CODEWITHSUNDEEP
csssidebarsticky
Jon
Jon

Reputation: 6046

Force sidebar height 100% using CSS (with a sticky bottom image)?

I've been banging my head against the wall for hours trying to figure out this issue and think it must be something small I'm missing. I've searched online, but nothing I have found seems to work. The HTML is: 

<body>
  <div id="header">
    <div id="bannerleft">
    </div>

    <div id="bannerright">
      <div id="WebLinks">
        <span>Web Links:</span>
        <ul>
          <li><a href="#"><img src="../../Content/images/MySpace_32x32.png" alt="MySpace"/></a></li>
          <li><a href="#"><img src="../../Content/images/FaceBook_32x32.png" alt="Facebook"/></a></li>
          <li><a href="#"><img src="../../Content/images/Youtube_32x32.png" alt="YouTube"/></a></li>
        </ul>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
  <div id="Sidebar">
    <div id="SidebarBottom">
    </div>
  </div>
  <div id="NavigationContainer">
    <ul id="Navigation">
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Nav</a></li>
    </ul>
  </div>
  <div id="Main">
    <!-- content -->
  </div>
</body>

My full CSS is:

* {
  margin: 0px;
  padding: 0px;
}

body {
  font-family: Calibri, Sans-Serif;
  height: 100%;
}

#header {
  width: 100%;
  z-index: 1;
  height: 340px;
  background-image: url("../../Content/images/bannercenter.gif");
  background-repeat: repeat-x;
}

#header #bannerleft {
  float: left;
  background-image: url("../../Content/images/bannerleft.gif");
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  height: 340px;
  width: 439px;
  z-index: 2;
}

#bannerright {
  float: right;
  background-image: url("../../Content/images/bannerright.gif");
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  width: 382px;
  height: 340px;
  background-color: White;
  z-index: 2;
}

#Sidebar {
  width: 180px;
  background: url("../../Content/images/Sidebar.png") repeat-y;
  z-index: 2;
  height: 100%;
  position: absolute;
}

#SidebarBottom {
  margin-left: 33px;
  height: 100%;
  background: url("../../Content/images/SidebarImage.png") no-repeat bottom;
}

#NavigationContainer {
  position: absolute;
  top: 350px;
  width: 100%;
  background-color: #bbc4c3;
  height: 29px;
  z-index: 1;
  left: 0px;
}

#Navigation {
  margin-left: 190px;
  font-family: Calibri, Sans-Serif;
}

#Navigation li {
  float: left;
  list-style: none;
  padding-right: 3%;
  padding-top: 6px;
  font-size: 100%;
}

#Navigation a:link, a:active, a:visited {
  color: #012235;
  text-decoration: none;
  font-weight: 500;
}

#Navigation a:hover {
  color: White;
}

#WebLinks {
  float: right;
  color: #00324b;
  margin-top: 50px;
  width: 375px;
}

#WebLinks span {
  float: left;
  margin-right: 7px;
  margin-left: 21px;
  font-size: 10pt;
  margin-top: 8px;
  font-family: Helvetica;
}

#WebLinks ul li {
  float: left;
  padding-right: 7px;
  list-style: none;
}

#WebLinks ul li a {
  text-decoration: none;
  font-size: 8pt;
  color: #00324b;
  font-weight: normal;
}

#WebLinks ul li a img {
  border-style: none;
}

#WebLinks ul li a:hover {
  color: #bcc5c4;
}

I'd like the sidebar to stretch in height with the content of my page and leave the sidebar bottom image always at the bottom of the sidebar.

Upvotes: 85

Views: 252708

Answers (17)

Arve Systad
Arve Systad

Reputation: 5479

UPDATE: As this answer is still getting votes both up and down, and is at the time of writing 15 years old: There are better techniques out there now, don't use the solution presented here. Original answer follows below.

Clearly you are looking for the Faux columns technique :-)

By how the height-property is calculated, you can't set height: 100% inside something that has auto-height.

Upvotes: 29

Abdulrazzak Alsssouki
Abdulrazzak Alsssouki

Reputation: 319

one simple way to solve this is to use fixed position with setting the height to 100vh (equal to 100%), an example:

  aside {
  background-color: var(--main-color);
  color: white;
  position: fixed;
  width: 60px;
  height: 100vh;
  z-index: 1;
}

Upvotes: 0

suhailvs
suhailvs

Reputation: 21680

this is a simplified version of danield's answer

.container {
  display: table;
  height: 260px;
}
#sidebar {
  display: table-cell;
  vertical-align: top;
  background-color:red;
  position:relative;
} 

#sidebarbottom
{
  height:30px;
  position:absolute;
  bottom:0;
}
<div class="container">
  <div id="sidebar">
    SIDEBAR HERE
    <div id="sidebarbottom">
      Sidebar Bottom
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Upvotes: 0

WebBoy
WebBoy

Reputation: 61

Try this. It forces navbar to grow as content added, and keeps main area centered.

   <html>
        <head>
            <style>
                    section.sidebar {
          width: 250px;
          min-height:100vh;
          position: sticky;
          top: 0;
          bottom: 0;
          background-color: green;
        }

        section.main { position:sticky; top:0;bottom:0;background-color: red; margin-left: 250px;min-height:100vh; }
            </style>
            <script lang="javascript">
            var i = 0;
            function AddOne()
            {
                for(i = 0;i<20;i++)
                {
                var node = document.createElement("LI");
                var textnode = document.createTextNode(' Water ' + i.toString());

                node.appendChild(textnode);
                document.getElementById("list").appendChild(node);
                }


            }
            </script>
        </head>
        <body>
                <section class="sidebar">
                    <button id="add" onclick="AddOne()">Add</button>
                    <ul id="list">
                        <li>bullshit 1</li>
                    </ul>
                </section>
                <section class="main">I'm the main section.</section>
        </body>    
    </html>

Upvotes: 0

9ete
9ete

Reputation: 3762

Flexbox (http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox)

First wrap the columns you want in a div or section, ex:

<div class="content">
    <div class="main"></div>
    <div class="sidebar"></div>
</div>

Then add the following CSS:

.content {
    display: -webkit-box;
    display: -moz-box;
    display: -ms-flexbox;
    display: -webkit-flex;
    display: flex;
}

Upvotes: 10

Vincent V.
Vincent V.

Reputation: 1

Position absolute, top:0 and bottom:0 for the sidebar and position relative for the wrapper (or container) witch content all the elements and it's done !

Upvotes: 0

ChrisHigs
ChrisHigs

Reputation: 63

I realise this is an old post but I was trying to work something out for my site to have a sidebar. Would this work?

#sidebar-background
{
    position:fixed;
    width:250px;
    top:0;
    bottom:0;
    background-color:orange;
}

#content-background
{
    position:fixed;
    right:0;
    top:0;
    bottom:0;
    left:250px;
    background-color:pink;
}

#sidebar
{
    float:left;
    width:250px;
}

#content
{
    float:left;
    width:600px;
}

<div id="sidebar-background"></div>
<div id="content-background"></div>

<div id="sidebar">Sidebar stuff here</div>
<div id="content">Stuff in here</div>

Upvotes: 1

Lloyd Jones
Lloyd Jones

Reputation: 445

Further to @montrealmike 's answer, can I just add my adaptation?

I did this:

.container { 
  overflow: hidden; 
  .... 
} 

#sidebar { 
  margin-bottom: -101%;
  padding-bottom: 101%; 
  .... 
}

I did the "101%" thing to cater for the (ultra rare) possibility that somebody may be viewing the site on a huge screen with a height more than 5000px!

Great answer though, montrealmike. It worked perfectly for me.

Upvotes: 5

Ajit Bhandari
Ajit Bhandari

Reputation: 1149

use body background if you are using fixed width sidebar give the same width image as your side bar. also put background-repeat:repeat-y in your css codes.

Upvotes: 0

montrealmike
montrealmike

Reputation: 11631

This worked for me

.container { 
  overflow: hidden; 
  .... 
} 

#sidebar { 
  margin-bottom: -5000px; /* any large number will do */
  padding-bottom: 5000px; 
  .... 
}

Upvotes: 102

Frank L&#228;mmer
Frank L&#228;mmer

Reputation: 2325

i guess, today one would probably use flexbox for this. See the holy grail example.

Upvotes: 2

Danield
Danield

Reputation: 125443

I would use css tables to achieve a 100% sidebar height.

The basic idea is to wrap the sidebar and main divs in a container.

Give the container a display:table

And give the 2 child divs (sidebar and main) a display: table-cell

Like so..

#container {
display: table;
}
#main {
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: top;
}
#sidebar {
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: top;
}

Take a look at this LIVE DEMO where I have modified your initial markup using the above technique (I have used background colors for the different divs so that you can see which ones are which)

Upvotes: 14

Adam Grant
Adam Grant

Reputation: 13105

Until CSS's flexbox becomes more mainstream, you can always just absolutely position the sidebar, sticking it zero pixels away from the top and bottom, then set a margin on your main container to compensate.

JSFiddle

http://jsfiddle.net/QDCGv/

HTML

<section class="sidebar">I'm a sidebar.</section>

<section class="main">I'm the main section.</section>

CSS

section.sidebar {
  width: 250px;
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  background-color: green;
}

section.main { margin-left: 250px; }

Note: This is an über simple way to do this but you'll find bottom does not mean "bottom of page," but "bottom of window." The sidebar will probably abrubtly end if your main content scrolls down.

Upvotes: 33

Krizzz
Krizzz

Reputation: 21

I was facing the same problem as Jon. TheLibzter put me on the right track, but the image that has to stay at the bottom of the sidebar was not included. So I made some adjustments...

Important:

  • Positioning of the div which contains the sidebar and the content (#bodyLayout). This should be relative.
  • Positioning of the div that has to stay at the bottom of the sidbar (#sidebarBottomDiv). This should be absolute.
  • The width of the content + the width of the sidebar must be equal to the width of the page (#container)

Here's the css:

    #container
    {
        margin: auto;
        width: 940px;
    }
    #bodyLayout
    {
        position: relative;
        width: 100%;
        padding: 0;
    }
    #header
    {
        height: 95px;
        background-color: blue;
        color: white;
    }
    #sidebar
    {
        background-color: yellow;
    }
    #sidebarTopDiv
    {
        float: left;
        width: 245px;
        color: black;
    }
    #sidebarBottomDiv
    {
        position: absolute;
        float: left;
        bottom: 0;
        width: 245px;
        height: 100px;
        background-color: green;
        color: white;
    }
    #content
    {
        float: right;
        min-height: 250px;
        width: 695px;
        background-color: White;
    }
    #footer
    {
        width: 940px;
        height: 75px;
        background-color: red;
        color: white;
    }
    .clear
    {
        clear: both;
    }

And here's the html:

<div id="container">
    <div id="header">
        This is your header!
    </div>
    <div id="bodyLayout">
        <div id="sidebar">
            <div id="sidebarTopDiv">
                This is your sidebar!                   
            </div>
            <div id="content">                  
            This is your content!<br />
            The minimum height of the content is set to 250px so the div at the bottom of
            the sidebar will not overlap the top part of the sidebar.
            </div>
            <div id="sidebarBottomDiv">
                This is the div that will stay at the bottom of your footer!
            </div>
            <div class="clear" />
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
<div id="footer">
    This is your footer!
</div>

Upvotes: 1

TheLibzter
TheLibzter

Reputation: 777

I have run into this issue several times on different projects, but I have found a solution that works for me. You have to use four div tags - one that contains the sidebar, the main content, and a footer.

First, style the elements in your stylesheet:

#container {
width: 100%;
background: #FFFAF0;
}

.content {
width: 950px;
float: right;
padding: 10px;
height: 100%;
background: #FFFAF0;
}

.sidebar {
width: 220px;
float: left;
height: 100%;
padding: 5px;
background: #FFFAF0;
}

#footer {
clear:both;
background:#FFFAF0;
}

You can edit the different elements however you want to, just be sure you dont change the footer property "clear:both" - this is very important to leave in.

Then, simply set up your web page like this:

<div id=”container”>
<div class=”sidebar”></div>
<div class=”content”></div>
<div id=”footer”></div>
</div>

I wrote a more in-depth blog post about this at http://blog.thelibzter.com/how-to-make-a-sidebar-extend-the-entire-height-of-its-container. Please let me know if you have any questions. Hope this helps!

Upvotes: 4

Bjorn
Bjorn

Reputation: 71830

I think your solution would be to wrap your content container and your sidebar in a parent containing div. Float your sidebar to the left and give it the background image. Create a wide margin at least the width of your sidebar for your content container. Add clearing a float hack to make it all work.

Upvotes: 0

strager
strager

Reputation: 90012

Perhaps Multi-Column Layouts Climb Out of the Box is what you're looking for?

Upvotes: 2

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