Pixel and percentage width divs side-by-side - css

Question

I've found a lot of similar questions, and tried out several solutions (including some of the so-called "holy grail" CSS layouts), but they don't quite do what I need.
I have a containing div (a CSS containing block) with id right. Inside it on the left side, I want a fixed-width div (a splitter bar, but it doesn't matter what it's being used for; id splitpane); on the right, filling the rest of the space, another div (id right-box below).
I've tried making the two inner divs display: inline-block (with vertical-align: top), setting the left one to width: 3px, but then there's no way to set the right to have width 100% - 3px. I've also tried using the float: left/margin-left: -100%/margin-left: 3px trick, but it has the same problem: the 100% plus the 3px overflows the parent containing block and causes a scroll bar to pop up. (Of course, it's not the scroll bar per se that's the problem; I could use overflow: hidden to remove it, but then content on the right would be truncated.)
Currently I'm using width: 99.5% for the right div, but that's a terrible hack (and is subject to overflow depending on screen width). It looks a bit like this:
<div id="right"><div id="splitpane"></div><div id="right-box">
...
</div></div>
With CSS as follows (float version, but the inline-block version is similar):
#right {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
height: 100%;
width: 85%; /* this is part of a larger div */
}
#right-box {
width: 99.5%; /* stupid hack; actually want 100% - 3px for splitter */
height: 100%;
}
#splitpane {
float: left;
width: 3px;
height: 100%;
background: white;
border-left: solid gray 1px;
border-right: solid gray 1px;
cursor: e-resize;
}
Is it even possible to do this? This is for an internal app., so solutions only need to work in Firefox 3 (if they are specific to FF3, though, preferably it's because the solution is standards-compliant but other browsers aren't, not because it's using Firefox-only code).

Answer 1

DIVs are the wrong element type for this since they don't "talk" to each other. You can achieve this easily with a table:
<table style="width:200px">
<tr>
<td id="splitpane" style="width: 3px">...</td>
<td id="rightBox" style="width: 100%">...</td>
<tr>
</table>
The 100% will make the rightBox as wide as possible but within the limits of the table.

Answer 2

This is possible. Because block level elements automatically expand to take up any remaining horizontal space, you can utilise a block level element next to an uncleared floated element with your desired width.
<style type="text/css">
div {
height: 100px;
}
#container {
width: 100%;
}
#left {
background: #FF0;
}
#splitpane {
position: relative;
float: right;
background: #000;
width: 3px;
}
</style>
<div id="container">
<div id="splitpane"></div>
<div id="left"></div>
</div>
See http://jsfiddle.net/georeith/W4YMD/1/

Answer 3

why you didn't use margin-left (since it was float layout) on right box?
so no need to create a splitter div...
#right{
width:200px; /*specify some width*/
}
#rightbox{
float:left;
margin-left: 3px; /*replace the splitter*/
/*margin: 0 3px; /*use this to give left & right splitter*/ */
}
yeah something like that, i hate empty div, it's not semantic and it's like putting a splitter on the "old" table way

Answer 4

If the div #right-box is only going to contain non-floated content it might be an idea to just put the content inside #right instead and let it wrap around the floated #splitpane.