CSS positioning (margin / padding) with markup constraint - css

I have two sibling divs sitting below each other, both contained in the same parent div.
The requirement is that the divs need a certain amount of space between them, let's say 20px, but the space beween the inner divs and the parent div needs to be the same on all sides (top, right, bottom, left), in this case 0px.
The constraint here is that the inner divs need to have the exact same markup, so I can't apply a different or additional class to just one of them. Also I can't add any markup between the child divs or only above or below one of the child divs.
What would be a good way to solve this problem with CSS (no javascript), in a cross-browser compatible way?
Thanks!

#parentdiv div {
margin-top: 20px;
}
#parentdiv div:first-child {
margin-top: 0;
}
should do it. Alternatively, you could try
#parentdiv div + div {
margin-top: 20px;
}
Which solution to use depends on browers’ support of either the :first-child pseudo-class, or the + adjacent selector. Any modern browser (thus, discounting IE6) should support both.

you could insert another div inbetween them and make its height 20px? or is putting the first inner div into a new div and then making the new divs bottom margin 20px an acceptable solution?

As others have already stated, you cannot use a pure CSS approach that will work in IE6. However, why not use a minified, basic jQuery framework - without the ui it will be tiny - and then you can call the first child and apply the margin to that:
$("#parentdiv:first").css({ marginTop: 0 })
That way you'd have already applied the margin-top:20px; in your css, now you're removing it from the first child only. I know you said you did not want a javascript approach, but you're not left with much choice, unless you're willing to re-engineer ie6 and resurrect him for us?
Hope this helps someone somewhere.

Two divs sitting below each other? Do you mean they're stacked vertically, one on top of the other? Margin-top would do it as long as you don't have padding on the parent div.
Try this example.
<html>
<head>
<style>
div.parent {
background-color: #AAA;
}
div.child {
background-color: #CCC;
margin-top: 20px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="parent">
<div class="child"> </div>
<div class="child"> </div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
You'll notice that as long as there's nothing inside the parent above the first child its margins won't extend the parent div.
If they're side-by-side and floating that's a different story, margin-left doesn't work the same as margin-top. You might be able to use margin-right on both divs but fix the width of the parent and set overflow to hidden in order to chop off the extended margin - but I'm not sure about compatibility on that kind of thing.
Are you absolutely certain you've got no way to distinguish the two divs? Finding a way around that constraint might do a lot to help you.

Related

Why is there no float center in CSS?

I have found that there is no float center in CSS and I was a little disappointed. However, I can't help but ask myself why. While many people want to use this for centering content I wished to use it to float a bunch of blocks into rows on a dynamic page size. Unfortunately without a float center it looks sloppy as there is extra space (whatever fraction of a full block doesn't fit) on one side. It makes me sad that the intended use of floats is hurt by this property missing.
I can't see a reason why there isn't a float center and was wondering if anyone had reasons, either technical or otherwise why a float center was not included in the standard.
Instead of using float: left, use display: inline-block on the individual elements and center their container.
http://jsfiddle.net/ExplosionPIlls/rAkNY/5/
Yes, There is not Float center/middle and may the W3C having the answer.
There is <center> tag but no-longer.
The <center> tag is deprecated as of HTML 4, and using it creates a
few different issues. HTML centered elements can display differently
in different browsers, and using the tag can increase page
load time. Also, heavy use of will complicate your site
redesigns — removing hundreds of tags takes a lot longer than
changing one style rule in a stylesheet.
The tag was officially deprecated many, many years ago, but
it is still recognized by most browsers through their
backward-compatibility features. So yeah, if you something,
it'll be centered. However, in the interest of future-proofing you
should use modern CSS centering
methods instead.
Use margin:0 auto;
If you're centering something else, margin: 0 auto; will get your element centered most of the time. (Quick note: your element must have a declared width for this to work.)
The margin: 0 auto; rule is shorthand for 0 top and bottom margin, and
automatic left and right margins. Automatic left and right margins
work together to push the element into the center of its container.
there is no float center because floats take elements out of the content flow and position them as far left/right as possible. floats by themselves only move things sideways. not 100% on this last part, but i reckon it has something to do with print. i know the idea of floats was taken from the print industry.
If you want to center contents:
1. set css property display: inline-block or inline to each content item.
2. set css property text-align:center to their parent node.
It doesn't need to use CSS it needs only HTML. <center> tag will make it's child elements to center.
Demo:
div {
color: white;
padding: 5px;
}
#blueDiv {
background-color: dodgerblue;
}
#orangeDiv {
background-color: orange;
}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Demo - Center elements</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="orangeDiv">this div is not centered</div>
<br>
<center>
<div id="blueDiv">this div is centered!</div>
</center>
</body>
</html>

Basic CSS: Float left and inline divs

I've captured an illustration of a CSS two-column layout I've set up, while using the following rule for the orange containers:
.embedded_post{
float: left;
width: 46%;
margin-right: 20px;
padding: 10px;
display: inline-block;
}
As can be seen, the second orange container on the right column is preventing the second orange container on the left column from floating up to the top left box.
This happens apparently since float:left automatically grants the element with a block level flow.
How can I get the second box on the left column to be positioned under the first one?
can you wrap your columns in another pair of divs, so that floating in the right column won't affect floating in the left?
<div id='left_column'>
<div class='embedded_post'></div>
<div class='embedded_post'></div>
</div>
<div id='right_column'>
<div class='embedded_post'></div>
<div class='embedded_post'></div>
<div class='embedded_post'></div>
</div>
css:
#left_column, #right_column {
float:left;
}
you've answered it yourself, there are a couple of options:
trick yourself by granting the div elements with an inline level flow, i.e. specifying display: inline (not recommended).
update the markup to be more semantic and alter the layout to conform to the desired result, e.g. replacing the divs with spans (preferred).
The second div on the left has less width than the rest of the divs, this might have something to do with it. Also, the combination with your (desired) structure and the margin-right isn't how I would do it. In fact, the margin-right may, depending on the with of the parent div of the embedded_post divs, screw up your structure and cause postioning problems.
It works fine when I try it.
p.s. keep in mind that in Firefox, the padding adds to the width/height of the div while this doesn't happen in other browsers.

vertical align headache

Im having trouble vertical aligning 2 divs inside a 100% height div. I googled but failed solving.
pseudocode:
<div container, fixed height>
<img, dynamic height/>
<div inner, 100% height>
<div><img/></div>
<div><img/></div>
</div>
</div>
The two divs in the inner div, i want them to be in the vertical center of the inner div, but i cant find a way. its not possible to know the height of the inner div, its just set to 100% because of the random height of the image above it. The divs inside the inner div will also have dynamic heights.
2 hours of fiddling around gave no results, so im coming here.
The page where you can see it in action: http://pyntmeg.no/?iframe
You can give the parent DIV.container a position :relative property since it has a fixed height.
The inner div can then have a position:absolute and you set its height to 100% or maybe a little lower. you can use the top property to move it around.
Try:
.item {
position: relative;
top: 10%;
}
You may need to adjust top: 10%;
As long as the parent/grandparent divs have the width to work with it you can apply 'float: left' to the grandchild divs style.
vertical-align is meant for table elements, not regular divs, etc. In order to get vertical-align middle to work, the element needs to be set to display:table-cell and it's parent needs to be set to display:table-row
Be careful with that, though, because it really does change the way the element interacts with it's sibling elements, and it could definitely change how your page is laid out.
The best use of this would be something like this:
<div class="table-row">
<div class="td">lorem ipsum</div>
<div class="td">dolor sit amat</div>
</div>
Css:
.table-row {display: table-row}
.td {display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;}
NOTE
This will not work with elements that are floated left/right, and it will change how the border width effects the overall width of the element.
I would only use this with tabular data, much like I would suggest only using a table.

Is it there anyway to make a div within a div 'breakout' of the parent div without specifying widths of child, just childs elements

ie I have a div, below is a hidden div, which is wider than the div above. I want to specify the div inside to have elements with greater widths than the div above. these elements right hand side is aligned to the right hand side of the div above, but since it is wider, want the left hand side to break out. The div below is on a diff layer than the div above as it only appears on clicking on trigger element of div above.
Basically its a drop down list, with some random elements are wider than the image element above which, when clicked drops this list. but i want the list underneath to expand to the left breaking out of the parent div, without specifying exact positions. Therefore, the elements are all children of the parent div and right aligned to it, just like parent.
Hmmm, hope you can follow. Really appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.
Negative Margins seems to be the best answer. If anyone knows of cross browser issues, please post here. Perhaps I will but shalln't be testing for them for a week or two.
You should probably just use a select tag (for accessibility's sake) even though it won't look as fancy. But if you're set on it, try something like this (and add your javascript code to hide/show the list):
#wrapper {
width: 500px;
}
#select {
border: 1px solid black;
width: 180px;
float: right;
}
#options {
float: right;
clear: right;
text-align: right;
}
and
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="select">pick one...</div>
<div id="options">
<div class="option">I'm short</div>
<div class="option">I'm a very very very very very long option</div>
</div>
</div>
If you end up using this, change the options div to a ul tag and the option divs to li tags, or something semantically closer to what you're building. I just used divs to cut down on the amount of css in my example.

CSS Container not growing with grid?

I have a container background defined in CSS like this;
.container {
background:#fff;
margin-left:auto;
margin-right:auto;
position: relative;
width:970px;
border:1px solid #000;
padding:5px 10px;
}
The problem is I have a jqGrid put in the bottom of the container (near the bottom edge) and when its initially drawn it does fit inside the container panel and looks correct. Something like this (please pardon my non-l33t graphic skillz):
alt text http://img67.yfrog.com/img67/7162/screenshot002f.jpg
But then when I populate the grid with rows it outgrows the container and it looks really tacky, something like this (I circled the original container background edges):
alt text http://img80.yfrog.com/img80/5419/screenshot003fr.jpg
I am sure its something I am doing wrong with the CSS. Any advice would be appreciated.
EDIT: The problem isn't the width its the height of the container being overlapped by the new height of the now populated grid
I've seen this happen many times when you have floats inside. Add a clearing div just before closing container. You should always clean up after floats.
<div class="container">
<div id="nav" style="float:left;">
...
</div>
<div id="grid" style="float:left;">
...
</div>
<div style="clear:both;"></div> <!-- this does the trick -->
</div>
I disagree with adding float to container. Although this will work, having unnecessary floats will give you more problems down the road. Only use floats where necessary and clear it when done floating.
Also in my experience, overflow doesn't mean anything here unless you define height. I don't think setting overflow on container fixes the issue here. Correct me in the comments if I'm wrong.
.container { overflow:hidden; }
assuming you are dealing with floats, this is one way to make the container actually contain them.
Your container is fixed width and won't grow. What you're probably looking for is min-width. In other words, change:
width:970px;
to:
min-width:970px;
As a note, IE 6 and 7 treat width as min-width, but other browsers do not.
I think you need this in your CSS:
overflow: auto;
Depending on your float situation for the container and the inside grid, you can do a number of different things. You might be able to get away with just adding a clear,
clear:both;
You also can float the parent. This is called, setting a float to fix a float. So if your grid has a
float:left;
Then you can just add
float:left;
to your container css. I really like the Complex Spiral article on containing floats.

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