Provide one column with the necessary items, and supply the second column with all remaining resources

I am facing a challenge in designing a webpage layout with a left sidebar and the remaining content aligned to the right of it. Most examples I have come across use <div> tags with the display:table and display:table-cell properties where widths are specified in pixels for both the sidebar and the content area, or at least for the sidebar.

In my scenario, the contents within the sidebar are not predetermined. All I know is that they will not require much width (i.e., short lines and line-breaks ensure it does not expand extensively). Therefore, I do not wish to define a fixed width for the sidebar.

Is there a way to automatically adjust the sidebar <div> to fit the widest elements it contains, while allowing the content <div> to act as a column spanning from the right side of the sidebar to the edge of the page?

htmlcss

Answer №1

To ensure both areas have the same height and fill up the width, you can utilize display: table-cell in your CSS.

One interesting aspect of using tables for layout is that cells resize to fit content. By setting a very small width for the sidebar cell, it will shrink as much as possible while still adjusting to accommodate its contents. This behavior is consistent with CSS tables as well:

HTML:

<div class="container">
  <div class="column side">Sidebar content</div>
  <div class="column content">Main content</div>
</div>

CSS:

.container {
    display: table;
    width: 100%;
}
.column {
    display: table-cell;
    background-color: yellow;
    border: 1px solid blue;
}
.side {
    width: 1%;
}

Check out this JSFiddle example

Answer №2

If you prefer not to use table elements, utilizing the CSS float property is a good alternative.

HTML

<div class="wrapper">
  <div class="box sidebar">
    Sidebar Content<br/>
  </div>
  <div class="box main-content">
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
  </div>
</div>

CSS

.wrapper {
    width: 100%;
    position:absolute;
}
.box {
    background-color: green;
}
.sidebar {
    float: left;
    top:0;
    position:absolute;
    height:100%;
    border-right: 1px solid black;
}

Check out the updated fiddle http://jsfiddle.net/8s4e6c21/3/ While display: table-cell works fine, using floats for columns can lead to cleaner markup and better readability in my opinion.

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