Internet explorer and floats: please explain
- by cletus
Yesterday someone asked Width absorbing HTML elements. I presented two solutions: one table-based and one pure CSS. Now the pure CSS one works well in Firefox and Chrome but not in IE.
Basically the floats are being bumped down to the next line. It is my understanding (and the behaviour of FF and Chrome) that this should not be the case because the left divs are block level elements that floats should basically ignore.
Complete code example is below. Adding a DOCTYPE to force IE into standards compliant mode helps slightly but the problem remains.
So my question is: am I mistaken about my understanding of floats or is this IE's problem?
More importantly, how do I get this to work in IE? It's been bugging the hell out of me.
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
div div { height: 1.3em; }
#wrapper { width: 300px; overflow: hidden; }
div.text { float: right; white-space: nowrap; clear: both; background: white; padding-left: 12px; text-align: left; }
#row1, #row2, #row3, #row4, #row5, #row6 { width: 270px; margin-bottom: 4px; }
#row1 { background: red; }
#row2 { background: blue; }
#row3 { background: green; }
#row4 { background: yellow; }
#row5 { background: pink; }
#row6 { background: gray; }
</style>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
google.load("jquery", "1.3.2");
google.setOnLoadCallback(function() {
$(function() {
$("div.text").animate({ width: "90%" }, 2000);
});
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<div class="text">FOO</div><div id="row1"></div>
<div class="text">BAR</div><div id="row2"></div>
<div class="text">THESE PRETZELS ARE</div><div id="row3"></div>
<div class="text">MAKING ME THIRSTY</div><div id="row4"></div>
<div class="text">BLAH</div><div id="row5"></div>
<div class="text">BLAH</div><div id="row6"></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
