This code shows two div containers. On the div with the id a is display: flex; set. On both we have hyphenation activated using -ms-hyphens: auto;.
But in IE or Edge the hyphenation only works on the div without the flexbox attached. As expected it works well in Chrome and Firefox.
div {
max-width: 100px;
background: red;
-ms-hyphens: auto;
hyphens: auto;
margin-bottom: 10px;
}
#a {
display: flex;
}
<article>
<div id="a" lang="en">
Incomprehensibilities
</div>
<div id="b" lang="en">
Incomprehensibilities
</div>
</article>
https://codepen.io/anon/pen/jmGxJZ
Does anybody have a solution?
I finally found an answer.
According to https://css-tricks.com/almanac/properties/h/hyphenate/
The hyphens property controls hyphenation of text in block level
elements.
They say explicitly block level elements. So I decided not to use flexbox because this is not really a block level element thank you #LGSon.
So to have the text both centered and hyphenated I used the approach from https://css-tricks.com/centering-css-complete-guide/ to vertically center a block level element.
Additionally according to http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-hyphens Chrome on Windows is not supporting hyphenation anyway. So I used word-break: break-all; just for Chrome using a media query hack from here https://stackoverflow.com/a/13587388/4558231.
Finally it's working for Chrome, FF and Safari on MAC OSX.
Also for Edge and IE11 on Windows.
You can see my result on https://codepen.io/bierik/pen/mmBjqQ
This question already has answers here:
What methods of ‘clearfix’ can I use?
(29 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
Although elements like <div>s normally grow to fit their contents, using the float property can cause a startling problem for CSS newbies: If floated elements have non-floated parent elements, the parent will collapse.
For example:
<div>
<div style="float: left;">Div 1</div>
<div style="float: left;">Div 2</div>
</div>
The parent div in this example will not expand to contain its floated children - it will appear to have height: 0.
How do you solve this problem?
I would like to create an exhaustive list of solutions here. If you're aware of cross-browser compatibility issues, please point them out.
Solution 1
Float the parent.
<div style="float: left;">
<div style="float: left;">Div 1</div>
<div style="float: left;">Div 2</div>
</div>
Pros: Semantic code.
Cons: You may not always want the parent floated. Even if you do, do you float the parents' parent, and so on? Must you float every ancestor element?
Solution 2
Give the parent an explicit height.
<div style="height: 300px;">
<div style="float: left;">Div 1</div>
<div style="float: left;">Div 2</div>
</div>
Pros: Semantic code.
Cons: Not flexible - if the content changes or the browser is resized, the layout will break.
Solution 3
Append a "spacer" element inside the parent element, like this:
<div>
<div style="float: left;">Div 1</div>
<div style="float: left;">Div 2</div>
<div class="spacer" style="clear: both;"></div>
</div>
Pros: Straightforward to code.
Cons: Not semantic; the spacer div exists only as a layout hack.
Solution 4
Set parent to overflow: auto.
<div style="overflow: auto;">
<div style="float: left;">Div 1</div>
<div style="float: left;">Div 2</div>
</div>
Pros: Doesn't require extra div.
Cons: Seems like a hack - that's not the overflow property's stated purpose.
Comments? Other suggestions?
Solution 1:
The most reliable and unobtrusive method appears to be this:
Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/SO_AMK/wXaEH/
HTML:
<div class="clearfix">
<div style="float: left;">Div 1</div>
<div style="float: left;">Div 2</div>
</div>
CSS:
.clearfix::after {
content: " ";
display: block;
height: 0;
clear: both;
}
With a little CSS targeting, you don't even need to add a class to the parent DIV.
This solution is backward compatible with IE8 so you don't need to worry about older browsers failing.
Solution 2:
An adaptation of solution 1 has been suggested and is as follows:
Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/wXaEH/162/
HTML:
<div class="clearfix">
<div style="float: left;">Div 1</div>
<div style="float: left;">Div 2</div>
</div>
CSS:
.clearfix::after {
content: " ";
display: block;
height: 0;
clear: both;
*zoom: expression( this.runtimeStyle['zoom'] = '1', this.innerHTML += '<div class="ie7-clear"></div>' );
}
.ie7-clear {
display: block;
clear: both;
}
This solution appears to be backward compatible to IE5.5 but is untested.
Solution 3:
It's also possible to set display: inline-block; and width: 100%; to emulate a normal block element while not collapsing.
Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/SO_AMK/ae5ey/
CSS:
.clearfix {
display: inline-block;
width: 100%;
}
This solution should be backward compatible with IE5.5 but has only been tested in IE6.
I usually use the overflow: auto trick; although that's not, strictly speaking, the intended use for overflow, it is kinda related - enough to make it easy to remember, certainly. The meaning of float: left itself has been extended for various uses more significantly than overflow is in this example, IMO.
Rather than putting overflow:auto on the parent, put overflow:hidden
The first CSS I write for any webpage is always:
div {
overflow:hidden;
}
Then I never have to worry about it.
The problem happens when a floated element is within a container box, that element does not automatically force the container’s height adjust to the floated element. When an element is floated, its parent no longer contains it because the float is removed from the flow. You can use 2 methods to fix it:
{ clear: both; }
clearfix
Once you understand what is happening, use the method below to “clearfix” it.
.clearfix:after {
content: ".";
display: block;
clear: both;
visibility: hidden;
line-height: 0;
height: 0;
}
.clearfix {
display: inline-block;
}
html[xmlns] .clearfix {
display: block;
}
* html .clearfix {
height: 1%;
}
Demonstration :)
There are several versions of the clearfix, with Nicolas Gallagher and Thierry Koblentz as key authors.
If you want support for older browsers, it's best to use this clearfix :
.clearfix:before, .clearfix:after {
content: "";
display: table;
}
.clearfix:after {
clear: both;
}
.clearfix {
*zoom: 1;
}
In SCSS, you should use the following technique :
%clearfix {
&:before, &:after {
content:" ";
display:table;
}
&:after {
clear:both;
}
& {
*zoom:1;
}
}
#clearfixedelement {
#extend %clearfix;
}
If you don't care about support for older browsers, there's a shorter version :
.clearfix:after {
content:"";
display:table;
clear:both;
}
Although the code isn't perfectly semantic, I think it's more straightforward to have what I call a "clearing div" at the bottom of every container with floats in it. In fact, I've included the following style rule in my reset block for every project:
.clear
{
clear: both;
}
If you're styling for IE6 (god help you), you might want to give this rule a 0px line-height and height as well.
The ideal solution would be to use inline-block for the columns instead of floating. I think the browser support is pretty good if you follow (a) apply inline-block only to elements that are normally inline (eg span); and (b) add -moz-inline-box for Firefox.
Check your page in FF2 as well because I had a ton of problems when nesting certain elements (surprisingly, this is the one case where IE performs much better than FF).
Strange no one has come up with a complete answer for this yet, ah well here it is.
Solution one: clear: both
Adding a block element with the style clear:both; onto it will clear the floats past that point and stop the parent of that element from collapsing. http://jsfiddle.net/TVD2X/1/
Pros: Allows you to clear an element and elements you add below will not be effected by the floated elements above and valid css.
Cons: Requires the another tag to clear the floats, bloating markup.
Note: To fall back to IE6 and for it to work on abstinent parents (i.e. the input element) you are not able to use :after.
Solution two: display: table
Adding display:table; to the parent to make it shrug off the floats and display with the correct height. http://jsfiddle.net/h9GAZ/1/
Pros: No extra markup and is a lot neater. Works in IE6+
Cons: Requires invalid css to make sure everything plays nice in IE6 and 7.
Note: The IE6 and 7 width auto is used to prevent the width being 100%+padding, which is not the case in newer browsers.
A note on the other "solutions"
These fixes work back to the lowest supported browser, over 1% usage globally (IE6), which means using :after does not cut it.
Overflow hidden does show the content but does not prevent the element from collapsing and so does not answer the question. Using an inline block can have buggy results, children having strange margins and so on, table is much better.
Setting the height does "prevent" the collapse but it is not a proper fix.
Invalid css
Invalid css never hurt anyone, in fact, it is now the norm. Using browser prefixes is just as invalid as using browser specific hacks and doesn't impact the end user what so ever.
In conclusion
I use both of the above solutions to make elements react correctly and play nicely with each other, I implore you to do the same.
I use 2 and 4 where applicable (i.e. when I know the content's height or if overflowing doesn't harm). Anywhere else, I go with solution 3. By the way, your first solution has no advantage over 3 (that I can spot) because it isn't any more semantic since it uses the same dummy element.
By the way, I wouldn't be concerned about the fourth solution being a hack. Hacks in CSS would only be harmful if their underlying behaviour is subject to reinterpretation or other change. This way, your hack wouldn't be guaranteed to work. However in this case, your hack relies on the exact behaviour that overflow: auto is meant to have. No harm in hitching a free ride.
My favourite method is using a clearfix class for parent element
.clearfix:after {
content: ".";
display: block;
height: 0;
clear: both;
visibility: hidden;
}
.clearfix {
display: inline-block;
}
* html .clearfix {
height: 1%;
}
.clearfix {
display: block;
}
One of the most well known solutions is a variation of your solution number 3 that uses a pseudo element instead of a non-semantic html element.
It goes something like this...
.cf:after {
content: " ";
display: block;
visibility: hidden;
height: 0;
clear: both;
}
You place that in your stylesheet, and all you need is to add the class 'cf' to the element containing the floats.
What I use is another variation which comes from Nicolas Gallagher.
It does the same thing, but it's shorter, looks neater, and maybe used to accomplish another thing that's pretty useful - preventing the child elements' margins from collapsing with it's parents' (but for that you do need something else - read more about it here http://nicolasgallagher.com/micro-clearfix-hack/ ).
.cf:after {
content: " ";
display: table;
clear: float;
}
add this in the parent div at the bottom
<div style="clear:both"></div>
The main problem you may find with changing overflow to auto or hidden is that everything can become scrollable with the middle mouse buttom and a user can mess up the entire site layout.
Another possible solution which I think is more semantically correct is to change the floated inner elements to be 'display: inline'. This example and what I was working on when I came across this page both use floated divs in much exactly the same way that a span would be used. Instead of using divs, switch to span, or if you are using another element which is by default 'display: block' instead of 'display: inline' then change it to be 'display: inline'. I believe this is the 100% semantically correct solution.
Solution 1, floating the parent, is essentially to change the entire document to be floated.
Solution 2, setting an explicit height, is like drawing a box and saying I want to put a picture here, i.e. use this if you are doing an img tag.
Solution 3, adding a spacer to clear float, is like adding an extra line below your content and will mess with surrounding elements too. If you use this approach you probably want to set the div to be height: 0px.
Solution 4, overflow: auto, is acknowledging that you don't know how to lay out the document and you are admitting that you don't know what to do.
I believe that best way is to set clear:both to the upcoming element.
Here's why:
1) :after selector is not supported in IE6/7 and buggy in FF3, however,
if you care only about IE8+ and FF3.5+ clearing with :after is probably best for you...
2) overflow is supposed to do something else so this hack isn't reliable enough.
Note to author: there is nothing hacky on clearing... Clearing means to skip the floating fields. CLEAR is with us since HTML3 (who knows, maybe even longer) http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/deflists.html , maybe they should chose a bit different name like page: new, but thats just a detail...
I have a header element with the following CSS. IE7 and 8 are ignoring the max-width property. If I change the header to be a div then it does work.
.header {
display: block;
width: inherit;
max-width: 1200px;
position: relative;
margin: 0 auto;
float: none;
}
This isnt working:
<header class="header">
//stuff
</header>
This is working:
<div class="header">
//stuff
</div>
It's not max-width that's being ignored. It's header, which is an HTML 5 element and, therefore, not supported by IE 7 & 8.
Check http://www.caniuse.com for browser compatibility.
Consider modernizr.com as a workaround. From the website:
All web developers come up against differences between browsers and
devices. That’s largely due to different feature sets: the latest
versions of the popular browsers can do some awesome things which
older browsers can’t – but we still have to support the older ones.
Modernizr makes it easy to deliver tiered experiences: make use of the
latest and greatest features in browsers which support them, without
leaving less fortunate users high and dry.
you can always check this site for browser compatibility - http://caniuse.com/.
The New HTML 5 tags are not supported in IE8, so it will not work.
I forgot I needed a javascript polyfill to make HTML5 elements work properly on old IE. The following works or you can use modernizr.
<script>
'article aside footer header nav section time'.replace(/\w+/g,function(n){document.createElement(n)})
</script>
I'm experiencing a weird issue in the latest version of Chrome (25.0.1364.97 m). I have a set of divs inside a floated, cleared container, all floated left with the same width.
In Firefox, IE, and older versions of Chrome all the boxes sit side by side as they are supposed to but in the latest version of Chrome the first div is above the others like so:
It only seems to happen when the window is maximised and on the first load, if I refresh the page it sorts itself out, but if i do a hard refresh with Ctrl + F5 it happens again
The HTML:
<div id="top">
<h1>Words</h1>
</div>
<div id="wrapper">
<div class="box">Words</div>
<div class="box">Words</div>
<div class="box">Words</div>
<div class="box">Words</div>
</div>
CSS:
#wrapper {clear:both;float:left;margin-top:20px;width:500px}
.box {float:left;width:100px;border:1px solid #000;margin-right:20px}
I've made a fiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/GZHWR/3/
Is this a bug in the latest Chrome?
EDIT: I know this can be solved by applying padding to the #wrapper element instead of margin-top but we manage around 140 sites so it's not practical to go and change the CSS on every one
EDIT 2: I think I need to clarify my question. I am not asking how to fix the issue. I already know that. I want to know why this behaviour is occuring? Why is the rendering engine rendering the markup/css like this? Is it correct behaviour?
It seems to be a bug. The problem appears when applying clear on the wrapper element. When you remove the clear, the bug goes away.
According to the W3C specs regarding the clear property:
This property indicates which sides of an element's box(es) may not be
adjacent to an earlier floating box. The 'clear' property does not
consider floats inside the element itself or in other block formatting
contexts.
So it shouldn't effect the children's floating behaviour. I filed a bug report at Chrome about this issue.
Update: From the link in the comments, kjtocool mentioned on 30-03-2013:
It appears that this issue has been corrected in version 26.0.1410.43
Why don't you use
display: inline-block;
instead of float: left for .box?
Try :
#wrapper {
display:inline;
}
.box{
vertical-align:top;
}
I had the same issue with the "Like" toolbar and after this code, it work.
Try this:
css:
.clearfix {
*zoom: 1;
}
.clearfix:before,
.clearfix:after {
display: table;
line-height: 0;
content: "";
}
.clearfix:after {
clear: both;
}
html:
<div id="wrapper" class="clearfix">
<div class="box">Words</div>
<div class="box">Words</div>
<div class="box">Words</div>
<div class="box">Words</div>
</div>
Remove
clear:both;
from #wrapper
remove clear:both from #wrapper yes it works..........
http://jsfiddle.net/GZHWR/20/
Remove clear:both from #wrapper and if you still face a problem apply clear:both after last div
Remove clear:both;float:left; form #wrapper
clear:both is require when you want div nex raw.
I'm not entirely sure where I have got this from but as a rule of habbit if I have a clear div after some floated elements i do the following.
<div class='clear'></div>
Then in the css
.clear{ clear:both; width 100% }
For the most part this has seen me through many years as a developer, that is until today.
Today I find out that the 100% width bit was breaking a layout in IE7, removing the width fixed it.
My question is a simple one: Are there any reasons why a width is required on a clear div?
There's a better way to clear after floated elements that doesnt require an extra HTML element. As a rule, you want to keep HTML as intuitive and semantic as possible, and leave all design and visual aids to CSS.
If I have the following HTML:
<div class="container">
<div class="floated-left"></div>
<div class="floated-right">
</div></div>
<div class="some-non-floating-content"></div>
CSS:
overflow approach:
.container {
overflow: auto;
width: 100%;
}
:after approach:
.container:after {
content: '';
display: block;
height: 0;
clear: both;
}
You can read more about these more semantic approaches here: http://css-tricks.com/all-about-floats/ and here http://www.positioniseverything.net/easyclearing.htmls
To answer your specific question about the width, I only know of it being needed when an overflow is applied to ensure the container doesn't collapse.
I always used clear: both or only left/right to avoid extra spaces on IE (example).
So, if always worked for me, in all browsers, AFAIK there is no general reason for the width: 100%.