Forcing width in IE

Hi all

I've got a problem which might be something to do with the IE box model bug,
but unless I've misunderstood it doesn't seem to fit the description of the
common problem.

I'm using HTML 4.01 Strict and CSS2, and I've stripped down the pages I'm
working on to show the basic problem.

If you look at
http://rnetworks2002.users.btopenwor...t/boxlong.html you'll see
some content inside a box, nested inside another. I want the outer box to
extend from the absolute position set by its top left corner to the right
hand side of the screen, regardless of screen size. I can test this in IE6,
NN6, and Opera 7.1, and it works OK with screen widths of 800 and 1024
pixels.

But if the content of the inner box is short, NN6 and Opera 7.1 still do
what I want, but IE6 renders both boxes so as to not extend to the
right-hand side. See
http://rnetworks2002.users.btopenwor.../boxshort.html

Can anyone point me to a solution / fix / hack for this? I've tried
everything I can think of, like setting width and/or min-width, but things
either don't work at all or they push the width beyond the right-hand side
and need horizontal scrollbars, which I *don't want. The height doesn't
matter, and I'm not bothered about older browsers, as they'll be taken care
of in other ways.

TIA for any help.


--
Tony T
Replace 'from' with 'to' (twice) for e-mail

"Tony T" <fromny.turfromn (AT) btinternet (DOT) com> wrote

Hi all

I've got a problem which might be something to do with the IE box model
bug,
but unless I've misunderstood it doesn't seem to fit the description of
the
common problem.

I'm using HTML 4.01 Strict and CSS2, and I've stripped down the pages I'm
working on to show the basic problem.

If you look at
http://rnetworks2002.users.btopenwor...t/boxlong.html you'll see
some content inside a box, nested inside another. I want the outer box to
extend from the absolute position set by its top left corner to the right
hand side of the screen, regardless of screen size. I can test this in
IE6,
NN6, and Opera 7.1, and it works OK with screen widths of 800 and 1024
pixels.

But if the content of the inner box is short, NN6 and Opera 7.1 still do
what I want, but IE6 renders both boxes so as to not extend to the
right-hand side. See
http://rnetworks2002.users.btopenwor.../boxshort.html

Can anyone point me to a solution / fix / hack for this? I've tried
everything I can think of, like setting width and/or min-width, but things
either don't work at all or they push the width beyond the right-hand side
and need horizontal scrollbars, which I *don't want. The height doesn't
matter, and I'm not bothered about older browsers, as they'll be taken
care
of in other ways.

TIA for any help.


--
Tony T
Replace 'from' with 'to' (twice) for e-mail

Sorry - I should have posted the url for the stylesheet. It's

http://rnetworks2002.users.btopenwor...st/boxtest.css


--
Tony T
Replace 'from' with 'to' (twice) for e-mail

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 18:52:38 +0000 (UTC), "Tony T"
<fromny.turfromn (AT) btinternet (DOT) com> wrote:

[...]

But if the content of the inner box is short, NN6 and Opera 7.1 still do
what I want, but IE6 renders both boxes so as to not extend to the
right-hand side. See
http://rnetworks2002.users.btopenwor.../boxshort.html

I don't understand why this happens, but I also don't understand why you
use absolute positioning. If you change the styling for the outer div to

#centerwrap {
margin: 76px 0 0 165px;
background-color: #f2c4bf;
}

you achieve the same visual effect (and this works for IE as well).

HTH,
Gertjan.

--
Gertjan Klein <gklein (AT) xs4all (DOT) nl>

"Gertjan Klein" <gklein (AT) xs4all (DOT) nl> wrote

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 18:52:38 +0000 (UTC), "Tony T"
fromny.turfromn (AT) btinternet (DOT) com> wrote:

[...]
But if the content of the inner box is short, NN6 and Opera 7.1 still do
what I want, but IE6 renders both boxes so as to not extend to the
right-hand side. See
http://rnetworks2002.users.btopenwor.../boxshort.html

I don't understand why this happens, but I also don't understand why you
use absolute positioning. If you change the styling for the outer div to

#centerwrap {
margin: 76px 0 0 165px;
background-color: #f2c4bf;
}

you achieve the same visual effect (and this works for IE as well).

HTH,
Gertjan.

--
Gertjan Klein <gklein (AT) xs4all (DOT) nl

Thanks Gertjan - this seems to work fine. You're right, on reflection I
don't need the position:absolute to put this div where it needs to be.

Still don't know why it breaks down with position:absolute in IE6, though.
Have I discovered my very own unreported bug??

Can anyone tell me how IE5 handles it?

PS - sorry for the slow response - I've been away for a few days.