Posted by Bone Ur on 11/04/07 17:02

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sun, 04 Nov 2007 03:48:34
GMT Jonathan N. Little scribed:

>>> I think dorayme is right here, server-side would have no idea what
>>> available size with respect to the browser. I think it would require
>>> some nasty JavaScript to calculate the available space and
>>> reposition the contents. And of course would also have to hook the
>>> onresize to do the process all over again if the user resizes the
>>> browser... yuck!
>>
>> Not necessarily. One could use string-length of (record/row),
>> converting the max to an em number with a reasonable amount of
>> leeway/slop, then float the tables/containers themselves. The number
>> of containers would be to taste, -sensible, of course, and their
>> max-width would need to be a suitable fraction of typical
>> screenwidth. This might break with super- large font-sizes, but most
>> things do, anyway.
>>
>
> But you cannot get the browser viewport via server-side. This is a
> client-side job. Also you need to know the height, not the width
> inorder to "wrap" to the next column as the OP wishes...more fun...

Hehe, I had to go back and re-read the original post because I forgot the
stated goal.

The OP doesn't _really_ want columns at all; he wants floating divs of
equal width which "columnize" in an aligned manner filling more of the
horizontal area of the page. At least that's what I get from the
message, and doing it is possible with j/s (except maybe for ie.)
Knowing the viewport size beforehand isn't necessary though the floats
will have to be widthed (in ems) beforehand with care.

The technique has been addressed before on the newsgroup. As I said,
though, this is what I glean from the first post. Maybe I missed
something in the interim.

--
Bone Ur

When I was a young man I learned that having sex with a woman is fun
until you either get caught or married.

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