Re: Scrollable div without a fixed height

Hi Hans,

You might be approaching this back to front to be honest.

First, it is easier to build your basic layout and functionality using
FireFox/Mozilla etc as your reference point then degrading it backwards
to work in IE. Most people think designing for IE first is the way to
do it as it has biggest market share but it has the most quirks because
it uses the oldest rendering engine.

Drop IE into standards mode with the correct DocType - using XHTML
strict or transitional or whatever and then build your basic layout,
previeing your build in both browsers as you go.

Your layout isn't very difficult to achieve using CSS but it is using
nexted tables which in the first instance isn't going to help your
cause much in trying to maintain browser compatibility, secondly will
add huge amounts of bloat to your pages and thirdly won't make it as
searchable as a standards compliant layout will.

Even at this stage you've introduced some redundancy such as:

<tr>
<td id="PageFooter" colspan="3">
<div>
<a>PageFooter</a>
</div>
</td>
</tr>

Here you've used a table cell which is part of your main page table and
then stuck a div inside it so you can add a bit of margin and centre
it. You could do all of this without the table row at all...

Given that you can't have spent too much time already as this is only a
wireframe, I'd suggest a quick CSS brushup using CSS cookbook or
similar, dispense with all the tabling and do it properly and you'll
have a much easier ride down the line.

Doctypes:

If you are using a strict XHTML document type then it means your code
has to be strict XML. Technically &nbsp; isn't a named entity and so it
will fail on that - you'll need to declare it in a DTD or as an entity
etc or escape it so you have &amp;nbsp; and that should mean it won't
fail.

Cheers
AndrewF

I guess your suggestion is to use divs and position absolute. Something
like this:
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/layouts/body4.html

I just want to say I have spent a lot of time trying to fix what I want
with divs. And I haven't succeded. My experience tells me that tables
behaves more the same in different browsers than divs do. And I believe
there are things you can do with tables that you cant do with divs.
Like having % as height for certain parts mixed with px as height for
other parts.

I have also learned that using Mozilla/Firefox to start with is the
best way. It's just that I haven't succeded to get a layout like the
one I have in IE6. I'm not shor it's possible. The IE6 layout is maybe
not a good way but it is a layout I would like to have. I just don't
know how.

Is your suggestion to use divs and position absolute? Do you have a
sample/url to show me?

/Hans

Once upon a time *AndrewF* wrote:

Hi Hans,

You might be approaching this back to front to be honest.

First, it is easier to build your basic layout and functionality using
FireFox/Mozilla etc as your reference point then degrading it backwards
to work in IE. Most people think designing for IE first is the way to
do it as it has biggest market share but it has the most quirks because
it uses the oldest rendering engine.

Drop IE into standards mode with the correct DocType - using XHTML
strict or transitional or whatever and then build your basic layout,
previeing your build in both browsers as you go.

Your layout isn't very difficult to achieve using CSS but it is using
nexted tables which in the first instance isn't going to help your
cause much in trying to maintain browser compatibility, secondly will
add huge amounts of bloat to your pages and thirdly won't make it as
searchable as a standards compliant layout will.

Even at this stage you've introduced some redundancy such as:

tr
td id="PageFooter" colspan="3"
div
<a>PageFooter</a
/div
/td
/tr

Here you've used a table cell which is part of your main page table and
then stuck a div inside it so you can add a bit of margin and centre
it. You could do all of this without the table row at all...

Given that you can't have spent too much time already as this is only a
wireframe, I'd suggest a quick CSS brushup using CSS cookbook or
similar, dispense with all the tabling and do it properly and you'll
have a much easier ride down the line.

Doctypes:

If you are using a strict XHTML document type then it means your code
has to be strict XML. Technically &nbsp; isn't a named entity and so it
will fail on that - you'll need to declare it in a DTD or as an entity
etc or escape it so you have &amp;nbsp; and that should mean it won't
fail.

It seams like both of you need some education in how to post on Usenet!

* How to quote: http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html#toc2
* From Google: http://www.safalra.com/special/googlegroupsreply/

--
/Arne

Proud User of SeaMonkey. Get your free copy:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Once upon a time *hans.kindberg (AT) spray (DOT) se* wrote:

I guess your suggestion is to use divs and position absolute. Something
like this:
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/layouts/body4.html

I just want to say I have spent a lot of time trying to fix what I want
with divs. And I haven't succeded. My experience tells me that tables
behaves more the same in different browsers than divs do. And I believe
there are things you can do with tables that you cant do with divs.
Like having % as height for certain parts mixed with px as height for
other parts.

I have also learned that using Mozilla/Firefox to start with is the
best way. It's just that I haven't succeded to get a layout like the
one I have in IE6. I'm not shor it's possible. The IE6 layout is maybe
not a good way but it is a layout I would like to have. I just don't
know how.

Is your suggestion to use divs and position absolute? Do you have a
sample/url to show me?

It seams like both of you need some education in how to post on Usenet!

* How to quote: http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html#toc2
* From Google: http://www.safalra.com/special/googlegroupsreply/

--
/Arne

Proud User of SeaMonkey. Get your free copy:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/