width:200px;
}
#inner_right {
display:inline-block;
width:100%;
}
The problem is that the div#inner_right creates a line break and fills the entire width. How can I make them align next to each other, with the right div accounting for the width taken by the left div (which changes dynamically?). I've gotten this to work other ways, but I'm looking for a clean solution...
Any help for a CSS noob is much appreciated!
I haven't really seen a good solution in the answers here. So I'll share mine.
Best way to do this is by using the table-cell option in CSS. One important thing to add is a 'min-width' to the element that has a pixel width.
Example:
<div id="left">
Left
</div>
<div id="right">
right
</div>
CSS:
#left {
display: table-cell;
min-width: 160px;
}
#right {
display: table-cell;
width: 100%;
vertical-align: top;
}
Have a look at "liquid layouts" it can describe what you're talking about.
You're probably looking for this one.
In your example, try setting your display to inline. However, you won't technically be able to use block level elements in it, so have a look at the links I posted above. :)
The problem with setting the width to 100% if you're using floats is that it is considered 100% of the container, so it won't work either since the 100% includes the left div's width.
Edit: Here is the example of the other answer, I've edited it to include the html/css from the example site above for simplicity's sake.
I'll also include it below:
HTML
<div id="contentwrapper">
<div id="contentcolumn">
<div class="innertube"><b>Content Column: <em>Fluid</em></b></div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="leftcolumn">
<div class="innertube"><b>Left Column: <em>200px</em></b></div>
</div>
CSS
#contentwrapper{
float: left;
width: 100%;
}
#contentcolumn{
margin-left: 200px; /*Set left margin to LeftColumnWidth*/
}
#leftcolumn{
float: left;
width: 200px; /*Width of left column*/
margin-left: -100%;
background: #C8FC98;
}
This can be accomplished using Flex-Box, which has been introduced with CSS3 and according to Can I use is cross-browser.
.container {
display: flex;
}
.left {
width: 100px; /* or leave it undefined */
}
.right {
flex-grow: 1;
}
/* some styling */
.container {height: 90vh}
.left {background: gray}
.right {background: red}
<div class="container">
<div class="left">100px</div>
<div class="right">Rest</div>
</div>
So even though I wanted to do this with CSS only, I ended up just using tables...
Use floating:
#container{
width:100%
}
#inner_left{
float:left;
max-width:200px;
}
#inner_right{
float:left;
width:100%;
}
Edit: have a read a this, it's a nice little guide : quirksmode
you need to provide position:absolute style property to both your div's
This is based on #w00 's answer. +1 friend.
My situation was when I wanted to show a couple of icons next to a label. I use the fluid class for that which is where the nowrap comes in. This is so the icons appear on the same line.
.sidebyside-left-fixed, .sidebyside-right-fixed
{
display: table-cell;
width: 100%;
}
.sidebyside-left-fluid , .sidebyside-right-fluid
{
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: top;
white-space: nowrap;
}
Here is an easy method to achieve this, and this is something that's quite frequently needed. It's also tested to works with all browsers, including the very old ones (let me know if it doesn't on any).
Link to a sample: https://jsfiddle.net/collinsethans/jdgduw6a/
Here's the HTML part:
<div class="wrapper">
<div class="left">
Left Box
</div>
<div class="right">
Right Box
</div>
</div>
And the corresponding SCSS:
.wrapper {
position: relative;
}
$left_width: 200px;
.left {
position: absolute;
left: 0px;
width: $left_width;
}
.right {
margin-left: $left_width;
}
If you are not using any CSS preprocessors, then replace the $left_width with your value (200px here).
Credit: This is based on http://htmldog.com/examples/pagelayout2/.
There are several other useful ones there.
I have the page structure as:
<div class="parent">
<div class="child-left floatLeft">
</div>
<div class="child-right floatLeft">
</div>
</div>
Now, the child-left DIV will have more content, so the parent DIV's height increases as per the child DIV.
But the problem is child-right height is not increasing. How can I make its height as equal to it's parent?
For the parent element, add the following properties:
.parent {
overflow: hidden;
position: relative;
width: 100%;
}
then for .child-right these:
.child-right {
background:green;
height: 100%;
width: 50%;
position: absolute;
right: 0;
top: 0;
}
Find more detailed results with CSS examples here and more information about equal height columns here.
A common solution to this problem uses absolute positioning or cropped floats, but these are tricky in that they require extensive tuning if your columns change in number+size, and that you need to make sure your "main" column is always the longest. Instead, I'd suggest you use one of three more robust solutions:
display: flex: by far the simplest & best solution and very flexible - but unsupported by IE9 and older.
table or display: table: very simple, very compatible (pretty much every browser ever), quite flexible.
display: inline-block; width:50% with a negative margin hack: quite simple, but column-bottom borders are a little tricky.
1. display:flex
This is really simple, and it's easy to adapt to more complex or more detailed layouts - but flexbox is only supported by IE10 or later (in addition to other modern browsers).
Example: http://output.jsbin.com/hetunujuma/1
Relevant html:
<div class="parent"><div>column 1</div><div>column 2</div></div>
Relevant css:
.parent { display: -ms-flex; display: -webkit-flex; display: flex; }
.parent>div { flex:1; }
Flexbox has support for a lot more options, but to simply have any number of columns the above suffices!
2.<table> or display: table
A simple & extremely compatible way to do this is to use a table - I'd recommend you try that first if you need old-IE support. You're dealing with columns; divs + floats simply aren't the best way to do that (not to mention the fact that multiple levels of nested divs just to hack around css limitations is hardly more "semantic" than just using a simple table). If you do not wish to use the table element, consider css display: table (unsupported by IE7 and older).
Example: http://jsfiddle.net/emn13/7FFp3/
Relevant html: (but consider using a plain <table> instead)
<div class="parent"><div>column 1</div><div>column 2</div></div>
Relevant css:
.parent { display: table; }
.parent > div {display: table-cell; width:50%; }
/*omit width:50% for auto-scaled column widths*/
This approach is far more robust than using overflow:hidden with floats. You can add pretty much any number of columns; you can have them auto-scale if you want; and you retain compatibility with ancient browsers. Unlike the float solution requires, you also don't need to know beforehand which column is longest; the height scales just fine.
KISS: don't use float hacks unless you specifically need to. If IE7 is an issue, I'd still pick a plain table with semantic columns over a hard-to-maintain, less flexible trick-CSS solution any day.
By the way, if you need your layout to be responsive (e.g. no columns on small mobile phones) you can use a #media query to fall back to plain block layout for small screen widths - this works whether you use <table> or any other display: table element.
3. display:inline block with a negative margin hack.
Another alternative is to use display:inline block.
Example: http://jsbin.com/ovuqes/2/edit
Relevant html: (the absence of spaces between the div tags is significant!)
<div class="parent"><div><div>column 1</div></div><div><div>column 2</div></div></div>
Relevant css:
.parent {
position: relative; width: 100%; white-space: nowrap; overflow: hidden;
}
.parent>div {
display:inline-block; width:50%; white-space:normal; vertical-align:top;
}
.parent>div>div {
padding-bottom: 32768px; margin-bottom: -32768px;
}
This is slightly tricky, and the negative margin means that the "true" bottom of the columns is obscured. This in turn means you can't position anything relative to the bottom of those columns because that's cut off by overflow: hidden. Note that in addition to inline-blocks, you can achieve a similar effect with floats.
TL;DR: use flexbox if you can ignore IE9 and older; otherwise try a (css) table. If neither of those options work for you, there are negative margin hacks, but these can cause weird display issues that are easy to miss during development, and there are layout limitations you need to be aware of.
For the parent:
display: flex;
For children:
align-items: stretch;
You should add some prefixes, check caniuse.
I found a lot of answers, but probably the best solution for me is
.parent {
overflow: hidden;
}
.parent .floatLeft {
# your other styles
float: left;
margin-bottom: -99999px;
padding-bottom: 99999px;
}
You can check other solutions here http://css-tricks.com/fluid-width-equal-height-columns/
Please set parent div to overflow: hidden
then in child divs you can set a large amount for padding-bottom. for example
padding-bottom: 5000px
then margin-bottom: -5000px
and then all child divs will be the height of the parent.
Of course this wont work if you are trying to put content in the parent div (outside of other divs that is)
.parent{
border: 1px solid black;
overflow: hidden;
height: auto;
}
.child{
float: left;
padding-bottom: 1500px;
margin-bottom: -1500px;
}
.child1{
background: red;
padding-right: 10px;
}
.child2{
background: green;
padding-left: 10px;
}
<div class="parent">
<div class="child1 child">
One line text in child1
</div>
<div class="child2 child">
Three line text in child2<br />
Three line text in child2<br />
Three line text in child2
</div>
</div>
Example: http://jsfiddle.net/Tareqdhk/DAFEC/
Does the parent have a height? If you set the parents height like so.
div.parent { height: 300px };
Then you can make the child stretch to the full height like this.
div.child-right { height: 100% };
EDIT
Here is how you would do it using JavaScript.
CSS table display is ideal for this:
.parent {
display: table;
width: 100%;
}
.parent > div {
display: table-cell;
}
.child-left {
background: powderblue;
}
.child-right {
background: papayawhip;
}
<div class="parent">
<div class="child-left">Short</div>
<div class="child-right">Tall<br>Tall</div>
</div>
Original answer (assumed any column could be taller):
You're trying to make the parent's height dependent on the children's height and children's height dependent on parent's height. Won't compute. CSS Faux columns is the best solution. There's more than one way of doing that. I'd rather not use JavaScript.
I used this for a comment section:
.parent {
display: flex;
float: left;
border-top:2px solid black;
width:635px;
margin:10px 0px 0px 0px;
padding:0px 20px 0px 20px;
background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.5);
}
.child-left {
align-items: stretch;
float: left;
width:135px;
padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;
height:inherit;
border-right:2px solid black;
}
.child-right {
align-items: stretch;
float: left;
width:468px;
padding:10px;
}
<div class="parent">
<div class="child-left">Short</div>
<div class="child-right">Tall<br>Tall</div>
</div>
You could float the child-right to the right, but in this case I've calculated the widths of each div precisely.
I have recently done this on my website using jQuery. The code calculates the height of the tallest div and sets the other divs to the same height. Here's the technique:
http://www.broken-links.com/2009/01/20/very-quick-equal-height-columns-in-jquery/
I don't believe height:100% will work, so if you don't explicitly know the div heights I don't think there is a pure CSS solution.
If you are aware of bootstrap you can do it easily by using 'flex' property.All you need to do is pass below css properties to parent div
.homepageSection {
overflow: hidden;
height: auto;
display: flex;
flex-flow: row;
}
where .homepageSection is my parent div.
Now add child div in your html as
<div class="abc col-md-6">
<div class="abc col-md-6">
where abc is my child div.You can check equality of height in both child div irrespective of border just by giving border to child div
<div class="parent" style="height:500px;">
<div class="child-left floatLeft" style="height:100%">
</div>
<div class="child-right floatLeft" style="height:100%">
</div>
</div>
I used inline style just to give idea.
I can see that the accepted answer uses position: absolute; instead of float: left. In case you want to use float: left with the following structure,
<div class="parent">
<div class="child-left floatLeft"></div>
<div class="child-right floatLeft"></div>
</div>
Give position: auto; to the parent so that it will contain its children height.
.parent {
position: auto;
}
.floatLeft {
float: left
}
I learned of this neat trick in an internship interview. The original question is how do you ensure the height of each top component in three columns have the same height that shows all the content available. Basically create a child component that is invisible that renders the maximum possible height.
<div class="parent">
<div class="assert-height invisible">
<!-- content -->
</div>
<div class="shown">
<!-- content -->
</div>
</div>
I want to put two <div>s next to each other. The right <div> is about 200px; and the left <div> must fill up the rest of the screen width? How can I do this?
You can use flexbox to lay out your items:
#parent {
display: flex;
}
#narrow {
width: 200px;
background: lightblue;
/* Just so it's visible */
}
#wide {
flex: 1;
/* Grow to rest of container */
background: lightgreen;
/* Just so it's visible */
}
<div id="parent">
<div id="wide">Wide (rest of width)</div>
<div id="narrow">Narrow (200px)</div>
</div>
This is basically just scraping the surface of flexbox. Flexbox can do pretty amazing things.
For older browser support, you can use CSS float and a width properties to solve it.
#narrow {
float: right;
width: 200px;
background: lightblue;
}
#wide {
float: left;
width: calc(100% - 200px);
background: lightgreen;
}
<div id="parent">
<div id="wide">Wide (rest of width)</div>
<div id="narrow">Narrow (200px)</div>
</div>
I don't know if this is still a current issue or not but I just encountered the same problem and used the CSS display: inline-block; tag.
Wrapping these in a div so that they can be positioned appropriately.
<div>
<div style="display: inline-block;">Content1</div>
<div style="display: inline-block;">Content2</div>
</div>
Note that the use of the inline style attribute was only used for the succinctness of this example of course these used be moved to an external CSS file.
Unfortunately, this is not a trivial thing to solve for the general case. The easiest thing would be to add a css-style property "float: right;" to your 200px div, however, this would also cause your "main"-div to actually be full width and any text in there would float around the edge of the 200px-div, which often looks weird, depending on the content (pretty much in all cases except if it's a floating image).
EDIT:
As suggested by Dom, the wrapping problem could of course be solved with a margin. Silly me.
The method suggested by #roe and #MohitNanda work, but if the right div is set as float:right;, then it must come first in the HTML source. This breaks the left-to-right read order, which could be confusing if the page is displayed with styles turned off. If that's the case, it might be better to use a wrapper div and absolute positioning:
<div id="wrap" style="position:relative;">
<div id="left" style="margin-right:201px;border:1px solid red;">left</div>
<div id="right" style="position:absolute;width:200px;right:0;top:0;border:1px solid blue;">right</div>
</div>
Demonstrated:
left
right
Edit: Hmm, interesting. The preview window shows the correctly formatted divs, but the rendered post item does not. Sorry then, you'll have to try it for yourself.
I ran into this problem today. Based on the solutions above, this worked for me:
<div style="width:100%;">
<div style="float:left;">Content left div</div>
<div style="float:right;">Content right div</div>
</div>
Simply make the parent div span the full width and float the divs contained within.
UPDATE
If you need to place elements in a row, you can use Flex Layout. Here you have another Flex tutorial. It's a great CSS tool and even though it is not 100% compatible, each day its support is getting better. This works as simple as:
HTML
<div class="container">
<div class="contentA"></div>
<div class="contentB"></div>
</div>
CSS
.container {
display: flex;
width: 100%;
height: 200px;
}
.contentA {
flex: 1;
}
.contentB {
flex: 3;
}
And what you get here is a container with a total size of 4 units, that share the space with its children in a relation of 1/4 and 3/4.
I have done an example in CodePen that solves your problem. I hope it helps.
http://codepen.io/timbergus/pen/aOoQLR?editors=110
VERY OLD
Maybe this is just a nonsense, but have you tried with a table? It not use directly CSS for positioning the divs, but it works fine.
You can create a 1x2 table and put your divs inside, and then formatting the table with CSS to put them as you want:
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<div></div>
</td>
<td>
<div></div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Note
If you want to avoid using the table, as said before, you can use float: left; and float: right;and in the following element, don't forget to add a clear: left;, clear: right; or clear: both; in order to have the position cleaned.
div1 {
float: right;
}
div2 {
float: left;
}
This will work OK as long as you set clear: both for the element that separates this two column block.
I ran into the same problem and Mohits version works. If you want to keep your left-right order in the html, just try this. In my case, the left div is adjusting the size, the right div stays at width 260px.
HTML
<div class="box">
<div class="left">Hello</div>
<div class="right">World</div>
</div>
CSS
.box {
height: 200px;
padding-right: 260px;
}
.box .left {
float: left;
height: 200px;
width: 100%;
}
.box .right {
height: 200px;
width: 260px;
margin-right: -260px;
}
The trick is to use a right padding on the main box but use that space again by placing the right box again with margin-right.
I use a mixture of float and overflow-x:hidden. Minimal code, always works.
https://jsfiddle.net/9934sc4d/4/ - PLUS you don't need to clear your float!
.left-half{
width:200px;
float:left;
}
.right-half{
overflow-x:hidden;
}
As everyone has pointed out, you'll do this by setting a float:right; on the RHS content and a negative margin on the LHS.
However.. if you don't use a float: left; on the LHS (as Mohit does) then you'll get a stepping effect because the LHS div is still going to consume the margin'd space in layout.
However.. the LHS float will shrink-wrap the content, so you'll need to insert a defined width childnode if that's not acceptable, at which point you may as well have defined the width on the parent.
However.. as David points out you can change the read-order of the markup to avoid the LHS float requirement, but that's has readability and possibly accessibility issues.
However.. this problem can be solved with floats given some additional markup
(caveat: I don't approve of the .clearing div at that example, see here for details)
All things considered, I think most of us wish there was a non-greedy width:remaining in CSS3...
This won't be the answer for everyone, since it is not supported in IE7-, but you could use it and then use an alternate answer for IE7-. It is display: table, display: table-row and display: table-cell. Note that this is not using tables for layout, but styling divs so that things line up nicely with out all the hassle from above. Mine is an html5 app, so it works great.
This article shows an example: http://www.sitepoint.com/table-based-layout-is-the-next-big-thing/
Here is what your stylesheet will look like:
.container {
display: table;
width:100%;
}
.left-column {
display: table-cell;
}
.right-column {
display: table-cell;
width: 200px;
}
To paraphrase one of my websites that does something similar:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<style TYPE="text/css"><!--
.section {
_float: right;
margin-right: 210px;
_margin-right: 10px;
_width: expression( (document.body.clientWidth - 250) + "px");
}
.navbar {
margin: 10px 0;
float: right;
width: 200px;
padding: 9pt 0;
}
--></style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="navbar">
This will take up the right hand side
</div>
<div class="section">
This will fill go to the left of the "navbar" div
</div>
</body>
</html>
just use a z-index and everything will sit nice. make sure to have positions marked as fixed or absolute. then nothing will move around like with a float tag.