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.
You can apply this CSS to the inner <div>
:
#inner {
width: 50%;
margin: 0 auto;
}
Of course, you don't have to set the width
to 50%
. Any width less than the containing <div>
will work. The margin: 0 auto
is what does the actual centering.
If you are targeting Internet Explorer 8 (and later), it might be better to have this instead:
#inner {
display: table;
margin: 0 auto;
}
It will make the inner element center horizontally and it works without setting a specific width
.
Working example here:
#inner {
display: table;
margin: 0 auto;
border: 1px solid black;
}
#outer {
border: 1px solid red;
width:100%
}
<div id="outer">
<div id="inner">Foo foo</div>
</div>
EDIT
With flexbox
it is very easy to style the div horizontally and vertically centered.
#inner {
border: 1px solid black;
}
#outer {
border: 1px solid red;
width:100%;
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
}
<div id="outer">
<div id="inner">Foo foo</div>
</div>
To align the div vertically centered, use the property align-items: center
.
Best Answer
I think you should use
border-color
instead ofcolor
, if your intention is to change the color of the line produced by<hr>
tag.Although, it has been pointed in comments that, if you change the size of your line, border will still be as wide as you specified in styles, and line will be filled with the default color (which is not a desired effect most of the time). So it seems like in this case you would also need to specify
background-color
(as @Ibu suggested in his answer).HTML 5 Boilerplate project in its default stylesheet specifies the following rule:
An article titled “12 Little-Known CSS Facts”, published recently by SitePoint, mentions that
<hr>
can set itsborder-color
to its parent'scolor
if you specifyhr { border-color: inherit }
.