I am hoping to find a resource for lining up input elements in a HTML page. I find it difficult to get a select element and a text box to be the same width even when using the width style attribute, and it is even more difficult across browsers. Finally, file inputs seem impossible to get to the same width cross browser. Are there any good guides or tips for accomplishing this? Perhaps there are some default CSS attributes I should be setting.
+5
A:
I usually put them inside a div or table cell (horrors! I know) of the width I want, then set the select and input style:width to 100% so they fill the div / cell they are in.
Ron
Ron Savage
2008-10-07 22:09:30
Nice idea! And tables are the only reliable way to make a form look good...
Geoff
2008-10-08 03:06:56
I thought this was an obvious solution.
Jenko
2009-05-02 16:08:20
A:
Do you start your CSS files with some base settings? It may be useful to turn padding and margin off on all elements. I haven't tested to see if this could be affecting select / input elements.
Here's an example CSS Reset from Eric Meyer:
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/05/01/reset-reloaded/
davebug
2008-10-07 22:11:42
+1
A:
Other than width, I'd be setting border and margin too, these may or may not influence your controls. Something like this may help:
input, select {
width: 100px;
margin: 0px;
border: 1px solid;
}
Ron has a good idea too.
Matthew Scharley
2008-10-07 22:11:53
Do you mean "input, select {" by any chance? Otherwise you're targeting a select that's a child of input :)
Olly Hodgson
2009-11-17 16:54:10
Of course, my bad. Though, the results of that would look interesting.
Matthew Scharley
2009-11-17 20:44:31
A:
File inputs can be fundamentally different across browsers and definitely don't allow much in the way of customization, which can be annoying, but I also understand why that is from a security perspective. For example, try changing the text of the "browse" button that appears on most browsers, or compare the file input on Safari to other browsers...
mmacaulay
2008-10-07 23:52:22
+7
A:
I tested this out in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3 and Safari/Google Chrome. I definitely see the problem with <select> and <input type="file">. My findings showed that if you styled all the inputs at the same width, the <select> would be about 5 pixels shorter in all browsers.
Using the Eric Meyer CSS reset script does not help this issue, however if you simply make your <select> inputs 5 pixels wider you'll get very good (albeit not perfect) alignment in the major browsers. The only one that differs is Safari/Google Chrome, and it appears to be 1 or 2 pixels wider than all the other browsers.
As far as the <input type="file"> is concerned, you don't have much flexibility with styling there. If JavaScript is an option for you, you can implement the method shown on quirksmode to achieve greater control over the styling of the file upload control.
See my full working example below in XHTML 1.0 Strict for a typical form with consistent input widths. Note that this does not use the 100% width trick pointed out by others here because it has the same problem with inconsistent widths. Additionally there are no tables used to render the form as tables should only be used for tabular data and not layout.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Example Form</title>
<style type="text/css">
label, input, select, textarea {
display: block;
width: 200px;
float: left;
margin-bottom: 1em;
}
select {
width: 205px;
}
label {
text-align: right;
width: 100px;
padding-right: 2em;
}
.clear {
clear: both;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<form action="#">
<fieldset>
<legend>User Profile</legend>
<label for="fname">First Name</label>
<input id="fname" name="fname" type="text" />
<br class="clear" />
<label for="lname">Last Name</label>
<input id="lname" name="lname" type="text" />
<br class="clear" />
<label for="fav_lang">Favorite Language</label>
<select id="fav_lang" name="fav_lang">
<option value="c#">C#</option>
<option value="java">Java</option>
<option value="ruby">Ruby</option>
<option value="python">Python</option>
<option value="perl">Perl</option>
</select>
<br class="clear" />
<label for="bio">Biography</label>
<textarea id="bio" name="bio" cols="14" rows="4"></textarea>
<br class="clear" />
</fieldset>
</form>
</body>
</html>
cowgod
2008-10-08 06:16:18
I think that the inconsistency is down to inherent styling on the elements, text boxes have inner padding which is different to there input types, so you essentially have to factor this in, either by resetting all the styling at the start of your css or adding/subtracting 5px from the other elements. As far as cross browser consistence goes, good luck with that, very common complaint, which is down to the programmers of the browsers, nothing much to be done, aside from boycott all but one browser :D (I vote go firefox)
andy-score
2009-11-17 16:38:26
I found just about every major browser on Windows would render a select element 8px narrower than a text input or textarea. So I styled accordingly, e.g. input, textarea { width: 180px; } select { width: 188px; }
Olly Hodgson
2009-11-17 17:02:04
A:
I don't think Ron's idea works...
test case:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<link href="styles/reset.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
<style type="text/css">
input, select{
width: 100%;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div style="width: 200px;">
<input type="text">
<select>
<option>asdasd</option>
<option>asdasd</option>
</select>
</div>
</body>
</html>
This results in the input being some px wider than the select (this is probably OS-dependent). I'm not sure if this could be achieved, even with the +5px trick as the styling of the select seems to be OS (at least windows theme) dependent.
AlfaTeK
2009-11-17 16:33:34