I'm having trouble positioning this button nicely..

Question

I've been goin at it now for an 1.5hrs and I just can't figure out a way to make it the way I want. I'm kind of new with all things web, and it takes about as much time (maybe more?) trying to get things where I want and doing it in a way that is elegant.

Anyways, I have two text boxes, with two labels above them and centered over the box. I want to simply put a button in between them and about centered with the textboxes' height.

This is as close as I can make it get to what I want. I would like the left textbox moved over so it lines up with the words "Jump To:, "Customer:," and "Customer #:" and then have the right box be the same distance on the right with the Next button maybe a just 10px higher but still centered as it is. The problem with this picture is that it only works when the text boxes are shown and expanded, if they are hidden, then the panel actually renders half-way above the Customer # part because of how I manipulated the margins I'm guessing.

Here's my attempt with <div>s

<div style="position:relative; overflow:auto; margin-top:15px; margin-bottom:10px;">
    <div style="width:40%; float:left; margin-left:10px;">
        <div><asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblInfoDesc" /></div>
        <div><asp:TextBox ID="txtInfoDescription" runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="3" MaxLength="500" Width="100%" /></div>
    </div>

    <%--<div style="position:absolute; margin-top:25px; margin-left:-10px;"><asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Next" /></div>--%>

    <div style="width:40%; float:right; margin-right:16px;">
        <div><asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblInfoData" /></div>
        <div><asp:TextBox ID="txtInfoData" runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="3" MaxLength="500" Width="100%" /></div>
    </div>
</div>

And here's my attempt with table elements

    <div style="margin-bottom:10px;">
        <table style="position:relative; width:100%; margin-bottom:15px;">
            <tr style="text-align:center";>
                <td><asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblInfoDesc" /></td>
                <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td>
                <td><asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblInfoData" /></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td style="margin-left: 0px;"><asp:TextBox ID="txtInfoDescription" runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="3" MaxLength="500" Width="80%" /></td>
                <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td>
                <td style="margin-right:10px;"><asp:TextBox ID="txtInfoData"        runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="3" MaxLength="500" Width="80%" /></td>
            </tr>
        </table>

        <div style="position:inherit; text-align:center; margin-top:-55px; margin-bottom:25px;">
            <asp:Button ID="Button2" runat="server" Text="Next" />
        </div>
    </div>

All of those <td></td><td></td><td> was to attempt to put spaces between the button and the text boxes because I couldn't get float nor margin to work. Any help would be much appreciated!

And here's the complete page source:

<asp:Panel ID="pnlCustomer" runat="server" style="background-color:#ccccff; width:500px; height:90%; position:relative;" BorderColor="DarkBlue" BorderWidth="2px">

    <div style="position:relative; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px;">
        <div style="color:#003399; font-size:18px; text-align:left;">Jump To:
            <asp:DropDownList ID="ddlCategory" runat="server" AutoPostBack="True" 
                              onselectedindexchanged="ddlCategory_SelectedIndexChanged" 
                              style="margin-left:40px;"/>
        </div>
    </div>

    <div style="position:relative; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px;">
        <div style="color:#003399; font-size:18px; text-align:left;">Customer:
            <asp:DropDownList ID="ddlCustomersList" runat="server" AutoPostBack="true"  
                              OnSelectedIndexChanged="ddlCustomersList_SelectedIndexChanged" 
                              style="margin-left:35px;"/>

            <asp:Button ID="btnAddCustomer" runat="server" Text="Add" OnClick="btnAddCustomer_Click" OnClientClick="return confirm('Warning: This will redirect you from the page');" />
        </div>
    </div>

    <div style="position:relative; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px;">

        <div style="color:#003399; font-size:18px; text-align:left;">Customer #:
            <asp:DropDownList ID="ddlCustomerNumber" runat="server" AutoPostBack="true"
                              OnSelectedIndexChanged="ddlCustomerNumber_SelectedIndexChanged"
                              style="margin-left:20px;"/>

            <asp:TextBox ID="txtCustomerNumber" runat="server" style="margin-left:20px;" />

            <asp:Button ID="btnModify"    runat="server" Text="Modify"     OnClick="btnModify_Click"    />
            <asp:Button ID="btnCreateNew" runat="server" Text="Create New" OnClick="btnCreateNew_Click" />

            <asp:Button ID="btnUpdate" runat="server" Text="Update" OnClick="btnUpdate_Click" />
            <asp:Button ID="btnDelete" runat="server" Text="Delete" OnClick="btnDelete_Click" OnClientClick="return confirm('Do you want to delete the record ?');" />

            <asp:Button ID="btnSaveNew" runat="server" Text="Save"   OnClick="btnSaveNew_Click" />
            <asp:Button ID="btnCancel"  runat="server" Text="Cancel" OnClick="btnCancel_Click"  />
        </div>

    </div>

<%--    <div style="margin-bottom:10px;">
        <table style="position:relative; width:100%; margin-bottom:15px;">
            <tr style="text-align:center";>
                <td><asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblInfoDesc" /></td>
                <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td>
                <td><asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblInfoData" /></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td style="margin-left: 0px;"><asp:TextBox ID="txtInfoDescription" runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="3" MaxLength="500" Width="80%" /></td>
                <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td>
                <td style="margin-right:10px;"><asp:TextBox ID="txtInfoData"        runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="3" MaxLength="500" Width="80%" /></td>
            </tr>
        </table>

        <div style="position:inherit; text-align:center; margin-top:-55px; margin-bottom:25px;">
            <asp:Button ID="Button2" runat="server" Text="Next" />
        </div>
    </div>--%>


    <div style="position:relative; overflow:auto; margin-top:15px; margin-bottom:10px;">
        <div style="text-align:center; margin-bottom:-20px; ">
            <asp:Button ID="btnNextInfo" runat="server" Text="Next" />
        </div>

        <div style="width:40%; float:left; margin-left:10px;">
            <div><asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblInfoDesc" /></div>
            <div><asp:TextBox ID="txtInfoDescription" runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="3" MaxLength="500" Width="100%" /></div>
        </div>

        <div style="width:40%; float:right; margin-right:16px;">
            <div><asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblInfoData" /></div>
            <div><asp:TextBox ID="txtInfoData" runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="3" MaxLength="500" Width="100%" /></div>
        </div>
    </div>

    <div style="margin-top:-20px; position:absolute; font-size:12px;"><asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblErrorMessage" /></div>

</asp:Panel>

Answer 1

if I haven't misunderstood, it's not that tough. see if following code renders the layout your image says.

<table cellpadding="3px" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="width: 100%;">
 <tr>
  <td align="center" valign="top">
   Label
  </td>
  <td align="center" valign="top">
   &nbsp;
  </td>
  <td align="center" valign="top">
   Label
  </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
  <td align="center" valign="top">
   <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="7" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
  </td>
  <td align="center" valign="top">
   <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" />
  </td>
  <td align="center" valign="top">
   <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox2" TextMode="MultiLine" Rows="7" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
  </td>
 </tr>

</table>

Answer 2

It seems like this is more of a CSS and HTML question than an ASP.Net question.

To be clear, centering things vertically in their parent with CSS isn't easy, the trick is:

• The parent element must have a position:relative or absolute.
• The child must be wrapped in a div or something positionable.
• The child must have the top:50%
• The child must declare a height.
• the child must have a margin-top = it's height / 2 * -1. (basically you move it up by half it's height.)

Try this:

<style>
div.textboxArea {
    text-align:center;
    float:left;
    width:40%;
    height:400px;
}
.textboxArea  textarea {
    width:80%;
    height:400px;
}
.centerMeVertically  div {
    position:absolute;
    top:50%;
    vertical-align:middle;
    height:30px;
    width:100%;
    margin-top:-15px;
    text-align:center;
}
div.centerMeVertically {
    float:left;
    width:20%;
    text-align:center;
    height:400px;
    position:relative;
}
p {
     height:35px;
     margin:-35px 0 0 0;
}
.container {
    margin-top:35px;
}
</style>
<div class="container">
    <div style="width:100%;">
        <div class="textboxArea">
     <p>Label 1</p>
     <textarea></textarea>
        </div>
        <div class="centerMeVertically">
        <div><button>Button2</button></div>
        </div>
        <div class="textboxArea">
     <p>Label 2</p>
     <textarea></textarea>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

EDIT: Having seen your revised question, I've revised my answer to center the button only to the textarea vertically.

You have to do some stupid CSS tricks with the top-margin, but it gets the job done. Also notice the container div. This is to make sure that if you place anything "above" this snippet in your markup, it doesn't get overlapped by the labels.

Answer 3

I would stick with something simple like this table... then add padding as needed.

<table>
  <tr>
    <td align="center">label a</td>
    <td></td>
    <td align="center">label b</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top"><textarea id="txtinfodescription" rows="3" maxlength="500" width="80%"></textarea></td>
    <td valign="middle"><input type="button" id="button2" value="next"/></td>
    <td valign="top"><textarea id="txtinfodata" rows="3" maxlength="500" width="80%"></textarea></td>
  </tr>
</table>

don't get me wrong, you can go the pure CSS route too... but if you layout get much more complex and you need to maintain a fairly rigid "grid-like" structure... tables help.