Help with CSS Page Layout

Question

I guess I am "old school" in that I have always used tables
to lay out my web pages. I decided I must learn to do it with CSS,
but I'm having a terrible time (and it shouldn't be so hard!). I
understand how to define the styles, add divs, etc. Here's what I'm
having trouble with:
How do I specify the normal page width to be 800 pixels,
however I want it to be relative to the browser (i.e., 100% of 800
pixels).
I understand the "float" tag, but if I have a right-hand
sidebar, I can't seem to get the text to the left (in a div called
"maincontent") to stop at the sidebar and wrap to the next line. I
tried specifying "Hidden" as my textbook suggests, but that has no
effect.
I can easily do all of this with tables, so do I really need
to abandon them?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Jane,
I'll try to answer all your questions, then a tip or two to
stop the main
content from dropping when the browser window size is
reduced.
- " I didn't realize that
margin-top: 0px;
margin-right: auto;
is not the same as margin: 0px auto;
That's right.
margin: 0px auto; is actaully saying make the top margin 0,
the right margin
auto, the bottom margin 0 and the left margin auto.
It's just CSS shorthand.
For example, you might have:
margin-top: 10px;
margin-right: 20px;
margin-bottom: 5px;
margin-left:15px;
You could just use margin: {10px 20px 5px 15px;}
Think of a clock to remember the directions.
12:00 top, 3:00 right, 6:00 bottom, 9:00 left.
If any of the values are the same, you can shorten it more.
For example, if top is 10, right is 20, bottom is 5 and left
is 20, it's
margin: {10px 20px 5px;}
If the 4th location (left) is missing a value, it makes it
the same as what
you have for right.
If top and bottom are 10px, and left and right are 20px,
it's:
margin {10px 20px;}
If the last two positions ( bottom and left vlaues ) are
missing, then it
will use the top value for the bottom, and the right value
for the left.
What auto right and left is doing is subtracting your content
width (the
container width) from the browser window width, and then
dividing the
remainder in 2 and applying each value to each side of the
container.
-"I found that they all took on the font of the maincontent
and I had to fix
them
individually. "
The only text that should be Time is the text in your main
content, where
you have that font defined. Everything else should be Arial
if you define
the body as such. I'll post a link at the end of this.
- "I put my bold sentence (Friendship, Fun, etc.) in h1, but
I had to change
the
color & size, so that added another style element. "
You don't need to give the h1 a class. You can actually just
style the h1
tag:
h1 {
margin: 10px 10px 2px;
font-size: larger;
color: #941238;
You can only use h1 once on a page.
You can use h2, h3, h4, etc, as many times as you would like,
and you can
style these just like the h1 style above.
- "I don't quite understand the .rightsidebar p { and
container p{
I am assigning the spacing to the <p> tag? What exactly
is that doing?"
That is saying, give all the <p> tags inside the
rightsidebar container the
follwing style.
So, in this example:
.rightsidebar p {
font-size: 18px;
margin: 2px 10px;
it's saying give all the <p> tags in this container a
size of 18 and margin
of 2px top and bottom, and 10px left and right.
It's a lot easier than giving a class to every <p> tag
- "I also don't quite understand the .clear {
Why not just choose clear:both on the next section <div
class="footer">"
You could, if the footer was in the container. It just needs
to be the final
element before the close of a container that contains the
float(s).
-Do you use the <div class="container"> technique all
the time?
Yes, most of the time. I usually put everything in it, and
use the
margin:0px auto; to center it.
That way, I don't have to try to get a number of different
elements to align
with the right and left sides by applying values to all of
them, which can
get tricky quickly.
-"If you'll indulge me one more question, I wonder if it's
possible to put a
graphic (say, of a putting green) underneath my
rightsidebar? I would want
the sidebar to lay on top of the putting green for an
interesting artistic
touch.
Yes, you can give that div a background image. You just need
to make the div
the same size as the image so you see it all (or vice-versa).
Now, to make that maincontent not drop like it does you can
remove the width
in the CSS. Now it will expand over to the left edge of the
rightsidebar.
You can control how close it gets by giving the right sidebar
a bigger left
margin. The point is, with no width assigned, the maincontent
will shrink
down to the longest word in it before it drops.
Here's what it looks like:
http://tnsgraphics.com/test2.htm
Let me know if you have any questions.
Take care,
Tim
"janeinpa" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:[email protected]...
> Hi, Tim...
>
> You have been very kind to help me learn CSS! I very
much appreciate it
> and
> am really delighted to have gained a better
understanding of this. I
> studied
> all your suggestions and started the page from scratch.
Take a look here:
>
http://www.allisonwebcreations.com/ewga_site/good_page/indexgood.htm
I'm
> very
> pleased with it. I discovered a couple of things:
>
> I didn't realize that
> margin-top: 0px;
> margin-right: auto;
>
> is not the same as margin: 0px auto;
>
> are they two different codes? Anyway, it didn't center
until I fixed
> that.
>
> I understand what you're saying about the font codes
being redundant,
> however
> I found that they all took on the font of the
maincontent and I had to fix
> them
> individually. This must be an error in how I'm coding
it. Is the order
> in
> which I did them to blame? I put it in the order that
I'm reading it, but
> perhaps I should do it differently.
>
> I also couldn't get the footer to move left to the
margin. I'm not sure
> why,
> since I think I followed all your suggestions.
>
> I put my bold sentence (Friendship, Fun, etc.) in h1,
but I had to change
> the
> color & size, so that added another style element.
I'm afraid that
> probably
> isn't correct. I also couldn't have my normal content
text follow
> immediately
> on the same line. Maybe that isn't possible.
>
> I don't quite understand the .rightsidebar p { and
container p{
> I am assigning the spacing to the <p> tag? What
exactly is that doing?
>
> I also don't quite understand the .clear {
> Why not just choose clear:both on the next section
<div class="footer"> ?
>
> Do you use the <div class="container"> technique
all the time? How do you
> decide what goes in it -- just floating items or can I
think of it as a
> table
> that holds all my main blocks of info? Why not include
the footer in it?
>
> If you'll indulge me one more question, I wonder if it's
possible to put a
> graphic (say, of a putting green) underneath my
rightsidebar? I would
> want the
> sidebar to lay on top of the putting green for an
interesting artistic
> touch.
>
> Thank you, thank you, thank you again. Here are my css
codes (which I
> have in
> an external file. Is it better to import or link to the
file?)
>
> Have a wonderful New Year.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> .body {
> padding: 0px;
> margin-top: 0px;
> font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
> }
> .masthead {
> width: 780px;
> margin: 0px auto;
> padding-top: 10px;
> padding-right: 0px;
> }
> .maincontent {
> background-color: #FFFFFF;
> text-align: left;
> width: 60%;
> margin-top: 0px;
> padding-top: 10px;
> padding-right: 0px;
> font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
> font-size: medium;
> color: #000000;
> }
> .maincontent p{
> margin-top: 2px;
> margin-right: 10px;
>
> }
> .rightsidebar {
> font-size: small;
> background-color: #DEEBE4;
> text-align: center;
> float: right;
> width: 250px;
> margin-top: 10px;
> margin-left: 20px;
> border: thick solid #941238;
> font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
> padding: 10px;
>
> }
> .leftbox {
> font-size: small;
> font-style: italic;
> color: #336600;
> background-color: #DEEBE4;
> text-align: center;
> clear: both;
> width: 300px;
> margin-top: 50px;
> border: thin solid #941238;
> font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
> padding: 10px;
> }
> .footer {
> font-size: small;
> margin: 100px;
> font-family: Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
> font-style: normal;
> }
> .container {
> width: 90%;
> margin: 0px auto;
> }
> .clear {
> font-size: 1px;
> line-height: 0px;
> clear: both;
> height: 0px;
> }
> .event {
> font-size: 24px;
> font-weight: bold;
> color: #00493E;
> }
> .upcomingdate {
> font-size: 20px;
> color: #990134;
> font-weight: bold;
> font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
> }
>
> .eventitem {
> font-size: 18px;
> color: #000000;
> font-weight: bold;
> margin: 0px;
> }
> .eventlink {
> font-size: 14px;
> font-style: italic;
> margin: 0px;
> }
> .smallboxhead {
> font-size: large;
> color: #00493E;
> font-style: normal;
> font-weight: bold;
> }
> .companyname {
> font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
> font-size: small;
> font-style: italic;
> color: 990134;
> }
>