Question

Avoid height adjustment of column in table

Asked by: fulscher

Hello experts

I'm in the process of putting a site together with the following layout:

+---------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Logo    | Header Text                                                               HeaderImage|
| Logo    +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Logo    |                                                                                                      |
|            |                                                                                                      |
| Menu   |                                         BODY                                                     |
| Menu   |                                                                                                      |
| Menu   |                                                                                                      |
|            |                                                                                                      |
+---------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Note that the height of the logo is much bigger than the height of the Header row. I've put together some HTML which basically does what I need (attached below).

Problem: If there are just a few lines of BODY content, the browsers (IE+FF) will increase the size of the header row.

How can I avoid this? In other terms - what can I do to force the browser to always use a fixed height for the header text?

(I've also tried pure CSS without tables, but that created too many problems with different browsers, so I had to get back to a table-based solution).  

Current HTML code:

<table width="100%" height="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="maintable">
   <tr>
      <td class="navcol" rowspan="2">
         <a href="../index.php"><img src="../_images/logoani.gif" width="162" height="114" border="0" /></a>
         <?php echo $omenu->make_menu_text($selmnu, $mnuconfig, TRUE, array(TRUE, TRUE)); ?>
      </td>
      <td class="toprow">
         <img src="../_images/headtopright.gif" width="324" height="40" align="right" style="float:right "/>
         <?php sometext(); ?>
      </td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
      <td class="bodycol">
         <img src="../_images/startbild.jpg" width="580" height="329" border="0" />
      </td>
   </tr>
</table>


And here's the CSS I'm using, for whatever it's worth:

.maintable {
      table-layout:fixed;
}

.toprow {
      background-color:#CCCCCC;
}

.navcol {
      width:162px;
      max-width:162px;
      background-color:#0066FF;
}

.bodycol {
      height:100%;
      vertical-align:top;
}

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Asked On
2005-07-29 at 03:13:21ID21508813
Tags

height

,

table

,

html

,

adjustment

Topic

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: dorwardPosted on 2005-07-29 at 05:23:52ID: 14553905

The best way to avoid that would be to not use tables for layout, it isn't what they are designed for.

http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=TwoColumnLayouts
http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Tableless_layouts

The ugly hack would be to continue to abuse tables for layout, but put the header and body in the same cell. I don't advise that though.

 

by: fulscherPosted on 2005-07-29 at 06:31:38ID: 14554398

If somebody can provide a functioning, concrete solution using either tables or CSS or both, the points are his/hers. I need a solution which works for
- variable window width; body contents width must adapt, menu width must remain constant
- variable amount of body data; header height must remain constant under ALL circumstances
- with 99.5% of the browsers, including IE, FF, NS and opera
- and should avoid using JS to cover up browser bugs.

I don't care whether it's CSS or tables. However, tables are preferred because some of the body contents comes with a two-column format which I failed to make display correctly under the given conditions. IE especially appears not to be able to handle "div width=50%" in a child div correctly.

Please post tested code. I'm ready to spend another 500 points or more.

 

by: azcn2503Posted on 2005-07-29 at 16:55:36ID: 14559585

If tables do the trick, then use them. They're much better support than DIV's with CSS2 anyway.

You could try not doing any line breaks inbetween your <td> and </td> tags, for example:

Do this: <td>Content goes here</td>

Don't do this: <td>
Content goes here
</td>

I've noticed I get some layout errors doing that.

 

by: leendePosted on 2005-07-29 at 21:37:56ID: 14560182

I would forget using rowspan=2 to present a side menu, as you are doing here, and instead use a table-within-a-td to achieve the same thing.

Specifically, you would have a main table of 1 row with 2 cells. Within the second cell of this you would have another table of 2 rows with 1 cell each. You would set the height and width of this second table to 100%. Also, add valign=top to each of the cells of the main table.

Here is the exact HTML you could use (the CSS would not change):



<table width="100%" height="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="maintable">
   <tr>
      <td class="navcol" valign=top>
         <a href="../index.php"><img src="../_images/logoani.gif" width="162" height="114" border="0" /></a>
         <?php echo $omenu->make_menu_text($selmnu, $mnuconfig, TRUE, array(TRUE, TRUE)); ?>
      </td>
      <td valign=top>

<table width=100% height=100% cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
   <tr>
      <td class="toprow">
         <img src="../_images/headtopright.gif" width="324" height="40" align="right" style="float:right "/>
         <?php sometext(); ?>
      </td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
      <td class="bodycol">
         <img src="../_images/startbild.jpg" width="580" height="329" border="0" />
      </td>
   </tr>
</table>

 

by: leendePosted on 2005-07-29 at 21:43:16ID: 14560187

Oops, let me amend that, I forgot to close the main table. The correct HTML is:


<table width="100%" height="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="maintable">
   <tr>
      <td class="navcol" valign=top>
         <a href="../index.php"><img src="../_images/logoani.gif" width="162" height="114" border="0" /></a>
         <?php echo $omenu->make_menu_text($selmnu, $mnuconfig, TRUE, array(TRUE, TRUE)); ?>
      </td>
      <td valign=top>

<table width=100% height=100% cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
   <tr>
      <td class="toprow">
         <img src="../_images/headtopright.gif" width="324" height="40" align="right" style="float:right "/>
         <?php sometext(); ?>
      </td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
      <td class="bodycol">
         <img src="../_images/startbild.jpg" width="580" height="329" border="0" />
      </td>
   </tr>
</table>

      </td>
   </tr>
</table>

 

by: fulscherPosted on 2005-07-30 at 01:22:34ID: 14560580

leende - thank you - I'm going to try that. Let me just finish what I'm looking at right now.

I'm currently AGAIN trying to get it going with CSS - and it drives me nuts. Most of the stuff works fine but IE creates some gaps between DIVs which I just can't get rid of. And I hate to think how this thing will look on older browsers... I've not yet tried.

<flame>
I don't know why most people become so religious when talking about CSS. Sure - it's a nice idea but it just DOES NOT WORK. When we need browser-specific hacks for CSS or JS to overcome browser implementation differences we're not better off than with tables. With tables, I don't need JS and browser-specific code to have the page look good on most browsers.
</flame>

 

by: fulscherPosted on 2005-07-30 at 01:58:54ID: 14560702

leende - it works now. So - after all, tables aren't that bad.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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