Okay, I have a couple of other questions out there, but I think I'd better just ask from the beginning how you CSS experts would do this.

Client's page is split into 2 rows -- header has some info, some aligned to left of page, some to right, some in the middle. This is currently done using a table. I'm fine with leaving this alone or changing it.

My real question is that I need a page layout to handle the following:

2 columns - column on left is 200px, but can be "close" down to to 10px (not a slider, it's either 200 or 10 px). The column on the right needs to be as big as it needs to be -- which might be larger than the width of the page. When left column is "closed" then the right column slides over of course. Again, this right column might be 300px or it might be 4000 pixels (it's a reporting interface).

Now, to add another wrinkle, SOME pages have 3 columns. The first 2 columns are each exactly 200px, and both can be "closed" down to 10 px each. But, the user may not close both columns, maybe just 1. Or none. Or both. The third column needs to act just like I described above, being able to be larger than the page width, and sliding over to take advantage of any of the "closed" left columns.

Whew! I'm pretty confused as to how to go about this, as either I get it right but I can't scroll over to the right at all (overflow: hidden) and information is lost, or the right column jumps down below the left 2 columns and just looks plain stupid.

My minimum browser requirements are IE8, FF3.5, Chrome and Safari (latest versions of all).

Any and all pointers are gladly accepted.