Stylesheets - Width:*

Author

Width:*

Yobbo

2006-11-19, 7:35 pm

Hi

Just want to confirm what the CSS equiv is for the old method of using * as
the remainder of a space, eg cols="100,*,50".

Did this actually ever work for the width of something, eg 3 x <TD>'s have
the following settings:

<TR><TD WIDTH=200></TD><TD WIDTH=80></TD><TD WIDTH=*></TD></TR>

Not sure if it actually did.

What would you put for the 3rd column to take up the remaining space on the
page? Can't put WIDTH="100%", as it isn't 100% of the table.

Many thanks.

Yobbo

Jukka K. Korpela

2006-11-19, 7:35 pm

Scripsit Yobbo:

> Just want to confirm what the CSS equiv is for the old method of
> using * as the remainder of a space, eg cols="100,*,50".

The CSS counterpart is to leave the width unspecified. You may wish to use
table-layout: fixed
for the table to make it more probable that the browser actually allocates
all the rest to the middle column. You _should_ consider the consequences
though. Pixel widths are particularly evil in this context. Setting
table-layout: fixed means that any content that does not fit (e.g., when the
user forces a larger font size) will be truncated brutally.

> Did this actually ever work for the width of something, eg 3 x <TD>'s
> have the following settings:

Huh? First you ask about "the old method" and then you ask whether the
method ever worked; anyway, that question is about HTML implementation, not
CSS.

> What would you put for the 3rd column to take up the remaining space
> on the page?

I wouldn't. I want to conquer the user's mind, not her screen. If I use
three columns, I let them take their natural widths. Even if I wanted to
waste some width for nav bar on the left and some other width for ads on the
right, I wouldn't necessarily use a three-cell table. You know, there's CSS.
Using CSS just for tuning the effects of table layout is _so_ dull. Though
admittedly a bit simpler than learning how to do layout just in CSS.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/