CSS:Layouts102
Layout 2: 3 columns
The first stage to approach layouts is to draw a simple diagram of how you would like a web page to be presented:
Stage 2: The Divisions
In order to achieve this layout we need three "divisions" - let's create them in HTML
HTML Document - no CSS yet
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>CSS 6</TITLE>
<LINK rel="stylesheet" href="style6.css" type="text/css">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV id="menu">
This is the menu
<UL>
<LI>Item 1</LI>
<LI>Item 2</LI>
<LI>Item 3</LI>
<LI>Item 4</LI>
<LI>Item 5</LI>
</UL>
</DIV>
<DIV id="content">
<H1>This is the Content of the page</H1>
<P>Very interesting content - wouldn't you agree?</P>
</DIV>
<DIV id="right">
Some interesting information in the right-hand column
</DIV>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Stage 3: Match the divisions to the drawing
Create the following CSS file (and save as style6.css)
#menu {float:left}
#right {float:right}
Now reload the page - what do you see?
We're making progress - at least the divisions are in the right place.
Stage 4: Tidy up the presentation
Let's put some more content in the CSS to improve the appearance.
Modify the CSS to the following:
#menu
{
float:left;
border: 2px solid #0000ff;
margin: 10px;
padding: 10px;
}
The page should now look something more like this:
Now we'll do the same for the content division
#content
{
border: 2px solid #ff0000;
margin: 10px;
padding: 10px;
}
The page should now look something more like this:
This isn't what we want, but it emphasises the concept of "floating" - because the menu division is floating above the content division, the menu division passes BELOW the content division, and the content division is overlapping.
There are a number of ways in CSS to fix this, but the easiest (in this example) is to also "float" the content division, since floating divisions appear side-by-side (as long as there is space) - change the content division CSS to also include a float statement:
#content
{
float: left;
border: 2px solid #ff0000;
margin: 10px;
padding: 10px;
}
The page should now look something more like this - this is pretty close to what we want:
Ready to move on?
When you're happy with the concepts introduced in this chapter, take a look at CSS:Layouts102 for some more layout ideas, and how to implement them.
