More CSS Resolution Problems

[CountryNaturals]

I'm trying to build a pet products mall on one of my websites. I'm trying to do it with tables within my css container. My problem is that when I view the following page in 800x600 resolution, the table moves down, leaving white space I don't want at the top. At a higher resolution, I have too much horizontal white space. What I want is to make my pages in a higher resolution, and just let people with 800x600 scroll right, but I can't seem to make it happen. Everything moves out of whack at 800x600.

I'm using Dreamweaver CS3. I've tried elastic and liquid columns, but I must be doing something wrong, because neither of them makes this problem go away. Here is the page I'm working on:

http://loveyourpetexpo.com/mall.html

Here is my css sheet"

@charset "utf-8";
body {
font: 100% Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
background: #666666;
margin: 0; /* it's good practice to zero the margin and padding of the body element to account for differing browser defaults */
padding: 0;
text-align: center; /* this centers the container in IE 5* browsers. The text is then set to the left aligned default in the #container selector */
color: #000000;
}

/* Tips for this Hybrid layout
1. Since the side columns em-based sizing is based on the user's default font size, you will want to be sure that background graphics in the columns take that into account. Built correctly, this is more accessible for those that need larger font sizes, since the width of the columns remains proportionate. If this is undesirable with your design, simply change the width to a pixel size and be sure to change the margins on the #mainContent div accordingly.
2. Since the sizing of side columns in this layout are based on the 100% font size in the body element, if you decrease the text size overall by using a font-size: 80% on the body element or the #container, remember that the column widths will downsize proportionately. You may want to increase their widths, and the size of the #mainContent div's side margins, to compensate for this.
3. If font sizing is changed in differing amounts on each div instead of on the overall design (ie: #sidebar1 is given a 70% font size and #mainContent is given an 85% font size), this will proportionately change each of the divs overall size. You may want to adjust based on your final font sizing.
4. The #container div is not necessary for this layout at the 100% width. You may want to use it to create faux columns or limit the width of the layout.
5. It is not neccessary to have the 100% width on the #container div since, by nature, a div takes up 100% of the available space. It is here so that if you want to decrease the size of the overall container - perhaps leaving a bit of margin on each side - this will already be available for adjustment.
*/
.thrColHybHdr #container {
width: 100%;
background: #FFFFFF;
/*margin: 0 auto; the auto margins (in conjunction with a width) center the page if needed */
text-align: left; /* this overrides the text-align: center on the body element. */
}
.thrColHybHdr #header {
background: #D9D3D3;
}
.thrColHybHdr #header h1 {
margin: 0; /* zeroing the margin of the last element in the #header div will avoid margin collapse - an unexplainable space between divs. If the div has a border around it, this is not necessary as that also avoids the margin collapse */
background-image: url(images/masthead-css.jpg);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-color: #D9D3D3;
text-align: center;
font-family: "Hypatia Sans Pro", "Hypatia Sans Pro Black", "Hypatia Sans Pro ExtraLight", "Hypatia Sans Pro Light", "Hypatia Sans Pro Semibold";
color: #CC0000;
height: 110px;
padding-top: 10px;
padding-right: 0;
padding-bottom: 10px;
padding-left: 0;
left: 0px;
font-weight: bolder;
font-size: x-large;
}

/* Tips for sidebar1:
1. Be aware that if you set a font-size value on this div, the overall width of the div will be adjusted accordingly.
2. Since we are working in ems, it's best not to use padding on the sidebar itself. It will be added to the width for standards compliant browsers creating an unknown actual width.
3. Space between the side of the div and the elements within it can be created by placing a left and right margin on those elements as seen in the ".thrColHybHdr #sidebar1 p" rule.
*/
.thrColHybHdr #sidebar1 {
float: left;
width: 9em; /* since this element is floated, a width must be given */
background: #99FFFF; /* the background color will be displayed for the length of the content in the column, but no further */
padding: 15px 0; /* top and bottom padding create visual space within this div */
font-family: "Hypatia Sans Pro", "Hypatia Sans Pro Black", "Hypatia Sans Pro ExtraLight", "Hypatia Sans Pro Light", "Hypatia Sans Pro Semibold";
color: #CC0000;
}
.thrColHybHdr #sidebar2 {
float: right;
width: 8em; /* since this element is floated, a width must be given */
background: #F7F7F7; /* the background color will be displayed for the length of the content in the column, but no further */
padding: 15px 0; /* top and bottom padding create visual space within this div */
color: #CC0000;
}

.thrColHybHdr #sidebar1 p, .thrColHybHdr #sidebar1 h3 {
margin-left: 10px; /* the left and right margin should be given to every element that will be placed in the side columns */
margin-right: 10px;
background-color: #99FFFF;
font-family: "Hypatia Sans Pro", "Hypatia Sans Pro Black", "Hypatia Sans Pro ExtraLight", "Hypatia Sans Pro Light", "Hypatia Sans Pro Semibold";
color: #CC0000;
}

.thrColHybHdr #sidebar2 p, .thrColHybHdr #sidebar2 h3 {
margin-left: 10px; /* the left and right margin should be given to every element that will be placed in the side columns */
margin-right: 10px;
background-color: #F7F7F7;
font-family: "Hypatia Sans Pro", "Hypatia Sans Pro Black", "Hypatia Sans Pro ExtraLight", "Hypatia Sans Pro Light", "Hypatia Sans Pro Semibold";
color: #CC0000;


/* Tips for mainContent:
1. If you give this #mainContent div a font-size value different than the #sidebar1 div, the margins of the #mainContent div will be based on its font-size and the width of the #sidebar1 div will be based on its font-size. You may wish to adjust the values of these divs.
2. The space between the mainContent and sidebar1 is created with the left margin on the mainContent div. No matter how much content the sidebar1 div contains, the column space will remain. You can remove this left margin if you want the #mainContent div's text to fill the #sidebar1 space when the content in #sidebar1 ends.
3. To avoid float drop, you may need to test to determine the approximate maximum image/element size since this layout is based on the user's font sizing combined with the values you set. However, if the user has their browser font size set lower than normal, less space will be available in the #mainContent div than you may see on testing.
4. In the Internet Explorer Conditional Comment below, the zoom property is used to give the mainContent "hasLayout." This avoids several IE-specific bugs that may occur.
*/
}
.thrColHybHdr #mainContent {
margin: 0 0 0 0; /* the right margin can be given in ems or pixels. It creates the space down the right side of the page. */
padding: 0 4px 0 4px; /* padding here creates white space "inside the box." */

}
.thrColHybHdr #footer {
padding: 0 10px; /* this padding matches the left alignment of the elements in the divs that appear above it. */
background:#D9D3D3;
}
.thrColHybHdr #footer p {
margin: 0; /* zeroing the margins of the first element in the footer will avoid the possibility of margin collapse - a space between divs */
padding: 10px 0; /* padding on this element will create space, just as the the margin would have, without the margin collapse issue */
}

/* Miscellaneous classes for reuse */
.fltrt { /* this class can be used to float an element right in your page. The floated element must precede the element it should be next to on the page. */
float: right;
margin-left: 8px;
}
.fltlft { /* this class can be used to float an element left in your page */
float: left;
margin-right: 8px;
}
.clearfloat { /* this class should be placed on a div or break element and should be the final element before the close of a container that should fully contain a float */
clear:both;
height:0;
font-size: 1px;
line-height: 0px;
}
.thrColHybHdr #container #sidebar1 p {
font-family: "Hypatia Sans Pro", "Hypatia Sans Pro Black", "Hypatia Sans Pro ExtraLight", "Hypatia Sans Pro Light", "Hypatia Sans Pro Semibold";
color: #000000;
}

TIA for any help you can offer.

Suz

[CountryNaturals]

I figured out how to do this with a 2-column design. Maybe the simple answer is that it can't be done with a 3rd column after the main content. Is that it?

[Boogle]

CountryNaturals I think you shoud be using Divs and I can't see one reasons to use tables within your site. I know that DW creates that menu into a table for you so that's understandable but even so it should be placed within a DIV. And the rest of the site's content - should be designed with DIVs only. That's just my opinion, you see it doesn't look like you've used the parent element correctly by setting your child elements to width values. If you did this then everything adjusts in proportionatley and correctly. Using Divs and the float command within Div wrappers gives you more flexibility.

That's just my opinion though. Tables should only be used to display tabular data imo.

Maybe give it a go designing in more divs, if you have the time and see what you think.

Boog's.

[CountryNaturals]

I've been agonizing over this for almost two weeks and I've come to the same conclusion. I should have asked you first. LOL! Thanks for the input.

It appears that the problem is the combination of tables and that 3rd column. I couldn't even use the "tables to AP divs" feature with my 3-column layout. I have to make up a 2-column dummy to transfer my tables into, first, then convert and copy them back. It's a drag, but all part of the learning experience.

[Costin Trifan]

Have you tried to add that third column inside the 2nd column?

[CountryNaturals]

No, I never thought of that. I will add your suggestion to a growing list for when I'm ready to tackle this again. Thanks.

Right now I'm so beat up I'm just gonna leave it alone. I tried divs and that just made things worse. The right column and the footer collapsed, so I added a background image to hold everything in place. That just put me back where I started from with tables.

My final solution was to make a different 2-column template for my mall pages. Eliminating the 3rd column helped a lot. It isn't perfect, but I can live with it.

In the meantime, all my fooling around without knowing what I was doing, screwed everything up so badly I had to redo every page, one-at-a-time. I've learned a lot, but not enough to risk messing with it anymore.

Thanks to all for the great ideas.

Suz

[Costin Trifan]

I happen to have a ready made three columns page template.
It uses a ul to arrange the content. If you can wait a moment I'll load it up on my host so you can see it on-line.

interested?

[CountryNaturals]

Yes, that does sound interesting. Thanks.

Suz

[Costin Trifan]

http://optimizaremaster.org/v7n_site...LayoutPage.htm

Note:
Because the page content is based on <li>, you can change the sidebar's position, let's say:
- left sidebar
- content
-right sidebar

or use it as it is




note:
- All you have to do is to paste all the content you have in these divs: <div class="InnerWrapper">
- the elements you'll add should not have a fixed size; if they have one, then change it to 100%, or auto
- the layout was tested in IE7, Opera and FF