Html – How to get Floating DIVs inside fixed-width DIV to continue horizontally

csscss-floathtml

I have a container DIV with a fixed height and width (275x1000px). In this DIV I want to put multiple floating DIVs each with a width of 300px, and have a horizontal (x-axis) scrollbar appear to allow the user to scroll left and right to view everything.

This is my CSS so far:

div#container {
    height: 275px;
    width: 1000px;
    overflow-x: auto;
    overflow-y: hidden;
    max-height: 275px;
}

div#container div.block {
    float: left;
    margin: 3px 90px 0 3px;
}

The problem is that the floating DIVs will not continue past the width of the container. After putting three of the floating DIV's they will continue on beneath. If I change overflow-y to auto, then the vertical scrollbar appears and I can scroll down.

How can I change this to make the floating DIVs continue on without going beneath each other?

Best Answer

div#container {
    height: 275px;
    width: 1000px;
    overflow: auto;
    white-space: nowrap;
}

div#container span.block {
    width: 300px;
    display: inline-block;
}

The trick here is only elements that behave as inline by default will behave properly when set to inline-block in Internet Explorer, so the inner containers need to be <span> instead of <div>.

Related Solutions

Html – CSS div element – how to show horizontal scroll bars only

You shouldn't get both horizontal and vertical scrollbars unless you make the content large enough to require them.

However you typically do in IE due to a bug. Check in other browsers (Firefox etc.) to find out whether it is in fact only IE that is doing it.

IE6-7 (amongst other browsers) supports the proposed CSS3 extension to set scrollbars independently, which you could use to suppress the vertical scrollbar:

overflow: auto;
overflow-y: hidden;

You may also need to add for IE8:

-ms-overflow-y: hidden;

as Microsoft are threatening to move all pre-CR-standard properties into their own ‘-ms’ box in IE8 Standards Mode. (This would have made sense if they'd always done it that way, but is rather an inconvenience for everyone now.)

On the other hand it's entirely possible IE8 will have fixed the bug anyway.

Html – Prevent wrapping of span or div

Try this:

.slideContainer {
    overflow-x: scroll;
    white-space: nowrap;
}
.slide {
    display: inline-block;
    width: 600px;
    white-space: normal;
}

<div class="slideContainer">
    <span class="slide">Some content</span>
    <span class="slide">More content. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</span>
    <span class="slide">Even more content!</span>
</div>

Note that you can omit .slideContainer { overflow-x: scroll; } (which browsers may or may not support when you read this), and you'll get a scrollbar on the window instead of on this container.

The key here is display: inline-block. This has decent cross-browser support nowadays, but as usual, it's worth testing in all target browsers to be sure.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Html – CSS div element – how to show horizontal scroll bars only

Html – Prevent wrapping of span or div

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