Absolute positioning for difficult layout

**Blake Tallos** · Feb 3, 2010 03:50

Code CSS:

 
 
 
body {
    font: 12px Arial, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Geneva, sans-serif;
    color: #393939;
    background:#fbfbfb;
}
ul {
    list-style: none;
}
.clearfix {
    clear: both;
}
 
p {
    padding: 3px 0 8px;
}
 
 
/*-- Header --*/
#header {
    background: url(../images/header_bg.png) repeat-x 0 bottom;
    height: 170px;
    width: 100&#37;;
}
 
#header #inner_header #twitter_bird {
    position: absolute;
    right: 83px;
    top: 20px;
    z-index: 5;
}
 
#header #inner_header {
    background: url(../images/header_starburst.png) no-repeat center;
    margin: 0 auto;
    padding: 50px 0 0;
    position: relative;
    width: 1000px;
}
 
#header #inner_header #nav {
    color: #000;
    margin:10px 0 0 65px;
 
}
#logo img {
    margin-left:70px;
}
#header #inner_header #nav li {
    background: url(../images/nav_li_bg.png) no-repeat;
    font: 12px Arial, "Helvetica Neue";
    float: left;
    height: 45px;
    margin: 0 5px 0;
    padding: 15px 0;
    text-align: right; }
#nav li a:hover {
    text-decoration:underline; }
 
#header #inner_header #nav li a {
    background: url(../images/nav_item_bg.png) no-repeat right;
    color: #4e4e4e;
    margin: 0 0 0 5px;
    padding: 17px 10px 17px 5px;
    text-decoration:none;
}
 
#header #inner_header #nav li a:hover {
    color: #000;
}
 
 
 
/*-- Container --*/
#container {
    background: #fff url(../images/container_bg.png) no-repeat;
    height: 570px;
    margin:-35px auto;
    position: relative;
    width: 860px;
    z-index: -1;
 
 
 
}
 
#container #inner_container {
    padding: 20px 10px;
}
 
.content {
    float: left;
    width: 520px; }
 
 
#sidebar {
    background: url(../images/sidebar_bg.png) repeat-y;
    float: right;
    margin: -20px 0 0;
    position: relative;
    width: 250px;
    height:448px;    
}
 
#sidebar #inner_sidebar {
    padding: 30px 10px 0;
}
 
#sidebar #sidebar_bottom {
    background: url(../images/sidebar_bottom.png) no-repeat;
    bottom: -45px;
    height: 45px;
    position: absolute;
    width: 250px;
 
}
#clearer {
    clear:both;
}
#footer {
    width:860px;
    height:204px;
    margin:-215px auto;
    background:url('../images/footer.png');
 
}

Code HTML4Strict:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
    <title>Twitter Explode</title>
 
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
    <meta name="Author" content="" />
    <meta name="Copyright" content="" />
    <meta name="Description" content="" />
    <meta name="Distribution" content="Global" />
    <meta name="Keywords" content="" />
    <meta name="Robots" content="index, follow" />
 
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="./css/main.css" type="text/css" media="screen" charset="utf-8"/>
 
</head>
<body>
 
<div id="header">
    <div id="inner_header">
 
        <img src="./images/twitter_bird.png" alt="Twitter Bird" id="twitter_bird" />
 
        <div id="logo"><img src="./images/logo.png?1" alt="" /></div>
 
        <ul id="nav">
            <li><a href="#" class="current">Example</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Example</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Example</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Example</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Example</a></li>
        </ul>
 
    </div><!-- /inner_header -->
</div><!-- /header -->
 
<div class="clearfix"><!-- --></div>
 
<div id="container">
    <div id="inner_container">
 
        <div class="content">
 
            <h3>Example Heading</h3>
            <p>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.<a href="#">Example</a></p>
 
            <h3>Example Heading</h3>
            <p>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.<a href="#">Example</a></p>
 
 
        </div>
 
 
        <div id="sidebar">
            <div id="inner_sidebar">
 
 
            </div>            
            <div id="sidebar_bottom"><!-- --></div>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
<div id="clearer"></div>
<div id="footer">
<p>testing</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Ok, I took the easy way out. Usually, I use float's for my layout, but im trying to learn absolute positioning. I got a problem how do I get my links in the content to behave regulary? It seems that they have lost there full control of behaving like a regular link? What I do wrong?

**Luki_be** · Feb 3, 2010 04:47

I'm in a hurry but it seems that the z-index on #container is the culprit.

**Luki_be** · Feb 3, 2010 05:41

Forgot to mention: using negative values is not reliable. Change it to z-index:1 and the links will behave.

**RyanReese** · Feb 3, 2010 09:52

Blake, you told me on facebok the link was
twitterexplode.com

Which redirected me like 6 times to this page
http://www.web2formula.com/free2/

Can we have a link?

**Blake Tallos** · Feb 3, 2010 10:22

Fixed

God, why do I even waste my time with absolute positioning? This CSS is garbageeeeeee. I can get every image to it's exact spot where I want it using floats/padding/margin.

I got mad and started over again. Absolute positioning is an embarrasment.

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