Hi,
I have a very long dynamically generated bulleted list and I'd like to
make it display in columns rather than down the left and side of the
page. I know columns aren't available till CSS 3 but I was wondering
if there's some current cross browser trick or hack that might work
for me?
Cheers
Ciar=E1n
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:17:43 GMT
Ciaran scribed:
> Hi,
> I have a very long dynamically generated bulleted list and I'd like to
> make it display in columns rather than down the left and side of the
> page. I know columns aren't available till CSS 3 but I was wondering
> if there's some current cross browser trick or hack that might work
> for me?
I'd like my money to be in large gold coins rather than paper, and more
numerously extant. Got any tricks for that?
--
Bone Ur
Cavemen have formidable pheromones.
In article
<1194092263.454782.316970@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com>,
Ciaran
> Hi,
> I have a very long dynamically generated bulleted list and I'd like to
> make it display in columns rather than down the left and side of the
> page. I know columns aren't available till CSS 3 but I was wondering
> if there's some current cross browser trick or hack that might work
> for me?
>
> Cheers
> Ciarán
If you are asking whether you can make stuff from the bottom of
one col wrap to the to the top of the next col on the right,
forget about it, there is more support for a hen tooth supply
shop.
How long is the list likely to be at its longest? What is the
practical reality here?
--
dorayme
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Ciaran
writing in news:1194092263.454782.316970@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com:
> Hi,
> I have a very long dynamically generated bulleted list and I'd like to
> make it display in columns rather than down the left and side of the
> page. I know columns aren't available till CSS 3 but I was wondering
> if there's some current cross browser trick or hack that might work
> for me?
>
> Cheers
> Ciarán
>
Server side - get the total items and divide by two. Then loop through and
when you reach that amount, end the list and start another. Float the ul
element.
--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share
In article
Adrienne Boswell
> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Ciaran
> writing in news:1194092263.454782.316970@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Hi,
> > I have a very long dynamically generated bulleted list and I'd like to
> > make it display in columns rather than down the left and side of the
> > page. I know columns aren't available till CSS 3 but I was wondering
> > if there's some current cross browser trick or hack that might work
> > for me?
> >
> > Cheers
> > Ciarán
> >
>
> Server side - get the total items and divide by two. Then loop through and
> when you reach that amount, end the list and start another. Float the ul
> element.
When you reach what amount?
--
dorayme
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme
news:doraymeRidThis-079A31.10290604112007@news-vip.optusnet. com.au:
> In article
> Adrienne Boswell
>
>> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Ciaran
>> writing in
>> news:1194092263.454782.316970@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> > Hi,
>> > I have a very long dynamically generated bulleted list and I'd like
>> > to make it display in columns rather than down the left and side of
>> > the page. I know columns aren't available till CSS 3 but I was
>> > wondering if there's some current cross browser trick or hack that
>> > might work for me?
>> >
>> > Cheers
>> > Ciarán
>> >
>>
>> Server side - get the total items and divide by two. Then loop
>> through and when you reach that amount, end the list and start
>> another. Float the ul element.
>
> When you reach what amount?
>
For example, say there are 20 items in a table. Run the query, get the
recordset, and the count of items in the recordset. Put the recordset
into an array. Close the record set.
total_items = 20
breaknow = total_items/2
loop though the array until you reach breaknow then end the list and
start another. If the total is not an even number, then the last list
will have one extra item.
--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share
In article
Adrienne Boswell
> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme
>
> news:doraymeRidThis-079A31.10290604112007@news-vip.optusnet. com.au:
>
> > In article
> > Adrienne Boswell
> >
> >> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Ciaran
> >> writing in
> >> news:1194092263.454782.316970@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com:
> >>
> >> > Hi,
> >> > I have a very long dynamically generated bulleted list and I'd like
> >> > to make it display in columns rather than down the left and side of
> >> > the page. I know columns aren't available till CSS 3 but I was
> >> > wondering if there's some current cross browser trick or hack that
> >> > might work for me?
> >> >
> >> > Cheers
> >> > Ciarán
> >> >
> >>
> >> Server side - get the total items and divide by two. Then loop
> >> through and when you reach that amount, end the list and start
> >> another. Float the ul element.
> >
> > When you reach what amount?
> >
>
> For example, say there are 20 items in a table. Run the query, get the
> recordset, and the count of items in the recordset. Put the recordset
> into an array. Close the record set.
>
> total_items = 20
> breaknow = total_items/2
>
> loop though the array until you reach breaknow then end the list and
> start another. If the total is not an even number, then the last list
> will have one extra item.
Suppose there 400 items. Are you proposing a script that is alive
to the browsers window size or just to split lists into groups of
10?
--
dorayme
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme
33C789.10473604112007@news-vip.optusnet.com.au:
> In article
> Adrienne Boswell
>
>> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme
>>
>> news:doraymeRidThis-079A31.10290604112007@news-vip.optusnet. com.au:
>>
>> > In article
>> > Adrienne Boswell
>> >
>> >> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Ciaran
>> >> writing in
>> >> news:1194092263.454782.316970@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com:
>> >>
>> >> > Hi,
>> >> > I have a very long dynamically generated bulleted list and I'd
like
>> >> > to make it display in columns rather than down the left and side
of
>> >> > the page. I know columns aren't available till CSS 3 but I was
>> >> > wondering if there's some current cross browser trick or hack
that
>> >> > might work for me?
>> >> >
>> >> > Cheers
>> >> > Ciarán
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> Server side - get the total items and divide by two. Then loop
>> >> through and when you reach that amount, end the list and start
>> >> another. Float the ul element.
>> >
>> > When you reach what amount?
>> >
>>
>> For example, say there are 20 items in a table. Run the query, get
the
>> recordset, and the count of items in the recordset. Put the
recordset
>> into an array. Close the record set.
>>
>> total_items = 20
>> breaknow = total_items/2
>>
>> loop though the array until you reach breaknow then end the list and
>> start another. If the total is not an even number, then the last
list
>> will have one extra item.
>
> Suppose there 400 items. Are you proposing a script that is alive
> to the browsers window size or just to split lists into groups of
> 10?
>
Personally, I would never put 400 items on a single page (even looping
through an array, and certainly not an open recordset), that's what
paging and good database design are about. The above is only an example
to show what _could_ be done with a dynamically generated list. If you
wanted, you could change the divisor based on the total records, eg. <20
=1, >20 and <60 = 2, >60 and <81 = 3, etc.
--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share
In article
Adrienne Boswell
> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme
> >>
> >> loop though the array until you reach breaknow then end the list and
> >> start another. If the total is not an even number, then the last
> list
> >> will have one extra item.
> >
> > Suppose there 400 items. Are you proposing a script that is alive
> > to the browsers window size or just to split lists into groups of
> > 10?
> >
>
> Personally, I would never put 400 items on a single page (even looping
> through an array, and certainly not an open recordset), that's what
> paging and good database design are about.
I have a web page of all the postcodes in Australia. The html
page has more than 17000 lines. I find it very convenient on one
page! For one thing, one does not even need a menu. Searching the
page is dead simple (command F and type first letters of town), I
love it for its artlessness
fixed might also be nice to get to the different states but
anyway... I mention not as a pure aside. If you accept that
sometimes it is convenient to have a lot of stuff on a page,
there is the question of a fluid design that will get as much of
it as will fit on the screen and be convenient to read.
Correct me if I am wrong, your suggestion is to grab the items in
the list and divide them up into fixed-beforehand numbers of
items per ul. And float the ul's. Indeed, this would be fluid and
convenient if the lists were roughly the same length (the number
of items in a list cannot guarantee this, and I don't think
server side is good at semantics. I suppose there could be a
check on list size length built in and so on).
I was interested in this, Adrienne, because I did (but by hand) a
slightly similar thing for a page a while back which was broken
into blocks that floated and was not too bad in using up the
available space, there would be "wrapping" according to view port
width. I carefully arranged the floats based on length so they
would not snag in an ugly way when wrapped (by having the lists
go in size order, smallest first.
--
dorayme
dorayme wrote:
> In article
> Adrienne Boswell
>
>> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Ciaran
>> writing in news:1194092263.454782.316970@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>> I have a very long dynamically generated bulleted list and I'd like to
>>> make it display in columns rather than down the left and side of the
>>> page. I know columns aren't available till CSS 3 but I was wondering
>>> if there's some current cross browser trick or hack that might work
>>> for me?
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Ciarán
>>>
>> Server side - get the total items and divide by two. Then loop through and
>> when you reach that amount, end the list and start another. Float the ul
>> element.
>
> When you reach what amount?
>
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!
--
Take care,
Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:53:32
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.
--
Bone Ur
Cavemen have formidable pheromones.
Bone Ur wrote:
> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:53:32
> 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...
--
Take care,
Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme
6CD4C8.13460304112007@news-vip.optusnet.com.au:
> In article
> Adrienne Boswell
>
>> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme
>> >>
>> >> loop though the array until you reach breaknow then end the list
and
>> >> start another. If the total is not an even number, then the last
>> list
>> >> will have one extra item.
>> >
>> > Suppose there 400 items. Are you proposing a script that is alive
>> > to the browsers window size or just to split lists into groups of
>> > 10?
>> >
>>
>> Personally, I would never put 400 items on a single page (even
looping
>> through an array, and certainly not an open recordset), that's what
>> paging and good database design are about.
>
> I have a web page of all the postcodes in Australia. The html
> page has more than 17000 lines. I find it very convenient on one
> page! For one thing, one does not even need a menu. Searching the
> page is dead simple (command F and type first letters of town), I
> love it for its artlessness
> fixed might also be nice to get to the different states but
> anyway... I mention not as a pure aside. If you accept that
> sometimes it is convenient to have a lot of stuff on a page,
> there is the question of a fluid design that will get as much of
> it as will fit on the screen and be convenient to read.
I agree that Ctrl-F or Command F is very simple, but I wonder how many
people really know to use that, or if they would think to do that. I
do, and I love Opera's find in page widget (I use it for Google's cache
all the time).
For example:
SELECT vendor_name, address, city_name, state_abbr, zipcode, phone, fax,
email, product_name, description, category, classification
FROM vendors v, categories c, classicifications cl, products p
WHERE v.id = p.vendor_id
AND p.category_id = c.id
AND p.classification_id = cl.id
AND city_name = 'Los Angeles'
ORDER BY product_name
A query like this could result in thousands of records, a very large
record set. Of course, I put it into an array and close the record set
right away. Still, that's a lot a looping. If you have to loop through
an open recordset, it's even worse.
>
> Correct me if I am wrong, your suggestion is to grab the items in
> the list and divide them up into fixed-beforehand numbers of
> items per ul. And float the ul's. Indeed, this would be fluid and
> convenient if the lists were roughly the same length (the number
> of items in a list cannot guarantee this, and I don't think
> server side is good at semantics. I suppose there could be a
> check on list size length built in and so on).
Yes, because when putting something like this into an array, you can
find out the number of items in the array. I would prefer to do that
than open one recordset to get a count, and another to get the records.
>
> I was interested in this, Adrienne, because I did (but by hand) a
> slightly similar thing for a page a while back which was broken
> into blocks that floated and was not too bad in using up the
> available space, there would be "wrapping" according to view port
> width. I carefully arranged the floats based on length so they
> would not snag in an ugly way when wrapped (by having the lists
> go in size order, smallest first.
>
Much easier to do it server side. Find out the total, and divide
accordingly. I do most of my developing in ASP, and I'm tired tonight,
otherwise, I'd give you a little sample.
--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Jonathan N. Little"
news:fab3$472d410a$40cba7c4$8201@NAXS.COM:
> Bone Ur wrote:
>> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sun, 04 Nov 2007
>> 02:53:32 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...
>
Getting the height is simple, for example, let's say you have a maximum
of 30 items in your record set. I do most of my development in ASP, so
here it is in ASP.
set rs = createobject("ADODB.Recordset")
rs.Open sql, oconn
if not rs.EOF then
rsarr = rs.getrows()
end if
rs.Close
set rs = nothing 'destroy the recordset
connection.close
set connection = nothing 'destroy the connection to the db
breakrow = ubound(rsarr,2)/2
for i = 0 to breakrow
%>
<%
next
%>
<% for i = breakrow+1 to ubound(rsarr,2)%>
<%
next
%>
--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share
Adrienne Boswell wrote:
> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Jonathan N. Little"
>
> news:fab3$472d410a$40cba7c4$8201@NAXS.COM:
>
>> Bone Ur wrote:
>>> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sun, 04 Nov 2007
>>> 02:53:32 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...
>>
>
> Getting the height is simple, for example, let's say you have a maximum
> of 30 items in your record set. I do most of my development in ASP, so
> here it is in ASP.
>
> set rs = createobject("ADODB.Recordset")
> rs.Open sql, oconn
>
> if not rs.EOF then
> rsarr = rs.getrows()
> end if
> rs.Close
> set rs = nothing 'destroy the recordset
> connection.close
> set connection = nothing 'destroy the connection to the db
>
>
> breakrow = ubound(rsarr,2)/2
>
> for i = 0 to breakrow
> %>
>
> <%
> next
> %>
>
>
> <% for i = breakrow+1 to ubound(rsarr,2)%>
>
> <%
> next
> %>
>
>
>
>
Not sure where in there you get the height of the available space in
order to break the recordset into columns....
And if the user resizes his browser window after the page renders?
--
Take care,
Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com
Hi all, thanks for the replies on this. The way I've done it in the
past is to group the elements into smaller categorised lists and float
them left. As Dorayme mentioned earlier, I would arrange the lists
shortest to longest to avoid ugly wrapping problems. The problem is,
this technique only works when the order of the lists is not
important.
Another method I've used is Adrienne's solution of getting the total
items and divide them up based on the space available. The problem is,
it's messy to code and doesn't really cater for various screen
resolutions.
In my current case, I'd like to keep the lists in the original order
where possible. I know there's no quick solution but I do this sort of
stuff so often, I would be great to find any answer to the problem!
I may as well give you the url I'm working on - It's a bit of a mess
at the moment as I have the lists floated left and the containers they
are in are shrinking to default height.
http://www.scouttalk.ie/0pages/libraryindex.php
Cheers
Ciar=E1n
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.
Bone Ur wrote:
> 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.
>
You might be right. Hard to say now. Sometimes the OP's "root" questions
is hard to decipher.
If it is just floating blocks, then work out a value for the width in
ems of the UL to accommodate the longest LI entry, if you do not want
line wrapping, and float with margins to taste! Easy...no scripting at
all required.
--
Take care,
Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com
Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:32:29
GMT Jonathan N. Little scribed:
>> 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.
>>
>
> You might be right. Hard to say now. Sometimes the OP's "root"
> questions is hard to decipher.
>
> If it is just floating blocks, then work out a value for the width in
> ems of the UL to accommodate the longest LI entry, if you do not want
> line wrapping, and float with margins to taste! Easy...no scripting at
> all required.
Arghh!! Yeah, I meant "...it is possible withOUT j/s..."
Floating blocks would probably suffices (again, according to the text of
the orig. post.)
--
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.
In article
<1194183406.413725.111200@z9g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
Ciaran
> Hi all, thanks for the replies on this. The way I've done it in the
> past is to group the elements into smaller categorised lists and float
> them left. As Dorayme mentioned earlier, I would arrange the lists
> shortest to longest to avoid ugly wrapping problems. The problem is,
> this technique only works when the order of the lists is not
> important.
>
> Another method I've used is Adrienne's solution of getting the total
> items and divide them up based on the space available. The problem is,
> it's messy to code and doesn't really cater for various screen
> resolutions.
>
> In my current case, I'd like to keep the lists in the original order
> where possible. I know there's no quick solution but I do this sort of
> stuff so often, I would be great to find any answer to the problem!
>
> I may as well give you the url I'm working on - It's a bit of a mess
> at the moment as I have the lists floated left and the containers they
> are in are shrinking to default height.
>
> http://www.scouttalk.ie/0pages/libraryindex.php
> Cheers
> Ciarán
You will have read all the suggestions, you will appreciate the
messing about you could go to to get 'close to' your original
goal. But frankly, consider seriously not bothering and saving
yourself a lot of work and a lot of problems. Just have your
lists in one columns that needs to be 'linked into' or 'scrolled
through' or 'keyboard paged downed to'. In another column, you
can have other useful things, *especially* a menu that will be
visible when the page opens to link to the various lists you have
below under the headings: Song books, Ghost, Games etc.
Instead of battering away at a fixed idea of a layout and trying
to solve all the problems with that, question the idea itself and
think of things on the whole. In this case, consider seriously
the above suggestion and avoid yourself the headaches. I believe
your viewers would be advantaged on the whole too.
--
dorayme
On Nov 4, 5:32 pm, "Jonathan N. Little"
> Bone Ur wrote:
> > Hehe, I had to go back and re-read the original post because I forgot t=
he
> > 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.
>
Ideally, real working columns are what I want but any comprimise that
works is of interest.
> You might be right. Hard to say now. Sometimes the OP's "root" questions
> is hard to decipher.
>
> If it is just floating blocks, then work out a value for the width in
> ems of the UL to accommodate the longest LI entry, if you do not want
> line wrapping, and float with margins to taste! Easy...no scripting at
> all required.
I'm intrigued Jonathan, where to the margins come into it? Can you
give me a quick idea of the css? It sounds like it might work well.
Ciar=E1n
In article
<1194225321.382123.33410@o38g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
Ciaran
> Ideally, real working columns are what I want but any comprimise that
> works is of interest.
Which you have ever really properly explained. What are all the
characteristics of "real working columns" in plain English even
if you do not know how to achieve them on a webpage?
--
dorayme
On Nov 5, 1:53 am, dorayme
> In article
> <1194225321.382123.33...@o38g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Ciaran
> > Ideally, real working columns are what I want but any comprimise that
> > works is of interest.
>
> Which you have ever really properly explained. What are all the
> characteristics of "real working columns" in plain English even
> if you do not know how to achieve them on a webpage?
Well as I said, any solution that breaks the information into columns
so it can be displayed across the page as well as just down the page
would be good.
I know this is not really a solution until CSS3 but ideally, the text
is displayed in one long list and when it hits the bottom of the page,
it continues at the top in the next column.
Last resort is a redesign with a linked anchor menu
Cheers,
Ciar=E1n
"Ciaran"
news:1194228373.934654.162380@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com.. .
> Well as I said, any solution that breaks the information into columns
> so it can be displayed across the page as well as just down the page
> would be good.
Causing much scrolling up and down?
> I know this is not really a solution until CSS3 but ideally, the text
> is displayed in one long list and when it hits the bottom of the page,
Please define "page". What is a web "page"? How long does it have to be
before we have reached the "bottom" and a new column is required?
> it continues at the top in the next column.
Causing me to scroll all the way back to the top of the "page"?
--
Richard.
In article
<1194228373.934654.162380@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
Ciaran
> On Nov 5, 1:53 am, dorayme
> > In article
> > <1194225321.382123.33...@o38g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
> >
> > Ciaran
> > > Ideally, real working columns are what I want but any comprimise that
> > > works is of interest.
> >
> > Which you have ever really properly explained. What are all the
> > characteristics of "real working columns" in plain English even
> > if you do not know how to achieve them on a webpage?
>
> Well as I said, any solution that breaks the information into columns
> so it can be displayed across the page as well as just down the page
> would be good.
You see, this is either really easy or very hard depending on
quite what you want and quite how many downsides you are prepared
to buy. If you want very clever and are prepared to go to a lot
of trouble (unless you are already skilful in server side
programming?), study what Adrienne has said about server side.
You still will have to sort out a lot of requirements. If your
lists are in a sort of order, and are of different lengths this
adds to the complexity.
Consider again the advice I gave you before which does not mean
you should no have columns but rather that you should use the
columns for other purposes than to distribute the lists, you
could include a navigation list in another column. You can give
other information in yet another. I would bet quids on this being
the least trouble for both you and your page customers. There is
nothing they could not understand this way.
I feel I am nagging you now. Good luck anyway.
--
dorayme
On Nov 5, 4:03 am, dorayme
> In article
> <1194228373.934654.162...@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
>
>
>
> Ciaran
> > On Nov 5, 1:53 am, dorayme
> > > In article
> > > <1194225321.382123.33...@o38g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
>
> > > Ciaran
> > > > Ideally, real working columns are what I want but any comprimise th=
at
> > > > works is of interest.
>
> > > Which you have ever really properly explained. What are all the
> > > characteristics of "real working columns" in plain English even
> > > if you do not know how to achieve them on a webpage?
>
> > Well as I said, any solution that breaks the information into columns
> > so it can be displayed across the page as well as just down the page
> > would be good.
>
> You see, this is either really easy or very hard depending on
> quite what you want and quite how many downsides you are prepared
> to buy. If you want very clever and are prepared to go to a lot
> of trouble (unless you are already skilful in server side
> programming?), study what Adrienne has said about server side.
> You still will have to sort out a lot of requirements. If your
> lists are in a sort of order, and are of different lengths this
> adds to the complexity.
>
> Consider again the advice I gave you before which does not mean
> you should no have columns but rather that you should use the
> columns for other purposes than to distribute the lists, you
> could include a navigation list in another column. You can give
> other information in yet another. I would bet quids on this being
> the least trouble for both you and your page customers. There is
> nothing they could not understand this way.
>
> I feel I am nagging you now. Good luck anyway.
>
> --
> dorayme
Ha ha ha not to worry - I'll think of something! Thanks for the
support!
Ciar=E1n
On Sun, 04 Nov 2007 07:37:26 GMT, Adrienne Boswell
wrote:
>I agree that Ctrl-F or Command F is very simple, but I wonder how many
>people really know to use that, or if they would think to do that.
That crossed my mind when I made a long intranet page at work, so I
added a statement "Use
save those unfamiliar with web browsing from tedious scrolling. When
it came time to add another page I was asked, by an experienced web
user, if I would be "programming in that search feature."
--
Charles
On 3 Nov, 12:17, Ciaran
> I have a very long dynamically generated bulleted list and I'd like to
> make it display in columns rather than down the left and side of the
> page.
Newspaper columns aren't supported, and they're difficult to implement
because of the need to move the break points around depending on
required column height vs. available column height. Your practical
solutions are to either pre-process this server-side, or to tweak it
dynamically client-side with somewhat ugly JavaScript.
If you're worried about print work, XSL:FO and something like Apache
FOP can do this pretty well.
Really though, don't use full-blown newspaper columns on the web.
We've got good vertical scrolling, it's better to keep this (long, but
only one axis) than it is to start requiring two-axis scrolling.
For a simple list that needs two or three short columns, just insert
explicit column breaks. Fluid layout to a level above this just isn't
necessary.