Question about floating and position in HTML source

Hello,

I'm not sure if this is a stupid question or not, so here goes. Suppose
I want to achieve the very common design layout as shown here...
http://www.kidsinaction.org.uk/floating.html This has a load of text
(waffle in this case) with a div floated over to the right.

If you look at the HTML, you will see that the HTML for the quick links
div comes before the actual content of the page. That makes it easy to
float over to the right, and have the content wrap around it.

Now, suppose I want to achieve the same visual effect, but have the HTML
for the quick links *below* the HTML for the content. Can this be done?
I know I could use absolute positioning, but then the links div would be
taken out of the document flow, so I would have to set a right margin on
the content, meaning that it would not wrap underneath the links div.

Can this be done? TIA

--
Alan Silver
(anything added below this line is nothing to do with me)

Alan Silver wrote:

Hello,

I'm not sure if this is a stupid question or not, so here goes. Suppose
I want to achieve the very common design layout as shown here...
http://www.kidsinaction.org.uk/floating.html This has a load of text
(waffle in this case) with a div floated over to the right.

If you look at the HTML, you will see that the HTML for the quick links
div comes before the actual content of the page. That makes it easy to
float over to the right, and have the content wrap around it.

Now, suppose I want to achieve the same visual effect, but have the HTML
for the quick links *below* the HTML for the content. Can this be done?
I know I could use absolute positioning, but then the links div would be
taken out of the document flow, so I would have to set a right margin on
the content, meaning that it would not wrap underneath the links div.

Can this be done? TIA

Has there been a solution to this, as I'd like to know the answer?

CM

--
== Not nuts, just a little eccentric ==
http://www.africanbush.co.za
African Bush Tours and Safaris

pecan <pecan.nospam (AT) iafrica (DOT) com> wrote:

Has there been a solution to this, as I'd like to know the answer?

It's not possible.

--
Spartanicus

Spartanicus <invalid (AT) invalid (DOT) invalid> wrote:

Has there been a solution to this, as I'd like to know the answer?

It's not possible.

I should have said that it is not practical in most real world
scenarios. Only when the floated box has a width and height that changes
in a predictable manner can a dummy element with no content be floated
to "reserve" a space in the flow, the actual content could then be
positioned into that reserved space.

http://homepage.ntlworld.ie/spartani...oned_float.htm

In the real world the width and/or height of an element containing text
is rarely predictable due to client font size variations and possible
wrapping of the text content.

--
Spartanicus

In article <Xns97E1FEBCD291httpwwwneredbojiasco (AT) 208 (DOT) 49.80.251>,
Neredbojias <http@?.neredbojias.com/fliam.php?cat=alt.html.invalid>
writes

To further the education of mankind, Alan Silver <alan-
silver (AT) nospam (DOT) thanx.invalid> vouchsafed:
snip
Can this be done? TIA

Y U want to do this, I dunno,

Well, I can think of two reasons straight off. First, research suggests
that many (most?) search engines give more weight to text the further up
the HTML it is, all other factors being equal of course. If the first
part of your page contains nothing but a load of links, and the real
page content is further down, you are giving it (slight) disadvantage in
the SE indexing.

Second, if someone is using a text browser or screen reader etc, and
they load up a page and see piles of links, it doesn't exactly give them
a great browsing experience. Sure, you can (and should) add a "Jump to
main content" link at the top, but why subject them to that if you don't
have to? If you can put the content itself at the top, you are far more
likely to please people using such devices.

but it could be done by using a placebo copy
of "quick links" with same dimensions and absolutely positioning the real
"quick links" div over it.

That's how I ended up doing it. I added an empty <div> at the start of
the content and floated it in the position where the links were to
appear. I had the HTML for the links lower down, and positioned these
absolutely over the empty <div>.

This works fine for link lists (or whatever) where you know the amount
of content in advance, but is more difficult if the links are generated
dynamically. It can still be done if you can assume (as is often the
case) that the links each take up one em vertically, and you know the
padding and margins. You then have to write out the height of the empty
<div> dynamically, based on the contents. It's messy, but works.

HTH

--
Alan Silver
(anything added below this line is nothing to do with me)