Posted by Bergamot on 04/06/07 16:34

brunascle.maps@gmail.com wrote:
> On Apr 6, 9:38 am, "cluthz" <WHATEEVVE...@by.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> In the short term I need to implement a webform (the user of the form will
>> enter search criteria for a database and the amount of data will cover three
>> columns).
>
> IIRC, you're also supposed to manually set the height of each
> column in the CSS, but i cant remember why.

That would be a very unwise thing to do, especially for any block
containing text. Too many times I've seen fixed dimensions set but the
text taking up more space than what was allocated (mostly due to font
size variations), so it spills out of the container. Very ugly, and
often unreadable. Don't do it.

> personally i think the standards for this
> are kind of flawed. it logically doesnt make sense to me to have to
> set the furthest-right column to float: left.

Sounds like you put the cart before the horse. How it looks on screen
doesn't have to correspond to how it is structured, but it *does* have
to be structured logically.

Don't think about the layout first, think about the structure first.
Code it so the document makes sense without any styling at all. Then add
whatever design elements (e.g. added containers and/or class selectors)
that may be needed to achieve the desired layout.

> you often have to tell the next element after the columns
> that it shouldnt be placed to the right of the furthest-right column.
> to do that, you have to add clear: both to the CSS of the next
> element. i really dont like that, becase you dont always know what
> element is going to come next.

I'm not sure what you are complaining about. If you're using floated
elements, you have to use the clear property if you don't want certain
elements to flow next to them. That's the nature of the beast. There is
more than one way to do this, however.

> and sometimes it forces me to put a <br
> style="clear: both" /> right after the columns, which i dont like
> either.

That is an ugly way to clear a float.
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/clearing.html
http://positioniseverything.net/easyclearing.html

--
Berg

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