Footer ul margin bleeding into body... sometimes

Question

Ok. This is really weird and I have spent countless hours in vain searching for anything similar. I will add code, but you'll need visuals as well, so I'll include a couple of cropped images to show you what I mean.

My goal: Simple. Push my horizontal nav bar in my footer about 25px below the top edge of the footer. (Footer has a static background image) Code used: #footer ul {margin:25px} Result: No change.

HUH? So I played with it... tried several variations, but nothing worked. NOW, I did find a workaround... used padding instead of margin... but it bothered me that margin wouldn't work so I kept trying to figure out if I messed up my code somewhere.

I used float in the body, but I cancelled it out. Validations all came out ok. So I accidentally stumbled upon Firebug (never used it before... and still don't know how) but in my aimless clicking, I noticed something odd... when I clicked onto my footer ul, a box overlapping the footer and content was highlighted. So it appeared that my margin did exist, but instead of pushing my nav list down... it kept the nav list static, and expanded into the content.

HUH? So I did a little experiment. I created a bright border around the divs in my content and footer and ul to figure out exactly what was happening. (My content section has three divs: content (floating left); sidebar (floating right); and contentWrapper that contains both).

With the borders on, I noticed that my 'outerContent' div was collapsed. A mere 20% or so of the height of the area. So after some (lengthy) research, I came up with the overflow-auto fix. And although I still don't quite understand it, it worked. The contentWrapper expanded to meet the footer, and the footer ul moved to where I wanted to. So problem fixed, right? Well..... not exactly.

My previews did fine, so I went back in and deleted the borders so I can get on with the rest of the formatting. Only when I previewed again... the footer ul was right back where it started. At the very edge of the top of the footer.

I did the borders again... the divs seemed fine, except that the contentWrapper was now pushed slightly above the footer to allow for that margin. Now the REALLY weird thing is that when I put the border around my footer... the ul margin works. When I take it off... the ul goes back to where it was.

What the #$@%!? Although I know of the workaround (the padding) I am worried about compounding whatever mistake I have made and repeating constantly in the future (I have to build another website after this). If someone can figure out what I did to screw things up... it would be GREATLY appreciated.

#contentWrapper {
    overflow: auto;
    padding: 20px 10px;
}
#content {
    float: left;
    width: 660px;
}
#content h1 {
    padding: 0 0 20px;
}
#content h2 {
    padding: 20px 0 10px;
}
#content p {
    line-height: 160%;
    text-align: justify;
}
#content img {
    float: left;
    margin-right: 10px;
}
#content ul {
    line-height: 160%;
    list-style: disc outside url("../images/Bullet-artsy1.png");
    margin: 0 0 10px 325px;
    padding: 10px 0;
}
#content .info {
    margin: 5px 0 10px 250px;
}
#rightSide {
    float: right;
    line-height: 140%;
    padding: 0 10px;
    width: 220px;
}
#rightSide h2 {
    margin-top: 10px;
    padding-bottom: 10px;
}
#rightSide p {
    font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",Times,serif;
    font-size: 16px;
    text-align: justify;
}
#rightSide img {
    display: block;
    margin: 5px auto;
}
#footer {
    background-image: url("../images/TCS-Footer1b-plain-230px h.png");
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    clear: both;
    height: 230px;
}
#footer ul {
    list-style: none outside none;
    margin: 25px;
    text-align: center;
}
#footer ul li {
    display: inline;
    margin: 30px 0;
}
#footer ul li a {
    color: #E8FAFF;
    padding: 30px;
}
#footer p {
    color: #E8FAFF;
    text-align: center;
}
#footer img {
    bottom: -60px;
    position: relative;
    right: -900px;
}

The site is not active, but I've uploaded a word doc with images showing what I am talking about. This is the link to Temp Share: http://temp-share.com/show/dPf3UCobW

Thanks in advance to everyone who can perhaps show me where I went wrong.

Answer 1

First, to prevent your margin from disappearing, either change the margin on the #footer ul element to padding, or add one px of padding to the #footer element.

In this fiddle, we've set the padding on the #footer to 1px and reduced the height by 2px to compensate.

FIDDLE

#footer ul {
    list-style: none outside none;
    padding: 40px;
    text-align: center;
}

or

#footer {
    background-color: #DDDDDD;
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    clear: both;
    color: #808080;
    font-size: 12px;
    height: 228px;
    padding: 1px;
}

looking at the css, your padding settings on the <a> tags won't work the way you expect, since by default they are aren't block elements. Add this to the css to have them padded correctly:

#footer ul li a { 
    display: inline-block;
 }

likewise, your ul li should be inline-block.

so ...

#footer ul li {
    display: inline-block;
    margin: 30px 0;
}
#footer ul li a {
    display: inline-block;
    color: #E8FAFF;
    padding: 30px;
}

Basically, just be aware that when top and bottom margins touch, including those of parent and child elements, the largest margin is used, but the margin is pushed outside the outermost element.

Answer 2

I tested it using firebug and working fine. If you have problem you can add !important at the end as this

#footer > ul {
    margin: 13px !important;
}

And even what you would like to do is to get some margin before and or after the ul. For this you could set margin and/or padding value to your #footer.

Hope this help!

Answer 3

This is for future reference. I simply wanted to add the following link to compliment Dom Day's above. I am still having difficulty conceptualizing the event but between the two links, it will help me research it until I find the equivalent to an 'adjoining/collapsing margins-for-dummies' site. www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/box.html - Details near the bottom of the web page.