I’ve done this no end of times, but I’m still not entirely sure why it happens.
Using all the recent versions of FW and the box model (inline?) I’ve inserted copied items (text or other divs) into an existing nested set of divs, and instead of the pasted items appearing where I’ve put them, the existing divs spread out across the page creating an outer div that is sometimes 30,000px wide. CMD Z at this point would normally return me to the state where I could find out what was going wrong, but it doesn’t! It stays broken, meaning that I either have to pick through the page column checking the floats and clears, or revert to saved.
I’m obviously doing something fundamentally wrong with floats and clears but why doesn’t CMD Z always work?
And the same with me. I’ve given up trying to learn the box model because of this - I just can’t understand why it keeps happening.
Trev
On 22 Sep 2011, at 15:38, neil.west1 wrote:
I’ve done this no end of times, but I’m still not entirely sure why it happens.
Using all the recent versions of FW and the box model (inline?) I’ve inserted copied items (text or other divs) into an existing nested set of divs, and instead of the pasted items appearing where I’ve put them, the existing divs spread out across the page creating an outer div that is sometimes 30,000px wide. CMD Z at this point would normally return me to the state where I could find out what was going wrong, but it doesn’t! It stays broken, meaning that I either have to pick through the page column checking the floats and clears, or revert to saved.
I’m obviously doing something fundamentally wrong with floats and clears but why doesn’t CMD Z always work?
I’ve inserted copied items (text or other divs) into an existing nested set of divs, and instead of the pasted items appearing where I’ve put them.
When building an inline layout it is best to plan the “framework” of the divisions without any content first while keeping in mind what your content will be. For example, one large page division to hold everything, then nested divs inside of that to hold a header, columns, footer, then content inside those. This basic structure then becomes the holding areas for everything. This method of working is counter intuitive to Freeway’s desktop publishing methodology, but it is the way most web sites are built these days.
If you subsequently try and insert divs between your established structure, such as another column, naturally the original divs have to shift to make room and can be difficult to resolve. In this kind of structure Float and Clear affect how the divs behave with each other. Changing those settings of both the new and old divs may fix things, but really is very hit or miss.
It will save you a lot of headaches if you plan out the underlying structure first and stick to it once you have it. Also, you should save that basic structure as a bare template that you can always go back to restart from should the house of cards come tumbling down.
Similar thing happened to me.
I had 3 left floating divs contained within a wrapper div.
All had their height set be flexible and they resided nicely underneath each other.
Then I applied a 8px border top and a2px border bottom to the middle div and broke the layout the same way, the middle div jumped and positioned itself next to the top one and expand the wrapper div to fit both.
Once I changed the width to a % value it all worked as planned
Hi Helveticus, so does using % seem to fix the problem of jumping/resizing boxes 100%? If so, great news (and % are happy in all browsers [ish]?)
Trev
On 22 Sep 2011, at 18:41, Helveticus wrote:
Similar thing happened to me.
I had 3 left floating divs contained within a wrapper div.
All had their height set be flexible and they resided nicely underneath each other.
Then I applied a 8px border top and a2px border bottom to the middle div and broke the layout the same way, the middle div jumped and positioned itself next to the top one and expand the wrapper div to fit both.
Once I changed the width to a % value it all worked as planned
I do actually plan the construction in advance with unspecified height divs with the expectation that, as I paste things into them, they’ll expand vertically to fit (as has happened before), but for some reason this doesn’t always work. I have no doubt that this is something I’m doing wrong, but the CMD Z problem certainly doesn’t help. When I am doing this sort of task where I think the layout might break, I am having to save after each change to ensure that if it does break, and CMD Z doesn’t work, I am able to revert to saved without losing too many changes.
Does anyone else have this problem with CMD Z (undo)?
Yes Neil, exactly the same problems here, so you’re not alone.
Trev
On 23 Sep 2011, at 09:41, neil.west1 wrote:
I do actually plan the construction in advance with unspecified height divs with the expectation that, as I paste things into them, they’ll expand vertically to fit (as has happened before), but for some reason this doesn’t always work. I have no doubt that this is something I’m doing wrong, but the CMD Z problem certainly doesn’t help. When I am doing this sort of task where I think the layout might break, I am having to save after each change to ensure that if it does break, and CMD Z doesn’t work, I am able to revert to saved without losing too many changes.
Does anyone else have this problem with CMD Z (undo)?