Is there a way with CSS to wrap text on both sides of an element (an image for example). I am trying to have an image positioned in the middle of a paragraph and would like text to flow over it. Please see the image for an example.
Positioning an element typically takes it out of the document flow; so that doesn't work.
I don't think so, no. Not without working with multiple text-columns.
I just threw together one possible solution. You can access it at http://www.sampsonresume.com/labs/img-in-middle/
The only thing that I have seen similar to this would be the A List Apart article: Cross-Column Pull-Out Part Two: Custom Silhouettes. You still need multiple text columns, and even ALA lists it as "experimental". It may be worth checking out, though.
Example here.
Not without some very tricky/tedious text parsing. But anyone trying to read that text would hate you if you made them jump back and forth across an image twice per line, so that's probably a good thing.
Related
I am just learning to code and have been looking everywhere for an answer on this one and for some reason cannot find anything.
I noticed that it seems to be common practice to put an image inside of a container or wrapper. For instance, rather just having:
<img src="url"/>
Everyone seems to be in agreement that it needs to be this way:
<div class="container">
<img=src"url"/>
</div>
What is the purpose of wrapping the img inside of a div in this way? It seems to have something to do with "responsive design", but I'm not 100% sure. Is it just so that we have something to size the image relative to, rather than using definite sizing like pixels on the image selector in css? The more I think about it as I write this, the more it seems to be the right answer, but I'm not sure if there's something else I'm missing on this one.
Any insight would be very much appreciated. Thank you.
unfortunately there is no "single" correct answer for this.
There can be many reasons as to why one would wrap any element in another element, it is not specific to <img /> tags :)
In your question I read something like this (converted to real world example):
I see that it is common practice to put a frame around a photo.
Where the "frame" would be the wrapper element, and the photo would be the <img />.
Looking at it this way might make it seem more clear. The photo is the most important part, technically speaking you don't need a frame to show the photo. If you have just a photo, you won't be able to hang it on your wall without damaging it by driving a nail through the top or applying some tape. If you have a frame though, you can make that photo take up any amount of available space within it, you can use the clip to hang it on a wall and if you put multiple photo's in the frame, you can move them all at once since they are in the same frame.
The reason most people put that image in a "container" is because they get some sort of advantage out of it over using an image alone, this could range from aspect-ratio locks to relative positioning. In some cases, a wrapper is required to achieve certain (notably more complex) animations as well.
Websites are built out of "logical" pieces that, together, form a website. The individual pieces are all "frames" that "flow" together to create any page layout you see on every website.
It is merely a structural way of thinking, if the purpose of that image was to be used as a background image for the entire page, a better alternative would be to use CSS background-image property on the <body> tag and not use the image at all. But if the image is meant to be part of a smaller part of your website, it should probably be contained as appropiate.
This answer is in no way a guide to go by, nor a ruleset or anything like that, they are just the thoughts of another developer. There are countless reasons for wrapping an element and this answer doesn't even cover 0.0000001% of those cases. I'm just saying -- there's no specific reason to do or don't here.
In general I like the pretty option. I like my html to be readable and pretty helps. But there are times when it gets in the way. For example.
x.do-not-care-about-spaces It can go either way here.
y.please-no-spaces These
y.please-no-spaces Should
y.please-no-spaces Touch
What I'd like to see is:
<x class="do-not-care-about-spaces">It can go either way here.</x>
<y class="please-no-spaces">These</y><y class="please-no-spaces">Should</y><y class="please-no-spaces">Touch</y>
But what I do see is
<x class="do-not-care-about-spaces">It can go either way here.</x>
<y class="please-no-spaces">These</y>
<y class="please-no-spaces">Should</y>
<y class="please-no-spaces">Touch</y>
I know there are several ways to work around this (with css, by putting html in the jade file), but what I'm hoping for is a jade-y way of doing it.
EDIT: Updated example with example tags, rather than divs. I am asking specifically about controlling spaces between DOM nodes in jade's HTML output, not the visual space between elements on a rendered web page.
There is a similar question on the github repo and the essential comment is:
No, it is not currently possible to force only part of the document into pretty/normal mode. The general recommendation for this is to use the normal (non-pretty) mode which is the default for exactly this reason. You can explicitly add white space using = ' ' (on its own line) when actually needed for the formatting of the page.
A <div> element takes up the whole row, so it makes sense that it's rendered as such too.
I think what you need are <span> tags
span.no-space These
span.no-space Will
span.no-space Touch
<span class="no-space">These</span><span class="no-space">Will</span><span class="no-space">Touch</span>
BTW there's also the inline #[…] syntax which makes more sense if you're putting tags in one line
#[span.no-space These]#[span.no-space Will]#[span.no-space Touch]
Note that this syntax will not however make divs appear in one line though, you still have to use spans.
I'm developing a desktop software application which looks for errors in web pages and can highlight them in the browser. Highlighted areas are somewhat arbitrary. They could be one word in a p tag, an entire a tag or an img.
In the past I've done this by rewriting the html and adding styled span tags around the highlighted area. The downside is that quite often the highlights can be obscured. For example where in image is in a div exactly its size with no overflow, any applied border, background etc. will be obscured.
What's the best way to approach this? Are there any good examples of this being done in popular software / webapps?
Limitations: I can't use JS (files are local and browsers often block this). I can however user the latest standards. The output doesn't have to validate, as long as it works on common modern browsers.
Since background colors and borders can't be used, I think you'll need to place something on top of the offending element or text. Perhaps you can use an absolute or fixed position <div> element with a partially transparent background.
Of course, this could get tricky with getting the coordinates. But you might be able to use the same thing you used to do with the span and add some dummy elements within it to trick it into thinking that 0,0 is right where your span element is.
This is the first time i am properly coding in HTML,CSS. in my code i have used whole lot of div's to position and also to put the content in place. i am not sure if i am coding the right way. i have loads of contents too in a single page. here is the link to my code i have used.
http://jsfiddle.net/32ShZ/
can you please suggest. is it really bad in structure and shape?
Absolutely not. You don't want to go overboard though (it's called "div soup" when you do). If you find that a div has no purpose but to hold a background image, or to clear a float, etc that means you've done something wrong. By using wrappers (e.g. 3 levels deep of div tags for a content area that has some backgrounds, etc is OK), you can properly achieve any layout that you need without resorting to "div soup". Take a look at http://www.digitalperfections.net/ for an example of good (x)HTML with a lot of div tags.
To further expand, and answer the question about your code specifically, I noticed one thing right off the bat: <div id="divider"></div> - this is bad because you're using this div purely for non-semantic purposes (for decoration only).
The general principle is use as less HTML for layout as possible. And try to give Style to your page with the help of CSS. So if a minimum number of divs can achieve your task, you should go for it. This helps to make page lighter and maintainable. But yes how small structure (HTML) you can have in your page depends on your experience and design.
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).