CSS - absolute positioning and fluid divs

Question

Hi

I need to make a layout that looks like this:

[250px - fixed div]  [fluid div, must expand depending on the width of the body and the 2 divs next/before it]  [250px - fixed div]

is this possible? the container of all 3 divs is also fluid (100% width). all these divs contain background images (left + right + repeating center image) and should stay in the back.

Answer 1

Check out Matthew James Taylor's 3 column holy grail layout, which will do exactly what you need.

Answer 2

I suggest reading The Holy Grail for a complete tutorial walk-through and description of necessary browser hacks and such for creating the layout.

In addition, I would advise that you consider placing a max-width either on the containing element or your fluid div (for instance:#container {max-width:1024px;}), because on exceptionally high resolutions / large screens, a stretching div can become obnoxiously large to the point of user frustration.