align bottom of divs

3,406 Recognized Expert Specialist

I'm almost to the point of using tables to position my elements. That is how bad this is.

So here's the rundown. I have an old page (created by someone else) that I was trying to update to reasonable standards. It has a header bar across the top and a footer bar across the bottom. The rest of the page is divided into two columns, a side bar on the left with info about the international organization, and the rest is info about the local chapter. The first thing I did was take out the table-based positioning and put everything in divs, but I keep running into problems. The worst part is that I know it would look fine in tables.

problem details: If I make the two divs in the center have absolute positioning, there is no way to predict the position of the bottom div to prevent it from covering up those above it. If I make one of the two divs float to one side or the other, the other div will wrap around it, and I want to maintain clean columns. I thought I could nest the two central divs in an outer div , then set the inner divs to style="bottom: inherit" or style="height: 100%" to prevent wrapping, but I couldn't find a solution.

Here's the code with which I ended up:

Expand|Select|Wrap|Line Numbers

 <body>

<div style="width: 100%; height: 55px; background-color: #ccffff;">Header

 bar</div>
 
<div style="width: 251px; height: 300px; background-color: #ffccff;

    left: inherit; position: absolute;">Side bar

</div>
 
<div style="position: relative; margin-left: 260px;">Main content div with 

a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info

Main content div with a lot of info</div>
 
<div style="width: 100%; height: 100px; background-color: #ffffcc;">footer

bar

</div>
 
</body>

This code works fairly well for the amount of info on the screen, and at my screen resolution, however this layout fails at higher resolution (footer is partially covered by side bar). There has got to be another solution.

Jared

Aug 1 '08 #1

Subscribe Reply

2046

drhowarddrfine

7,435

Recognized Expert Expert

You need to contain the left and main content divs so the footer doesn't climb in there. You also have some unnecessary styling.
[HTML]
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title></title>
<style type="text/css">

</style>
</head>
<body>
<div style="height: 55px; background-color: #ccffff;">Heade r
bar</div>
<div style="overflow :auto">
<div style="width: 251px; height: 300px; background-color: #ffccff;
float:left">Sid e bar
</div>

<div style="">Main content div with
a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info
Main content div with a lot of info</div>
</div>
<div style="height: 100px; background-color: #ffffcc;">foote r
bar
</div>
</body>
</html>
[/HTML]

Aug 2 '08 #2

jhardman

3,406

Recognized Expert Specialist

Thanks doc, that worked except I am also trying to avoid the main content div wrapping around the side bar - keeping it looking like a nice clean column. Your solution still allows the content to wrap around the floated box.

I've got another sol'n that works a little better, but it's a bit complicated, I can't help but think there must be a better fix. I ended up putting the side bar position: absolute; and moved the main content div over 251px with either padding or margin, then set a min-height: 300px on the containing div you suggested. Can you think of any other way to do it?

Jared

Aug 2 '08 #3

jhardman

3,406

Recognized Expert Specialist

arggh. I sent my IE into glitch mode, got it working by switching to HTML strict. I got in the habit of using transitional, and it is now a little hard to break.

Jared

Aug 2 '08 #4

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