Question

Tableless Page Layout Using DIV tags

Asked by: SiriusPhil

I want to have a page layout that gives me a header section that spands 100% of the width, then a three-column section below the header.  The first column is 130px fixed width.  The second column is variable width.  This is where the core content will go.  The third column is an ad column fiixed at 130 px and aligns to the right side of the page.  The next section that spans below these three columns is the footer section.

Tha page needs to fill the browser window so the content section needs to expand and contract to accomodate the two fixed width columns

Is this possible?  I know how to do it with a fixed width page.  Now, I'm having a problem figuring out how to create the second and third columns in the second row.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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|       |                                       |         |
|       |                                       |         |
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==================Sample Code So Far ========================
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
#Header {
width: 100%;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
clear: both;
float: left;
 }
 #NavCol {
width: 130px;
padding: ;
margin: 0;
float: left;
 }
#ContentCol {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
float:left
 }
 #AdCol {
      width: 130px;
padding: ;
      margin: 0;
      float: right;
}
 #Footer {
width: 100%;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
clear: both;
float: left;
 }

-->
</style>
</head>

<body>
<div id="Header">
Header Content
</div>

<div id="NavCol">
navigation<br />Controls
</div>

<div id="ContentCol">
Content Column<br />
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qu
</div>

<div id="AdCol">
  Ad Bar
</div>

<div id="Footer">
This is the footer
</div>

</body>
</html>

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Asked On
2005-09-22 at 11:31:52ID21570916
Tags

div

,

using

,

layout

,

tableless

,

page

Topics

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

,

Extensible HTML (XHTML)

Participating Experts
4
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: weighinggloryPosted on 2005-09-22 at 11:38:49ID: 14939313

This layout has been very well documented at glish.com--I highly recommend his technique.

http://glish.com/css/7.asp

Blue Robot's technique is also popular:

http://bluerobot.com/web/layouts/layout3.html

 

by: weighinggloryPosted on 2005-09-22 at 12:00:55ID: 14939494

It would also be helpful to have a fixed height for your header, so you can set the top attribute. This code should get you started:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
#Header {
width: 100%;
height: 50px;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
clear: both;
 }
#Wrap {
 width: 100%;
 clear: both;
}
 #NavCol {
position: absolute;
left: 0px;
top: 50px;
width: 130px;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
 }
#ContentCol {
margin-left: 135px;
margin-right: 135px;
padding: 0;
 }
 #AdCol {
position: absolute;
right: 0px;
top: 50px;
width: 130px;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
 }
 #Footer {
width: 100%;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
clear: both;
 }

-->
</style>
</head>

<body>
<div id="Header">
Header Content
</div>
<div id="Wrap"
<div id="NavCol">
navigation<br />Controls
</div>

<div id="ContentCol">
Content Column<br />
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qu
</div>

<div id="AdCol">
  Ad Bar
</div>
</div>

<div id="Footer">
This is the footer
</div>

</body>
</html>

 

by: GrandSchtroumpfPosted on 2005-09-22 at 12:03:48ID: 14939518

The problem with 3 column CSS layout with variable width is how you manage the overflow of the middle section.  Typically, the right column will display either in front of or behind your overflowing content.  That's why i don't recommend 3 colums.

An alternate solution is to use this kind of layout where the right "column" does not stretch on the entire height of the page:  http://koivi.com/ie-png-transparency/

 

by: weighinggloryPosted on 2005-09-22 at 12:05:46ID: 14939540

Notice I added a wrap div around your three columns--this is often useful for formatting them as a whole. The structure I generally have is

<div id="page">
  <div id="header"></div>
  <div id="body">
    <div id="col1"></div>
    <div id="col2"></div>
    ...
  </div>
  <div id="footer"></div>
</div>

This allows you to control the whole page, just header, body, and footer, or individual columns. You'll find this useful when you start adding background colors, and fonts, and things like this.
 

 

by: GoofyDawgPosted on 2005-09-22 at 16:27:32ID: 14941143

This should work for what you're after: http://home.comcast.net/~bdelumpa1/threecol/threecol.html, though it does suffer from the middle content overflow as GS described.

GoofyDawg

 

by: bfider2004Posted on 2005-09-23 at 03:45:56ID: 14943095

Save yourself the headache:

http://www.csscreator.com/

 

by: SiriusPhilPosted on 2005-12-04 at 18:13:36ID: 15416942

Thanks guys.  Both posts were very useful.  I split the points between you two as I used info from both solutions in my final project.

Phil Hayes

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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