Need generic div css that does not overlap (like a table)

Question

I'm trying to use divs instead of tables to style boxes around my content. The content can be any size and needs to allow the browser to be resized to any degree. Need the background color and border to contain the content. This works fine with tables. How do I get a div to work the same way?

Note: I added "_"s because my non-breaking spaces were getting lost.

Sample Page

Sample image

_{(source: c3o.com)}

Content:

<style type="text/css">
    div.box, table.box
    {
        padding: 10px 1000px 10px 10px;
    }

    div.box-header, td.box-header
    {
        border:  solid  1px  #BBBBBB ;
        font-size: larger;
        padding: 4px;
        background-color: #DDDDDD;
    }   

    div.box-body, td.box-body
    {
        padding: 6px;
        border:  solid  1px  #BBBBBB ;
        border-top: none;
    }
</style>


<div class="box">
    <div class="box-header">please_help_make_these_divs_stop_overlapping</div>
    <div class="box-body">please_help_make_these_divs_stop_overlapping</div>
</div>

<table class="box" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
    <tr><td class="box-header">tables_make_good_containers_tables_make_good</td></tr>
    <tr><td class="box-body">tables_make_good_containers_tables_make_good</td></tr>
</table>

Answer 1

There is no easy way to do this that is crossbrowser friendly that I know of.

At least in firefox you can create an simulated table by setting divs with

display:table;
display:table-row;
display:table-cell;

So that those divs work like table elements. Then the box will contain it's content. Wether that's a good solution or not is debateable.

I've been having similar issues with page layouts myself. Usually I've solved those by setting min-width and overflow:auto;

Answer 2

If you really don't want to use a table you can do this:

div.box div {
  overflow: hidden;
  zoom: 1; /* trigger haslayout for ie */
}

Next time this kind of problem comes up go to giveupandusetables.com.

Answer 3

One way is to make your boxes floats. Add float:left; to box, box-header, and box-body. Add clear:both; to box-body to force it below box-header. You'll probably need to add clear property to whatever content follows as well.

You will not get right edges of box-header and box-body to align, though. If you want their widths to be the same, you really want a table. Table is a tool to make all cells in the same column to share the widths.

For other ideas, check out this SO question.

Answer 4

Firstly, you should be using semantic markup. If something is a header and content mark it up as such with header and paragraph tags. That will help you move out of the 'table-way' of thinking were you try to emulate your markup and styles like a table, markup should come first, CSS can come after.

The following should do what you want:

<style type="text/css">
    * {
    margin:0px;
    padding:0px;
    }
.box {
border: solid 1px #BBBBBB;
margin:10px;
}
.box h3 {
padding: 4px;
border-bottom: solid 1px #BBBBBB;
background-color: #DDDDDD;
}
.box p {
padding: 6px;
}
</style>

<div class='box'>
    <h3>please help make these divs stop overlapping</h3>
    <p>please help make these divs stop overlapping</p>
</div>

Thinking about markup and style separately is the path to CSS Zen Mastery :o)

Answer 5

This works (actually holds together better than tables in ie7 too)

div.box{
  float:left;
  width:auto;
  margin: 10px 1000px 10px 10px;
}

div.box-header{
  float:left;
  width:100%;
  border:  solid  1px  #BBBBBB ;
  font-size: larger;
  padding: 4px; 
  background-color: #DDDDDD;
}

div.box-body{
  clear:left;
  float:left;
  width:100%; 
  padding: 4px; 
  border:  solid  1px  #BBBBBB ; 
  border-top: none;
}   

NOTE: both boxes have to have same left and right padding or one juts out a bit.

Answer 6

Floats are not needed, but you seem to be confusing the uses of margin vs. padding. The following minor tweaks to your style works as you need it to:

<style type="text/css">
    div.box, table.box
    {
        margin: 10px 1000px 10px 10px;
        border:  solid  1px  #BBBBBB ;
       padding: 0px;
    }

    div.box-header, td.box-header
    {

        font-size: larger;
        padding: 4px;
        background-color: #DDDDDD;
    border-bottom:  solid  1px  #BBBBBB ;

    }   

    .box-body, td.box-body
    {
        padding: 6px;
    }
</style>

I've changed the padding on the box to a margin, moved the border to your box, and added an underline to the header.

Answer 7

I had this problem also using Firefox 6.0.1, Opera 10.62, Safari 5.1, but not in IE 9, and the overflow:auto fixed it in all browsers. Nothing else did. I also tried overflow:contain, which also fixed the problem, but it appears that contain is not a valid value for overflow, so I am assuming that, since the value was not valid, auto was substituted.