Is it useful to add whole code in #container, #Wrapper in every CSS layout? Can't we make layout without this extra div ? What are pros and cons to use this extra div?
Is it good practice ? Is it useful for any type of design/layout? Is it semantically correct?
Is it useful to add whole code in #container, #Wrapper in every CSS layout?
It would not be needed in every layout unless every layout was the same, and then only if they require a wrapper/container.
Can't we make layout without this extra div ?
Yes, you can sometimes dispense with the extra wrapper div.
What are pros and cons to use this extra div?
It totally depends on your layout. Often with a fixed width centered design, a wrapper makes the most sense. You can also style the body tag, but then overlays and other elements might look different or not totally fill the screen depending on their implementation.
Is it good practice?
Yes, but only if the layout requires it.
Is it useful for any type of design/layout?
It is normally useful when you need to do a fixed width, centered layout. Not sure of other uses where it is helpful.
Is it semantically correct?
Not really as the body is really a perfectly good container or wrapper so adding another one is redundant. However, it is a necessary evil in many designs depending on browser support needed or the layout that is needed. Go ahead and use it without concern if it makes sense for your project and layout.
Putting a container div around the whole page can be useful in certain situations, e.g. if you want to center everything, you can just put margin: 0 auto; on the container div and be done. That being said, it is certainly not required nor useful for every type of layout.
As to semantical correctness, sure, having a div as the only direct child of body is absolutely okay. A div tag does not have any semantical meaning in and on itself, the very reason it was introduced was to be able to do layout without misusing semantic tags.
If you have <div id="container"><div id="Wrapper">STUFF</div></div>, then surely you can simplify. Maybe try changing id to class, as in <div class="container"><div class="Wrapper">, then in your style change #container to .container, and #Wrapper to .Wrapper.
If it still works, you can remove the inner div by combining the style. If that's too hard (too much style to edit), you can simply join classes in a single div: <div class="container Wrapper">STUFF</div>.
Related
I have multiple questions. If I want an inline list to be a certain height/width is it better to use display:inline; and set the height and width to the <ul> element ? Or should I use float:left; and apply overflow:hidden; to the <ul> element? Also, is it better to apply the margin/padding the the <li> element or the <a> inside the list? Do you even need to if you reset the values? Will each occupy as much space as they can or will the last-child be longer to accommodate for excess space?
Your question is pretty theoretical.
You probably need to explain more what you're trying to do because there are benefits and drawbacks to what you're talking about.
For example, pure "inline" elements height or width will be ignored. You need to use a block-level element to do that, which includes floated blocks or "inline-block".
http://jsfiddle.net/3YU3y/3/
And if you float, it might position itself differently than what you're expected.
If you're looking to do a horizontal list vs an "inline list", then there's plenty of design patterns out there for that. Check out Dan Cederholms website for some real common HTML/CSS patterns:
http://pea.rs
Check out "lists" and "navigation" in particular.
Hope that helps!
Cheers!
I prefer to display inline as it seems to make more sense to me to use that over floating something that I suspect was never intended to be floated.
Floating things is very handy for layouts and inlining lists but I am guessing not its original intent.
I would apply all styling to the inside element (A), not the list. I'd style the list for float:, position: or display: only; Whether you use use inline or float is up to you. Just make sure you use display:block on the A-tag.
See my tutorial: http://preview.moveable.com/JM/ilovelists/
Here's a good example I put together to play with. It breaks down each of the concepts you're looking for.
Use display:inline. Via CSS set a width to your li if you want a fixed width. Use line-height for a fixed height.
Right, worst question in the history of web design. Who cares, just choose an option. So my question is like this...
What is the best answer to be standards compliant and (backwards) browser compatible?
jQuery used for layout which is supposed to be reserved for css and html
OR
Negative margin, extra containers , or other hacks or bloat?
Already spent too much time on this but looking for the "professional" way to do it.
EDIT: Here is a code example using Alexander's method.
Usually I use pure css/html solution which works in 99% cases:
I have a parent div with background-repeat on 'Y' axe. The general structure is going to be like this :
html:
<div id="container" class="clearfix">
<div class="LeftPane"></div>
<div class="CenterPane"></div>
<div class="RightPane"></div>
</div>
css:
#container{
background:url(imagePath) 0% repeat y;
}
for background image you can apply image for the borders, or everything else what can make users to think that all 3 blocks have the same height
There are many ways of successfully doing that, I think the easiest one of them is to simply wrap them all in a common parent container, set his display to table or table-row No need for parent at all. and set the original <div>s to display: table-cell;
jsFiddle.
For compatibility I'd suggest jQuery. Hacks and extra containers make your code bloated, as you've said, and will end up making it more difficult to edit if changes need to be made. And anyways, HTML is the layout of the page.
I have come up with a revolutionary new method for equal height columns. It is a pure CSS/HTML solution, tested in the latest Chrome and Firefox, and IE7-9. It is a bit tricky to set up but once it is done it works beautifully. The problem with every previous solution I have seen is that it doesn't actually create individual, side-by-side divs that can have their own borders, margins, etc. Other solutions always have some columns overlapping which means you can only contrast the different columns by changing the background. This method allows any column to be any height unlike some methods. The secret to its success is using float: right instead of left. If it was floated left you would have issues with extra space on the right causing scroll bars. Perhaps the only down side with this method is that it can be hard to wrap your head around!
Check it out here.
http://jsfiddle.net/wRCm6/2/
One that doesn't require the following:
Reliance on images (i.e. "faux columns")
Some kind of weirdness or "hack" put in specifically for IE
Requires IE to run in quirks mode
Doesn't have strangeness like one of the three DIVs overlapping the others (i.e. "holy grail")
Margins set to high negative numbers placing them well off the viewscreen (again "holy grail" layout)
I can't find a 3-column layout in CSS that doesn't rely on one of the above. And relying on one of the above seems to negate a lot of the advantage of using CSS over tables. I don't want to have to whip out Photoshop and resize an image every time I want to change the width of my left column. And I don't want to have to pull out the calculator to figure out how many pixels off the side of the screen my DIV has to be.
I should mention that I'm looking for an equal-height layout.
Anyone?
EDIT: I'm looking for a width of 100%, with the center column being liquid.
EDIT: I'm also hoping to specify the width of the left and right columns in pixels.
EDIT: Backgrounds can be transparent, but I would like a dividing line between the columns which runs all the way up and down.
There is no such thing as "simple" when you talk about CSS.
But there is a simple solution that is cross browser, degrades gracefully and is fully HTML and CSS compliant: use a table with three columns.
Reasoning: DIVs are not meant to have the same dynamic height. Therefore, CSS has no support for this. If you need a block element which makes sure that its children have the same height, then that's what tables are for.
[EDIT] Sorry to offend all you CSS fanatics out there but, frankly, when something is not designed to do something and you abuse it, and it doesn't work, please stop complaining, ok? A DIV is not a TABLE and can't be used as one without relying on hacks.
[EDIT2] As was said already in various places, the reason not to use tables for layout was that, in early times, tables were the only design element and that lead to HTML which had dozens of nested tables. That's bad. But that doesn't mean you must not use a single table to put everything in place and then rely on CSS to make the stuff inside look right.
A brain is like a parachute: It's nice to have but only useful when it's open.
You might be able adapt:
http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog/perfect-3-column.htm
I agree with Robert. Due to browsers interpreting CSS rules and rendering the final page differently I doubt you'll find a perfect solution without being more flexible in your requirements.
You can achive this by using jS.
If you were to create 3 Divs one float left one flot right and the middle as margin left & right with a width to centre it.
Then with a bit of JS each div having their own ID you could calcultate their height set the 2 lowers ones to the highest value.
Pretty simple with Jquery.
http://960.gs/
This one can be used for a 3-column layout (and for various other layouts). Personally, I don't think it's a great idea to use divs for everything, but it's simple and well .. it works.
edit: For a 100% width layout http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fluidgrids/ may help, but I'm not sure if this kind of layout still qualifies as "simple".
YAML
"Yet Another Multicolumn Layout"
(YAML) is an (X)HTML/CSS framework for
creating modern and flexible floated
layouts. The structure is extremely
versatile in its programming and
absolutely accessible for end users.
It contains some IE bug fixes, but you can remove them.
divide page into three columns, same height?
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
#col_wrapper{
height: 400px;
}
.col{
width: 33%;
float:left;
height: 100%;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="col_wrapper">
<div class="col">
one
</div>
<div class="col">
two
</div>
<div class="col">
three
</div>
</div>
</body>
no quirks and pretty plain.
What's the most common way to deal with a series of block elements that need to be on a line (if javascript needs to be able to modify their widths, for example)? What are the pros and cons to applying float:left to each of them vs. using positioning to place them?
Well, if you're not too concerned with older browsers (I'm looking at you, IE6) the best way here is to go with
display:inline-block;
Basically, it creates a box-model element without clearing before or after it, so it remains in the line. Every modern browser interprets it well.
Floating would be my choice, but it really depends on what you wish to achieve. If you can provide a more specific example I would be able to give you a clear reason as to what and why I think you should use. However here is a brief set of pros and cons that I have come accross (I'm assuming that by positioning you mean absolute positioning):
Positioning pros:
very precise positioning in relation to the next ancestor marked as position relative - allows for great flexibility
allows for elements to be in a different order visually than they are in the DOM
Positioning cons:
Harder to line up with other elements since the positioned element is no longer in the document flow and also because of the level of precision required.
Other elements ignore the absolutely positioned element which means you could have a potential overlap, unless you account for the minimum and maximum size of the positioned element
harder to implement a footer if you are using absolute positioning for your columns.
Float pros:
really easy to construct simple and advanced layouts
no footer problem
no worrying about precision, browser takes care of that for you
parent container stretches
Float cons:
Lots of pitfalls for those less experienced with float layouts that may lead to many questions being asked on SO :)
As to the clear:both element that Sebastian mentioned, There's a simple way around that. Lets say you have a container div and 2 floated divs inside.
Html:
<div id="con">
<div class="float"></div>
<div class="float"></div>
</div>
CSS:
#con { background:#f0f; }
.float { float:left; width:100px; height:100px; background:#0ff; }
if you were to run this code you would notice that the container div (the magenta coloured one) is only a single pixel high whereas the floated divs were correct - which is the problem Sebastian mentioned. Now you could take his advice and add a br or float the container which would not be very semantic - so here is a slightly more elegant solution. Just add overflow:hidden; to the container div like so:
#con { background:#f0f; overflow:hidden; }
Now your container should wrap the floated divs properly.
The parent container does not stretch with them unless it is also assigned a float tag or there is a br with clear:both; at the bottom.
I would go with the float:left instead of the positioning. The browser does all the aligning when one object stretches. So there is less for you to care about.
I think i wouldn't explicitly position the elements but rather instruct the browser to use an inline layout for the elements using display:inline and let the browser handle the positioning.
regarding float vs positioning i think the only way to line them up using positioning is by using absolute positioning, and that means you need to handle re-sizes(of the browser view port) in order to keep the elements in place.
I think that by using the float property the browser handles the re-sizing issues for you and re-renders the element in the correct place.
Only disadvantage to float in situations like this for me has been that you'll either need to left justify them or right justify them -- centering is not an option. However you've mentioned you're using absolute values for widths, so you could just nest all the floated elements in a DIV element and add either margin-right or margin-left to the parent DIV to simulate center alignment.
I have noticed a common technique is to place a generic container div in the root of the body tag:
<html>
<head>
...
</head>
<body>
<div id="container">
...
</div>
</body>
</html>
Is there a valid reason for doing this? Why can't the CSS just reference the body tag?
The container div, and sometimes content div, are almost always used to allow for more sophisticated CSS styling. The body tag is special in some ways. Browsers don't treat it like a normal div; its position and dimensions are tied to the browser window.
But a container div is just a div and you can style it with margins and borders. You can give it a fixed width, and you can center it with margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto.
Plus, content, like a copyright notice for example, can go on the outside of the container div, but it can't go on the outside of the body, allowing for content on the outside of a border.
This method allows you to have more flexibility of styling your entire content. Effectively creating two containers that you can style. The HTML body tag which serves as your background, and the div with an id of the container which contains your content.
This then allows you to position your content within the page, while styling a background or other effects without issue. Think of it as a "Frame" for the content.
I faced this issue myself redesigning a website. Troy Dalmasso got me thinking. He makes a good point. So, I started to see if I could get it working without a container div.
I could when I set the width of the body. In my case to 960 pixels.
This is the CSS I use:
html {
text-align: center;
}
body {
margin: 0 auto;
width: 960px;
}
This nicely centers the inline-blocks which also have a fixed width.
The most common reasons for me are so that:
The layout can have a fixed width (yes, I know, I do a lot of work for designers who love fixed widths), and
So the layout can be centered by applying text-align: center to the body and then margin: auto to the left and right of the container div.
Certain browsers (<cough> Internet Explorer) don't support certain properties on the body, notably width and max-width.
This is one of the biggest bad habits perpetrated by front end coders.
All the previous answers are wrong. The body does take a width, margins, borders, etc. and should act as your initial container. The html element should act as your background "canvas" as it was intended. In dozens of sites I've done I've only had to use a container div once.
I'd be willing to be that these same coders using container divs are also littering their markup with divs inside of divs--everywhere else.
Don’t do it. Use divs sparingly and aim for lean markup.
I later found this, years after my answer, and see that there are some follow up replies. And, surely you jest?
The installed placeholder site you found for my domain, which I never claimed was my markup or styling, or even mentioned in my post, was very clearly a basic CMS install with not one word of content (it said as much on the homepage). That was not my markup and styling. That was the Silverstripe default template. And I take no credit for it. It is, though, perhaps one of only two examples I can think of that would necessitate a container div.
Example 1: A generic template designed to accommodate unknowns. In this case you were seeing a default CMS template that had divs inside of divs inside of divs.
The horror.
Example 2: A three column layout to get the footer to clear properly (I think this was probably the scenario I had that needed a container div, hard to remember because that was years ago.)
I did build (not even finished yet) a theme for my domain and started loading content. For this easily achieved example of semantic markup, click the link.
http://www.bitbeyond.com
Frankly, I'm baffled that people think you actually need a container div and start with one before ever even trying just a body. The body, as I heard it explained once by one of the original authors of the CSS spec, was intended as the "initial container".
Markup should be added as needed, not because that’s just the way you've seen it done.
div tags are used to style the webpage so that it look visually appealing for the users or audience of the website. Using container-div in HTML will make the website look more professional and attractive and therefore more people will want to explore your page.
Well, the container div is very good to have, because if you want the site centered, you just can't do it just with body or html...
But you can, with divs. Why container? It’s usually used, just because the code itself has to be clean and readable. So that is the container... It contains all of the website, in case you want to mess around with it :)
Forget the container. It's just a habit from the old, very old days.
Everything you can do using a div—you can also do it on a body tag.
I've never heard of issues using a div class="container" markup. But I have heard of issues using body as a top level container. See this article. Stick with the tried and true; who knows what browsers will do in the future.
Most of the browsers are taking the web page size by default.
So, sometimes the page will not display same in different browser. So, by using <div></div>, the user can change for a specific HTML element. For example, the user can add margin, size, width, height, etc. of a specific HTML tag.