opho
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IE bug with position:absolute
I do a lot of form building. My standard is to style labels in the left margin, right-justified, and entry fields in the body. The technique that is getting me closest is to what I need is a left margin of 165px, and labels styled with "position:absolute; top:0; left:-165px; width:155px;".
That approach works passably in IE and Firefox until I want to put text embedded in <p></p> tags immediately after the label. Then, IE seems to stop respecting the position:absolute on the label, and positions the <p>paragraph text</p> lower than the label.
I have a comparable issue with checkboxes. With checkboxes, I invert the layout, posititioning the checkbox absolutely in the right margin, and the label on the right. If the label is styled as "display:block", IE seems to quit respecting the position:absolute on the checkbox and drops the label text underneath the label. Reverting to "display:inline" for the label fixes the vertical position, but there are times that I need to be in display:block mode.
My question: Which IE bug am I hitting? I've been looking for documentation and articles on this for a couple hours now, but am not coming up with anything. I'm trying to get my arms around the limitations of absolute positioning in this context as well as possible workarounds.
See a demo of what I'm describing here:
http://www.myorghost.net/temp/contact3.html
Thanks!
--Steve
That approach works passably in IE and Firefox until I want to put text embedded in <p></p> tags immediately after the label. Then, IE seems to stop respecting the position:absolute on the label, and positions the <p>paragraph text</p> lower than the label.
I have a comparable issue with checkboxes. With checkboxes, I invert the layout, posititioning the checkbox absolutely in the right margin, and the label on the right. If the label is styled as "display:block", IE seems to quit respecting the position:absolute on the checkbox and drops the label text underneath the label. Reverting to "display:inline" for the label fixes the vertical position, but there are times that I need to be in display:block mode.
My question: Which IE bug am I hitting? I've been looking for documentation and articles on this for a couple hours now, but am not coming up with anything. I'm trying to get my arms around the limitations of absolute positioning in this context as well as possible workarounds.
See a demo of what I'm describing here:
http://www.myorghost.net/temp/contact3.html
Thanks!
--Steve
Could have something to do with you using an unordered list. Why are you using lists to layout a form?
ASKER
Hey fuzzboxer...
I use an unordered list because my forms are requests for lists of information.
The forms tend to degrade nicely for folks using adaptive technologies, or for those browsers ignore CSS.
If you've got specific experience with IE rendering absolutely positioned items differently inside an unordered list than it renders them inside other elements, I'd love to hear about it.
--Steve
I use an unordered list because my forms are requests for lists of information.
The forms tend to degrade nicely for folks using adaptive technologies, or for those browsers ignore CSS.
If you've got specific experience with IE rendering absolutely positioned items differently inside an unordered list than it renders them inside other elements, I'd love to hear about it.
--Steve
Hi Steve,
Why are you using absolute positioning? Is it because you want the text before the checkbox when css is turned off?
Cheers
Why are you using absolute positioning? Is it because you want the text before the checkbox when css is turned off?
Cheers
ASKER
Hey Steggs...
With text (or textarea) input fields, I just want the label text to appear first in the source, and be positioned visually on the left, and place additional instructions (when needed) and the input fields on the right.
With checkboxes, I want to reverse that, having the checkbox first, on the left, and its label on the right.
I'm open to suggestion as to how best to make that work.
--Steve
With text (or textarea) input fields, I just want the label text to appear first in the source, and be positioned visually on the left, and place additional instructions (when needed) and the input fields on the right.
With checkboxes, I want to reverse that, having the checkbox first, on the left, and its label on the right.
I'm open to suggestion as to how best to make that work.
--Steve
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
OK, so styling my label this way:
margin-left: -165px;
width:155px;
text-align:right;
float:left;
produced the same effect as my absolute positioning previously, but the problem remained that, in IE only, the text embedded in <p></p> was positioned lower than the label. Applying this:
p {
float:left
}
fixed the vertical spacing problem, even though there was nothing it needed to float around.
My guess, after poking around a bit, is that I was seeing the IE list item white space bug.
Thanks, Steggs.... that was just the tip I needed!
margin-left: -165px;
width:155px;
text-align:right;
float:left;
produced the same effect as my absolute positioning previously, but the problem remained that, in IE only, the text embedded in <p></p> was positioned lower than the label. Applying this:
p {
float:left
}
fixed the vertical spacing problem, even though there was nothing it needed to float around.
My guess, after poking around a bit, is that I was seeing the IE list item white space bug.
Thanks, Steggs.... that was just the tip I needed!
Glad u got it fixed m8 :)