Question

How can I get around this float bug in Internet Explorer with direction="rtl" ?

Asked by: maltomeal8

When I view this test html in Firefox it is correct, but in IE the "Left-Middle-Right" text is missing in the Hebrew case.

I am hoping to find out if either there is a way to fix this, or a way to re-write the html using non-floated elements that achieves the same behavior.  I played around with using spans a little bit, but I couldn't get it to work.  

One constraint - the solution cannot require specifying a width (the html below is just a simple test that isolates the problem).  I know that specifying a width makes it work, but that is not acceptable for my application since this is a shared element and the width varies depending on the amount of text inside.  Firefox has the correct desired behavior.

By the way, yes, I do need to have the 3 separate elements (Left, Middle, Right).  They are used for images in the real case in my app.  This is just a simplified example.

Thank you in advance for your help. 

<!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>
        <style type="text/css">
            .ll { float: left;  }
            .rr { float: right; }
            .cc { clear: both; }
        </style>  
    </head>
    <body>
        <div style="direction:ltr; padding:10px; background-color:Aqua">
            <h2>English div</h2>
            <div class="rr" style="background-color:yellow; padding:20px; xwidth:420px">
                <h1>This div is floated right</h1>
 
                <div class="ll">Left</div>
                <div class="ll">-Middle-</div>
                <div class="ll">Right</div>
                <div class="cc"></div>
 
            </div>
            <div class="cc"></div>
        </div>
        <br />
        <br />
        <div style="direction:rtl; padding:10px; background-color:Aqua">
            <h2>Hebrew div</h2>
            <div class="ll" style="background-color:yellow; padding:20px; xwidth:420px">
                <h1>This div is floated left</h1>
 
                <div class="rr">Right</div>
                <div class="rr">-Middle-</div>
                <div class="rr">Left</div>
                <div class="cc"></div>
				
            </div>
            <div class="cc"></div>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

                                  
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Asked On
2009-10-09 at 14:45:16ID24800720
Tags

float

,

rtl

,

right to left

,

hebrew

,

Internet Explorer

Topics

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

,

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

,

Dynamic HTML (DHTML)

Participating Experts
3
Points
0
Comments
10

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Answers

 

by: cb1393Posted on 2009-10-09 at 15:08:57ID: 25539263

Here's a fun trick: ajust the browser window size and watch the text magically appear. :-)

 

by: cb1393Posted on 2009-10-09 at 15:32:33ID: 25539419

Ok, I noticed the "Hebrew div" text is there, hiding behind the Aqua background. Try the following:

<h2 style="position:relative;">Hebrew div</h2>

                                              
1:

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by: maltomeal8Posted on 2009-10-09 at 15:46:53ID: 25539490

It seems like maybe you're seeing something different than what I see.  The text "Hebrew div" shows up fine.  It's the "Left-Middle-Right" that doesn't show up for the Hebrew case.  I am testing in IE6 (I hate IE6, just have to support it for my website).  Were you using IE7 or IE8?  And you see the "Left-Middle-Right" text appropriately?

 

by: kadabaPosted on 2009-10-09 at 20:35:07ID: 25540717

xwidth....

make it width

 

by: maltomeal8Posted on 2009-10-10 at 13:13:14ID: 25543593

just to reiterate:

One constraint - the solution cannot require specifying a width (the html below is just a simple test that isolates the problem).  I know that specifying a width makes it work, but that is not acceptable for my application since this is a shared element and the width varies depending on the amount of text inside.  Firefox has the correct desired behavior.

 

by: KravimirPosted on 2009-10-10 at 20:27:38ID: 25544771

IE6 is the buggiest of current major browsers. (IE7 seems to have this bug too though. However, it's fixed in IE8.)  Setting a width seems to be the only fix for this float bug.

Have you considered using JavaScript to set the width after the page loads?

This seems to fix it:

<script type="text/javascript">/* <![CDATA[ */
 
function getElementsByClassName_old(cName,elms) {
  // elms can be a string or a nodeList
  // this variant by DynamicSiteSolutions.com
  var d = document;
  if(!elms || !elms.length || (elms=='*')) {
    if(d.getElementsByClassName) return d.getElementsByClassName(cName);
    elms='*';
    if(d.all && (!d.getElementsByTagName || !d.compatMode)) elms = d.all;
  }
  if((typeof(elms)=='string') && d.getElementsByTagName)
    elms = d.getElementsByTagName(elms);
  if(!elms || !elms.length) return [];
  cName = cName.replace(/\-/g, "\\-");
  var ar=[],re = new RegExp('(^|\\s)'+cName+'(\\s|$)','i');
  for(var i=0,len=elms.length;i<len;i++)
    if(elms[i].className && re.test(elms[i].className)) ar[ar.length] = elms[i];
  return ar;
}
 
var isMSIE=/*@cc_on!@*/false; // http://dean.edwards.name/weblog/2007/03/sniff/
 
window.onload = function(){ /* quick and dirty onload event handler */
 
  if(isMSIE) {
    var elms=getElementsByClassName_old('ie6-rtl-fix','div');
    for(var i=0,l=elms.length,pad=0,s;i<l;i++) {
      s=elms[i].currentStyle;
      pad=parseFloat(s.paddingLeft)+parseFloat(s.paddingRight);
      elms[i].style.width=(elms[i].clientWidth-pad+1)+'px';
      elms[i].style.width=(elms[i].clientWidth-pad-1)+'px';
    }
  }
}
/* ]]> */</script>

                                              
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by: maltomeal8Posted on 2009-10-16 at 20:44:13ID: 25594697

I figured out a way to do it with spans, so width is not necessary.

 

by: kadabaPosted on 2009-10-16 at 20:56:33ID: 25594712

can you give an insight into what you did

 

by: KravimirPosted on 2009-10-17 at 06:59:33ID: 25595956

Yes, please tell us what your solution was.

Also, did my suggested solution not work for you?

 

by: maltomeal8Posted on 2009-10-17 at 11:31:41ID: 25596869

Yes, this is the new code (I added the span version which works)

<!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>
        <style type="text/css">
            .ll { float: left;  }
            .rr { float: right; }
            .cc { clear: both; }
        </style>  
    </head>
    <body>
        <div style="direction:ltr; padding:10px; background-color:Aqua">
            <h2>English div</h2>
            <div class="rr" style="background-color:yellow; padding:20px; xwidth:420px">
                <h1>This div is floated right</h1>
 
                <div class="ll">Left</div>
                <div class="ll">-Middle-</div>
                <div class="ll">Right</div>
                <div class="cc"></div>
                <br />
                <span>Left</span><span>-Middle-</span><span>Right</span>
            </div>
            <div class="cc"></div>
        </div>
        <br />
        <br />
        <div style="direction:rtl; padding:10px; background-color:Aqua">
            <h2>Hebrew div</h2>
            <div class="ll" style="background-color:yellow; padding:20px; xwidth:420px">
                <h1>This div is floated left</h1>
 
                <div class="rr">Right</div>
                <div class="rr">-Middle-</div>
                <div class="rr">Left</div>
                <div class="cc"></div>
                <br />
                <span>Left</span><span>-Middle-</span><span>Right</span>       
            </div>
            <div class="cc"></div>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

                                              
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