GUIs - A Modest Proposal

[AD.]

On Jun 15, 1:58 pm, Stephen Hansen <me+list/pyt... at ixokai.io> wrote:
> Very nice. And interesting. "position: absolute" there is a mystery to
> me and seems to be key, I'm not sure entirely what it is doing to the
> layout manager in that scenario, but it seems to do the trick.

The Cliff Notes:

position: absolute allows different combos/subsets of
left,right,top,bottom,width,height to define where each edge is in
relation to the edges of its closest parent that has also been
positioned that way or the browser window if there is none. But it
does take that element out of the normal flow (like a float does),
which means all the statically positioned stuff won't interact with it
at all - that can be enough to negate the usefulness of it all.

position: relative is similar, but the edge offsets apply to where the
element would normally have sat rather than the edges of an explicitly
positioned parent element.

>
> Much, much, much Googling led me to try many things to get it just
> right, and all bemoaned the lack of a solid way to vertically center:
> all the while using essentially similar methods to horizontally center.

I'd recommend the book "Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns" from Apress
for anyone who wants to get a more formal understanding of these
different models etc.

--
Cheers
Anton