Want some handy guidelines prior starting the HTML Prototype of this application. Please find below the mockup screen.
Mockup screen
I need to make this structurewith liquid layout so that it will adjust as per the resolution.
Please do suggest me should i go with DIV with floating left or can i use tables to achieve this structure?
Thanks
Lokesh Yadav
Seems like a good div approach to me. Floats seem to be the typical way to achieve this, but I've personally always found display: inline-block as an extremely helpful tool to implement these sorts of layouts.
Using table would be much easier. Forms are naturally tabular. Never seen a form that is non-tabular.
the whole table vs div is totally overblown. I do agree that it's not a good idea to use tables for designing layouts but it's what it was back in the old days where CSS support was limited.
however for those to go far to declare forms to be table-less is going too far. All forms are naturally tabular and by doing it in table, you actually reinforce its tabular structure.
We can argue that we should not use tables for calendar since technically, a calendar is tabular for OUR convenience, not because the dates themselves are tabular!
Personally, I'd build that in divs. I'd have a formrow div, then contain each of the columns in left floated divs with a specified width.
I think:
the optimal way is to use a
DIV with floating but its harder to
code because you want a table-style
and you must calc the exact width of
any div (in pixel or percent).
the easyer way is to use TABLES with
colspan.
Related
I vaguely remember reading about some new (CSS3?) type of tables. The problem mentioned at the time was that it wasn't widely supported. Is there anything like that? Is it support better today? Sorry I can't be more specific, I don't remember its name.
The bottom line is that I'm trying to get div's to be equally sized horizontally next to each other, but when I do that using display: table (and display: table-cell in the li's) - they ignore things (like overflow: hidden ).
As posted in a comment above - CSS flexible boxes is it.
try this. There are some more types like given here
{display:flex;}
Still, I will suggest you to play with tables. They are awesome, just need some tweaks.
I think this has been asked a million times, but with different definitions of the problem. And it's probably either easy to fix or a long lasting wish from web designers and still unanswered. note: I did do a search on css float on stack, but although some look like my problem, so far I haven't found a similar one.
What I'm trying to do will become clear if you see the attachment. I want them in rows of 3 neatly stacked under each other, where the height of each <li> item is different. In other words: the heighest <li> element in a row is leading, and the next row of items should wrap under this one. Right now the items on the new row bump into the content of a longer list item at the beginning, preventing the first item of the new row to fully float to the left.
Please note that I don't want to solve this with php or js, I think a pure css solution must be out there... Because with php, I could of course add a class like "new-row" to it and apply a clear: both to it and it will wrap. If I want to do the same thing in CSS then I can't without using poorly supported :nth-of-type stuff. Besides, the content block is variable in width, so sometimes there are 3 on a row and sometimes maybe only 2 or up to 6.
Who can help?
Use "display:inline-block" for LI, not "float:left"
I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I think you have to use tables for this, or a display: table-* construct. (I personally would go with tables - this is somewhat tabular data.)
Only table rendering can resize a whole row according to its tallest member's height.
It's the only way I can see to do this without JS or PHP.
use jQuery.
Pretty sure this is impossible using just CSS. Unless you're going to use absolute positioning and forget floats all together.
I hope I am wrong though! :)
(Would love to be able to do this w/ css)
From your experience, what would be the most suitable CSS solution for replacing the old unfashionable tables, with divs and styles? i am especially interested if there is a solution for replacing the table's tags. (headers of the tables)
thank you!
If you have tabular data, then you should always use a table. There is no reason to replace it with a floating box layout.
Don't use tables for layouting your whole page.
Generally, you'll need to replace each cell() with a div.
I would then google for examples of CSS column layouts to find out which behaviour suits you best. You can place divs in exact positions or make them relative. Either way, if you don't know CSS you're going to have to learn it and play with it to get an idea how
Before anyone close this question or complain... I've been looking all over StackOverFlow site but couldn't find anything straight foward about tables and forms.
I have a form which has at least 20 to 35 labels and text boxes, in different categories. So to start using CSS for each element would be too much.
For some reason, I'm feeling like using tables to align all the fields with their respective labels, since some labels will be larger than others (i.e. 'First Name' is a larger word than 'Age'), and so the layout would be distorted. And I can't start applying css for each label and text box (circa 20 each... that's 40 individual css rules).
Unless someone can give me some techniques, I'll be greatful.
I know CSS is good for forms but what about the very big forms?
So long as you use the cascade to your advantage, there is nothing wrong with CSS for forms.
In fact, I recommend it over using table.
Just set up some base rules...
input {
padding: 3px;
float: right;
}
Then handle the exceptions to your rules...
input#age {
float: none;
}
Forms are not tabular data, simple forms just superficially look like they are.
CSS is just fine for long forms. Have styles for most data. Then more specific styles for short bits of data and/or long bits of data, and so on. Don't style everything individually.
try using UL and LI instead of table, such as explained in the following article Click to see article
It provides the CSS too.
You wouldn't need 40 individual CSS rules. You could have one rule for all the labels, and one for all text boxes.
BUT - having said that - this sort of layout, where you have two columns of stuff, and you want all the stuff in column 1 (the labels in this example) aligned with each other, and all the stuff in col 2 (the text boxes) aligned with each other, while keeping the rows aligned - well that's exactly the sort of thing that the the good ol' table excels at.
I am a big advocate of CSS, and I believe that abuse of tables (to layout a page for example) is evil, evil, evil - but I would definitely go with tables on this one.
At the end of the day, it's all about preference and functionality. My personal preference are divs/CSS. The cascading nature of CSS, and cleanliness of the code, etc..
But hey, if you like tables - shout it from a rooftop!
You can use jQuery Masonry.
As far as I can see, it will achieve the layout you need and all you have to do is add classes and single line of JS code.
You can create good, accessible forms using CSS without too many CSS rules (for the alignment part, anyway). You basically just need to set the width of all the labels -- with one rule -- and define how they interact with the input elements. There a nice article at http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/forms/ (just the first one I found, I'm sure there are many others).
For a form IMO i'd rather use a table its cleaner. Use CSS for your websites layout. But again thats my opinion...
I've seen quite a few answers on this site which advocate using tables for a design because it can't be done using CSS and Divs... when in actual fact it can be done with a bit of ingenuity.
What are examples of things that genuinely can't be done?
The only one I've ever come across is vertically aligning a box within another box.
*edit: I suppose I'm mostly interested in unachievable layouts using CSS2
Vertical alignment of blocks or text.
Having elastic containers that stretch to the width of their content.
Having several "rows" with the same structure where "cells" are synchronized in width throughout all rows.
Having several "columns" synchronize their height (up to the length of the longest text block).
These are quite basic designer needs that appear in even basic design concepts.
Cells/columns issues can possibly be solved with CSS if you take IE8 into account, but it will be many years until its wide spread (even IE7 in 2-3 years hasn't reached the desired market share).
As for "ingenuity", it is not that good thing in software development. Tricks that your colleagues and you yourself after a couple of months will not be able to understand usually build up that code base that everyone either is scared to touch or determined to refactor/rewrite completely.
Remember the KISS principle. The simpliest way you do this, the more reliably it will work.
The answer to this question depends on a number of things:
How backwards compatible do you need to be? Including IE6 will decrease the capacity of pure CSS; and
How much of your site is fixed-width and/or fixed-height. There are certain things in CSS that become hard if not impossible in variable width and/or height situations.
Side-by-side content is a problem for CSS. You can use floats for this but if the sum of widths exceeds the width of the container, the tail end floats will fall down below. Tables are more capable in this regard as they will squeeze columns where possible to make things fit and cells will never be split onto new rows.
Vertical centering you mentioned. Its trivial with tables and hard or impossible (depending on compatibility and fixed or variable heights of the container and the item) in pure CSS.
You may also be referring to hover content. IE6 only supports the :hover pseudo element on anchors. Javascript is required for that browser for :hover-like behaviour.
Basically if what you need to do can be done fairly trivially with pure CSS then do it. If not, don't feel bad if you have to use tables despite all the anti-table fanatics (and they are fanatics) jumping up and down in horror.
If you want a relatively simple exmaple of this check out Can you do this HTML layout without using tables?. This is a conceptually simple layout problem that is trivial with tables and noone has yet posted a solution meeting the requirements with pure CSS.
"... when in actual fact it can be done
with a bit of ingenuity."
How about 'avoiding the need for ingenuity' as a thing that's hard to do in CSS.
;)
tables should be used for tabular data! We should always try to use the correct HTML for the given content in which to markup. So not just div's (span, ul, li, dl, strong, em ... etc) This ensures that the content is not just looking right but is right (for SEO and accesibile reasons)
By not using tables it allows us to transform the content from one look and feel to the next without having to change the HTML, see Zen Garden
For now though with current browsers CSS table like layouts can be done but are tricky. there are techniques to get round many of the issues, weather they are done though global wrappers with background images, or positioning fixes... where both articles also refer to using Javascript to progressively enhance a page to get those additional classes you may require.
or of course you could use some XSL as a middle ware to help do formating if processing from a CMS.
Alternate row colors in a table without manually (or with the aid of a script) assigning alternate styles to each row.
Determine one element's position relative to another. For example you can't use CSS to determine which position one box is in a bunch of floated boxes using the same class. Would be nice to for example know if one box is the first box floated, or the second, or the last.
Handle widows. A widow is a word that dangles off the end of a paragraph, that is a single word starts the last line on a paragraph. It's a big nono on print design, but in the world of web it's hard to control.
Floating elements in multiple columns, where text in each cell can expand the height of the element, but the entire row below must be pushed down if this happens.
--- --- ---
|AAA| |BBB| |CCC|
--- --- ---
--- --- ---
|AAA| |BBB| |CCC|
| | |BBB| | |
--- --- ---
--- --- ---
|AAA| |BBB| |CCC|
--- --- ---
An image cannot placed in exact center of a cell with align attribute.It can be done with some brute force .
Sounds obvious but you can't change content with CSS, it can only be used for styling.
Rory, I think you're absolutely right. Vertical alignment can be done with line-height, and creating lay-outs in CSS really isn't that hard. In fact, it's far more flexible when using absolute/relative positioning and floats.
People still using tables for design should really brush up with the current standards.
Going on topic, with CSS3 coming up it's hard to think of stuff CSS can't do. Image manipulation, content manipulation, advanced selectors, it's all going to be possible. But if I had to name one thing, it's that with CSS you can't (and won't) be able to rotate elements.
I was unable to use a transparency to create a variable-height text area across all pages. I believe it's impossible. I ultimately just wrote a quick javascript function to reset the height after the page load, to get the layout to work. See http://peterchristopher.com to see what I mean by transparency for the text area.
There is absolutely nothing tables can do that CSS can't.
There seems to be a common misconception that HTML & CSS should be easy. It isn't. If you find yourself wanting to use tables then its your CSS skills that need improving not the technology (although the technology does obviously have plenty of holes that could do with improving).