tags:

views:

395

answers:

5

How can I get the div nav to have expand down or have the height the same as it's parent div (container)?

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"&gt;
<html><head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Script-Type" content="text/javascript" />
<title></title>
<style type="text/css">
*   {border:0; padding:0; margin:0;}/* Set everything to "zero" */
#container {
    margin-left: auto;
    margin-right: auto;
    border: 1px solid black;
    overflow: auto;
    width: 800px; 
}
#nav {
    width: 19%;
    border: 1px solid green;
    float:left; 
}
#content {
    width: 79%;
    border: 1px solid red;
    float:right;
}
</style>


<div id=container>
    <div id=nav>
     <ul>
      <li>Menu</li>
      <li>Menu</li>
      <li>Menu</li>
      <li>Menu</li>
      <li>Menu</li>
     </ul>
    </div>
    <div id=content>
     <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum consequat ligula vitae posuere. Mauris dolor quam, consequat vel condimentum eget, aliquet sit amet sem. Nulla in lectus ac felis ultrices dignissim quis ac orci. Nam non tellus eget metus sollicitudin venenatis sit amet at dui. Quisque malesuada feugiat tellus, at semper eros mollis sed. In luctus tellus in magna condimentum sollicitudin. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Curabitur vel dui est. Aliquam vitae condimentum dui. Praesent vel mi at odio blandit pellentesque. Proin felis massa, vestibulum a hendrerit ut, imperdiet in nulla. Sed aliquam, dolor id congue porttitor, mauris turpis congue felis, vel luctus ligula libero in arcu. Pellentesque egestas blandit turpis ac aliquet. Sed sit amet orci non turpis feugiat euismod. In elementum tristique tortor ac semper.</p>
    </div>
</div>

</body>
</html>
+1  A: 

You probably are going to want to use the following declaration:

height: 100%;

This will set the div's height to 100% of its containers height, which will make it fill the parent div.

Chacha102
+4  A: 

you would possibbly need to specify the height of container and then set the nav's height to 100%.

Edit: had a quick look around and it seems that the height property applies to the parents height so you will indeed need to set the containers height.

NB: setting the height of the body element to 100% only scales it to the height of the browser window. Any content which goeds over one page will not have the same background etc.

schubySteve
This works, but I didn't want a fixed height for the container. ;|
BHare
In regards to NB:wouldn't min-height: 100%; help this
BHare
@Brian, could do try it out.
schubySteve
Look at my answer for something that works. Basically you'll set up an absolutely positioned div with top:0; and bottom:0;
Spidey
+2  A: 

Man, this question has been asked about 5 times in the past three days. Here's a copy/paste of my answer to another question:

You can achieve this with setting both the top and bottom attributes of the nav and setting container to position: relative.

See how this is done

At the bottom of that article, there is a link to Dean Edwards' IE7 (and IE8) js library that you should include for IE6 visitors. It is a JS library that actually MAKES IE6 behave like IE7 (or 8) when you include it. Sweet! ... of course there are bugs with it, but at least you know how to deal with them.

Dean Edwars' IE7 and 8 JS libraries

kmiyashiro
+1  A: 

Unfortunately, there is no fool-proof way of achieving this. A block will only expand to the height of its container if it is not floated. Floated blocks are considered outside of the document flow.

One way to do the following without using JavaScript is via a technique called Faux-Columns.

It basically involves applying a background-image to the parent elements of the floated elements which makes you believe that the two elements are the same height.

More information available at:

A List Apart: Articles: Faux Columns

Andrew Moore
This is what I have now, I am trying to do away with it.
BHare
A: 

Hi,

Another one simple method is there. You don't need to code more in CSS. Just including a java script and entering the div "id" inside the script you can get equal height of columns so that you can have the height fit to container. It works in major browsers.

Source Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"&gt;
<html><head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Script-Type" content="text/javascript" />
<title></title>
<style type="text/css">
*   {border:0; padding:0; margin:0;}/* Set everything to "zero" */
#container {
    margin-left: auto;
    margin-right: auto;
    border: 1px solid black;
    overflow: auto;
    width: 800px;       
}
#nav {
    width: 19%;
    border: 1px solid green;
    float:left; 
}
#content {
    width: 79%;
    border: 1px solid red;
    float:right;
}
</style>

<script language="javascript">
var ddequalcolumns=new Object()
//Input IDs (id attr) of columns to equalize. Script will check if each corresponding column actually exists:
ddequalcolumns.columnswatch=["nav", "content"]

ddequalcolumns.setHeights=function(reset){
var tallest=0
var resetit=(typeof reset=="string")? true : false
for (var i=0; i<this.columnswatch.length; i++){
if (document.getElementById(this.columnswatch[i])!=null){
if (resetit)
document.getElementById(this.columnswatch[i]).style.height="auto"
if (document.getElementById(this.columnswatch[i]).offsetHeight>tallest)
tallest=document.getElementById(this.columnswatch[i]).offsetHeight
}
}
if (tallest>0){
for (var i=0; i<this.columnswatch.length; i++){
if (document.getElementById(this.columnswatch[i])!=null)
document.getElementById(this.columnswatch[i]).style.height=tallest+"px"
}
}
}

ddequalcolumns.resetHeights=function(){
this.setHeights("reset")
}

ddequalcolumns.dotask=function(target, functionref, tasktype){ //assign a function to execute to an event handler (ie: onunload)
var tasktype=(window.addEventListener)? tasktype : "on"+tasktype
if (target.addEventListener)
target.addEventListener(tasktype, functionref, false)
else if (target.attachEvent)
target.attachEvent(tasktype, functionref)
}

ddequalcolumns.dotask(window, function(){ddequalcolumns.setHeights()}, "load")
ddequalcolumns.dotask(window, function(){if (typeof ddequalcolumns.timer!="undefined") clearTimeout(ddequalcolumns.timer); ddequalcolumns.timer=setTimeout("ddequalcolumns.resetHeights()", 200)}, "resize")


</script>

<div id=container>
    <div id=nav>
        <ul>
                <li>Menu</li>
                <li>Menu</li>
                <li>Menu</li>
                <li>Menu</li>
                <li>Menu</li>
        </ul>
    </div>
    <div id=content>
        <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam fermentum consequat ligula vitae posuere. Mauris dolor quam, consequat vel condimentum eget, aliquet sit amet sem. Nulla in lectus ac felis ultrices dignissim quis ac orci. Nam non tellus eget metus sollicitudin venenatis sit amet at dui. Quisque malesuada feugiat tellus, at semper eros mollis sed. In luctus tellus in magna condimentum sollicitudin. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Curabitur vel dui est. Aliquam vitae condimentum dui. Praesent vel mi at odio blandit pellentesque. Proin felis massa, vestibulum a hendrerit ut, imperdiet in nulla. Sed aliquam, dolor id congue porttitor, mauris turpis congue felis, vel luctus ligula libero in arcu. Pellentesque egestas blandit turpis ac aliquet. Sed sit amet orci non turpis feugiat euismod. In elementum tristique tortor ac semper.</p>
    </div>
</div>

</body>
</html>

You can include any no of divs in this script.

ddequalcolumns.columnswatch=["nav", "content"]

modify in the above line its enough.

Try this.

Logesh Paul