I am using dreamweaver to code my html website and i’ve been stuck on this problem for quite some time. It is probably (hopefully) an easy fix. I am using ap divs for my layout and have them all set to absolute position with a left at 50% and a -500px margin-left. This makes the content of the website centered even when expanding and shrinking window.
The confusing part is i want to create a boundary on the left side of the main apDiv. This boundary would stop the window from pushing the content out of the viewing area when resizing from corner dragging.
Using position absolute is generally not a good idea like that, its better to make a wrapper div and place everything inside that. Then u apply the width u want your website to be on the wrapper div, which in your case would be 1000px i believe. Then u can just apply margin: 0 auto; on that div to center it, and thus everything inside of it
Html would look somewhat like this:
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<!--Rest of your website-->
</div>
</body>
With this applied on the wrapper
#wrapper {
width: 1000px;
margin: 0 auto;
}
That way it shouldn’t go off the left of the screen either, because its not using position absolute.
That’s what the fixed width and margin:0 auto; do already, no need to put a text-align:center; on the parent as it will only center text and inline elements.
Actually text-align:center on a parent is an old hack for IE5 as IE5 doesn’t understand margin:auto but it will center nested block elements. IE6 + understand margin:auto so the hack isn’t needed these days as IE5 is long gone.
Not many people realise but IE6 and IE7 will also center nested block elements (that have a width) when the parent has text-align:center applied and wonder what has happened.
Normally my response to this is “Well there’s your problem” – and it’s true since it probably means a lack of semantic markup, separation of presentation from content, and on the whole two or three times as much markup as necessary… (as a dearly departed friend often said, “the only thing you can learn from Dreamweaver is how not to build a website”) but that’s secondary to:
Well there’s your problem. As everyone else is saying in this thread, that’s really not a good way to build a layout, particularly to center a content area.
But if you’re using that technique for centering, the rest of your codebase may be in question. (really weird you’d even learn APO before margin:auto) – and without us seeing the code for the page in question or even better, what you have so far rendering, anything we tell you is probably a wild guess.
