Is it? Is it possible to expand a blocky kind of element to 100% of its container? whether this container be a div or the body itself, etc?
It would make things SO much easy for me when creating layouts.
Have you searched the forum
Have you searched the forum archives? There - in 6 years - is a wealth of information and posts on the subject, including some stuff in the 'How To' section.
Height
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visudet.html#the-height-property
<percentage>
Specifies a percentage height. The percentage is calculated with respect to the height of the generated box's containing block.
If the height of the containing block is not specified explicitly (i.e., it depends on content height), and this element is not absolutely positioned, the value computes to 'auto'.
What they don't say:
"Explicitly" is also w3c-ese for "not a percentage". So any other unit used to state the height of a parent will allow 100% height child boxes.
I don't know why the page only says "depends on content height". So I had to learn the hard way:
Doesn't work:
parent {
height: 60%;
}
child {
height: 100%;
}
child's height = auto
Does work:
parent {
height: 60em;
}
child {
height: 100%;
}
Browser knows what 100% of 60em is.
That's all that w3c page needs is a simple example like that and the little multicultural children would hold hands and sing KumBaYa.
: (
I also don't see why a few stickies with provocative names can't sit in the Beginners CSS section, who are actually links to the How To's in the How To section. By provocative names I mean "100% height", "Float: center" and "Page won't center in FF!".