Member Avatar for CassieJ

Hi, I'm hoping someone can either tell me I am missing something simple or direct me to a good resource center. I have just transitioned to Dreamweaver CS3 and am having major issues with layouts.

I don't want to use pre-made layouts and I've made a layout with Div's but I'm having placement issues.

I have 4 divs within a container, the first being a left sidebar, all other dvs are appearing beneath it, despite placement instructions in css. Firefox appears to be working fine, but all i.e's are screwed totally.

...Help? I don't want to use AP divs nor do I want to use tables but I'm pulling my hair out here trying to get this right.

  • 1 Contributor
  • 1 Reply
  • 97 Views
  • 2 Days Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by CassieJ

Dani AI

Generated

— rebuilding can hide the root cause, so here is a short, practical checklist and a few small fixes that usually solve the "sidebar floats, other divs drop beneath in IE" problem without a full rewrite.

First checks (fast): validate the HTML/CSS with the W3C validators and confirm a standards-mode DOCTYPE (missing/quirky DOCTYPE often makes IE behave very differently; see ). Look specifically for unclosed tags (a missing </div> is the most common culprit). Also confirm the sidebar is actually using float:left and that the main column either floats or uses a left margin equal to the sidebar width.

Common fixes (apply one-by-one and retest): make the parent contain floats (overflow or clearfix) so subsequent blocks do not slip under floated children. A small, modern clearfix:

.clearfix:after {
  content: "";
  display: table;
  clear: both;
}

Add that class to the container holding the columns. For older IE behavior, triggering hasLayout can fix strange collapsing: adding zoom: 1; to the container or using a width is a well-known workaround. If you see doubled horizontal margins on floated elements in very old IE, display: inline; on the floated element is a targeted fix.

Debug workflow: isolate the problem in a tiny test page (binary search: comment out half the markup until the problem disappears). Use IE’s developer tools to inspect computed layout and compare with Firefox. If a rebuild fixed it, run the validators and the minimal test page to capture the exact failing pattern — that will save time next time. For more on clearfix patterns see Nicolas Gallagher's micro clearfix.

Member Avatar for CassieJ

Disregard . . I built the site from scratch instead, I couldn't find the coding issue with the intial site.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.