Button out of 3 graphic parts with fluid mid-part - css

Question

I have an image:
with 3 parts:
, and
I want a button with a repeating part2, so the button text (centered) is variable.
But the button text should range 50% into the other pieces.
Part1 and part3 need a min width I think, unfortunately I have no useful example.
:before and :after didn't work very well (with position:absolute or similar), because the repeat part have to be fluid between the outer parts.
Any ideas? Greetz.

Answer 1

A modern posibility would be using border-image.
But if you want a wider support, do it with backgrounds.
The problem is that a repeating bkg is difficult to size . So, it's best to handle it in a pseudo element
.test {
min-width: 200px;
text-align: center;
line-height: 90px;
display: inline-block;
margin: 20px;
height: 100px;
padding: 0px 20px;
font-size: 30px;
color: white;
background-image: url('//i.stack.imgur.com/mYxcX.png'), url('//i.stack.imgur.com/TlpN0.png');
background-size: auto 100%;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: left top, right top;
position: relative;
}
.test:after {
content: "";
position: absolute;
background-image: url('//i.stack.imgur.com/GMhMi.png');
background-size: auto 100%;
left: 90px;
right: 100px;
top: 0px;
bottom: 0px;
z-index: -1;
}
<div class="test">TEST</div>
<div class="test">long test</div>
<div class="test">much longer test</div>
And the same, using border image. Using this image
we will get this: (note the trick about height:0px to allow for a single image in all the left and right sides.)
.test {
display: inline-block;
margin: 20px;
height: 0px;
font-size: 30px;
border-width: 50px;
border-image-source: url(http://i.stack.imgur.com/oXiA6.png);
border-image-slice: 50% 49% 50% 50% fill;
border-image-repeat: repeat repeat;
}
<div class="test">TEST</div>
<div class="test">long test</div>
<div class="test">much longer test</div>

Answer 2

UPDATED and totally Changed:
Thanks to #vals comment below which let me had the "idea bulb" above my head, hence the "unless.." part in the comment.
This new solution is much cleaner in CSS and HTML, less code, no need to worry about position:absolute, no need for extra mess, just simply uses "multiple backgrounds" (1) as well as calc()(2) function with min-width too techniques. but first here's the code and comments will explain:
JS Fiddle
.test-class {
/* so that div can expand to contain the text as well as the padding */
width:auto;
/* min width = 173px left image width + 199px right image width */
/* without this it'll collapse */
min-width:372px;
padding:0 20px 0 10px; /* just to give it breathign space on sides */
line-height: 148px;
color: white;
font-size:24px;
/* no color background because the images are PNGs with alpha */
background-color: transparent;
/* setting multiple images having the middle "extendable" one as third background */
background-image: url('//i.stack.imgur.com/mYxcX.png'),
url('//i.stack.imgur.com/TlpN0.png'),
url('//i.stack.imgur.com/GMhMi.png');
/* set no repeat to all, even the extendable otherwise it'll appear behind the
other two images, instead we don't repeat it but control its size later */
background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat, no-repeat;
/* position each image to its corresponding position, the 46.5% for the middle
image is because the left-side image has less width than the one on the right */
background-position:left center, right center, 46.5% 50%;
/* finally giving the images on the sides their exact-pixel size, while for the
one on the middle we make use of calc() function, so the width size of the middle
image = full div size (100%) - the width values of the left and right image (173+199) */
background-size: 173px 148px, 199px 148px, calc(100% - 372px) 148px;
display: inline-block;
text-align:center;
}
<div class="test-class">Home</div>
<div class="test-class" style="margin-left:200px;">about company</div>
<div class="test-class">example dummy text for demo only</div>
Alternatively, as I commented, you can use the CSS Sliding Door technique which was so practical and used a lot before CSS border-radius and CSS shadow presented and simplified interfaces. another example perfect CSS sprite sliding doors button
This JS Fiddle 2 shows how to implement the sliding door method for achieving such task, while it looks kind too much wide for this images set, since the right side image has 199px width, it could be used for images with less width values.
And this JS Fiddle 3 is similar to sliding door but with :before and :after but with one issue that it has to have display:block which make it not workign for horizontal alignment but could be fixed with javascript after settign it's display to inline-block.
Also there's another way, using SVG as background image which is better first because it is scale-able especially for non linear images like the blue ink circle used in the great example by #vals .
Second benefit of using SVG is using inline SVG and because SVG is made of groups and element could be targeted with CSS just like targeting other DOM elements.
https://css-tricks.com/using-svg/
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(1). Resources:
caniuse - Multiple backgrounds
MDN - Using CSS multiple backgrounds
(2). Resources:
caniuse CSS calc()
MDN - calc()
CSS-Tricks - A couple of use cases for calc