2015 update: the flexbox approach
There are two other answers briefly mentioning flexbox; however, that was more than two years ago, and they don't provide any examples. The specification for flexbox has definitely settled now.
Note: Though CSS Flexible Boxes Layout specification is at the Candidate Recommendation stage, not all browsers have implemented it. WebKit implementation must be prefixed with -webkit-; Internet Explorer implements an old version of the spec, prefixed with -ms-; Opera 12.10 implements the latest version of the spec, unprefixed. See the compatibility table on each property for an up-to-date compatibility status.
(taken from https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes)
All major browsers and IE11+ support Flexbox. For IE 10 or older, you can use the FlexieJS shim.
To check current support you can also see here:
http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox
Working example
With flexbox you can easily switch between any of your rows or columns either having fixed dimensions, content-sized dimensions or remaining-space dimensions. In my example I have set the header to snap to its content (as per the OPs question), I've added a footer to show how to add a fixed-height region and then set the content area to fill up the remaining space.
html,
body {
height: 100%;
margin: 0;
}
.box {
display: flex;
flex-flow: column;
height: 100%;
}
.box .row {
border: 1px dotted grey;
}
.box .row.header {
flex: 0 1 auto;
/* The above is shorthand for:
flex-grow: 0,
flex-shrink: 1,
flex-basis: auto
*/
}
.box .row.content {
flex: 1 1 auto;
}
.box .row.footer {
flex: 0 1 40px;
}
<!-- Obviously, you could use HTML5 tags like `header`, `footer` and `section` -->
<div class="box">
<div class="row header">
<p><b>header</b>
<br />
<br />(sized to content)</p>
</div>
<div class="row content">
<p>
<b>content</b>
(fills remaining space)
</p>
</div>
<div class="row footer">
<p><b>footer</b> (fixed height)</p>
</div>
</div>
In the CSS above, the flex property shorthands the flex-grow, flex-shrink, and flex-basis properties to establish the flexibility of the flex items. Mozilla has a good introduction to the flexible boxes model.
Edit: This does not work cross domain unless the appropriate CORS header is set.
There are two different things here: the style of the iframe block and the style of the page embedded in the iframe. You can set the style of the iframe block the usual way:
<iframe name="iframe1" id="iframe1" src="empty.htm"
frameborder="0" border="0" cellspacing="0"
style="border-style: none;width: 100%; height: 120px;"></iframe>
The style of the page embedded in the iframe must be either set by including it in the child page:
<link type="text/css" rel="Stylesheet" href="Style/simple.css" />
Or it can be loaded from the parent page with Javascript:
var cssLink = document.createElement("link");
cssLink.href = "style.css";
cssLink.rel = "stylesheet";
cssLink.type = "text/css";
frames['iframe1'].document.head.appendChild(cssLink);
Best Answer
You need JavaScript. It is the same as doing it in the parent page, except you must prefix your JavaScript command with the name of the iframe.
Remember, the same origin policy applies, so you can only do this to an iframe element which is coming from your own server.
I use the Prototype framework to make it easier:
or