How to make a div height to fill available space

Question

I have a 3 column layout with some details below the columns.

You will notice that one of the column's height is greater than the others'. I'd like the other two divs to automatically fill the remaining space (up to the blue div). The text will be loaded dynamically so I need this to work with any column being larger (and by an arbitrary amount).

Can this be done with HTML/CSS or do I have to use some JavaScript?

---

HTML code (relevant part of it):

<div id="content">

    <div id="iconsHolder">

        <div id="info">
            <div id="info_content">
                <p><?php echo img('images/man.png'); ?></p>
                <h2>Some guy over here</h2>
                <p class="light justify">It doesn't matter what is being said at the moment. Nothing is said here.</p>
            </div>
        </div>

        <div id="comp">
            <div id="comp_content">
                <p><?php echo img('images/computer.png'); ?></p>
                <h2>Computer Development</h2>
                <p class="light justify">Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit... Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit...</p>
            </div>
        </div>

        <div id="story">
            <div id="story_content">
                <p><?php echo img('images/library.png'); ?></p>
                <h2>Story telling</h2>
                <p class="light justify">This is another short story.</p>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
    <div id="details">
        Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
    </div>

</div>

---

CSS code (relevant part of it):

#content {
    width: 60em;
    margin: 0px auto;
}

#info,#comp,#story {
    width: 18em;
    float: left;
    padding-left: 1em;
    padding-right: 1em;
    padding-top: 2em;
    background-color: #DDD;
    height: 100%;
}

#info_content,#comp_content,#story_content {
    text-align: center;
}

#details {
    clear: both;
    background-color: #EEF;
    padding: 1em;
}

Answer 1

Currently your columns are spanning as far as the text can go. If I get your question correctly, you would like the columns background color/ image to extend beyond available data. If that is what you want, then you have to create fake columns (Faux Columns) since your data in those columns do not span the whole height.

I think the easiest way is to apply a repeating backgroung image to an element WHICH spans the full height of your layount. This could be some sort of wrapper that encloses your columns. In your case you may apply a thin image that is divided into three color bands (18em each and each mapped to cover a particular column) for the info, comp and story divs. That image would be 60em in width and would repeat in the y- axis e.g:

#content 
{
background: #ccc url(fake-columns.gif) repeat-y left top;
}

This assumes the image is in the same folder as the css file (not recomended, images/fake-columns.gif is better so that the image is referenced from the image folder). Repeat-y will repeat the tiny image downwards covering the whole height the content div covers. Left top ensures the image starts tiling from the top left corner which is what you would normally want to do! The pound symbol before content seems to dissapear from my example css above.

Answer 2

In addition to adding the background color to the container, you'll also need to make the container take up the space of the children.

You can add float:left to the container like Richard's answer or If you don't want to make the container float, you can add an empty "clear" div afterwards. It's less semantically correct, but if you can't or don't want the container floated it's another option.

JsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/gvJrJ/4/

Answer 3

A fairly simply solution is to make the container div iconsholder as the background like:

#iconsHolder { background-color: #DDD; float:left;}

Add that to your css and it should work in all browsers.

Answer 4

Instead of floating the divs you could absolutely position them within div#iconsHolder (which you will make position:relative. You're setting widths anyway, just set the left of each div to the appropriate offset and give each top:0 and bottom:0 CSS rules.

Answer 5

The CSS solution is to style the outer container with the background color, this is called a fake (faux) bakcground.

Like this:

#iconsHolder {
    background-color: #DDD;
}

This method (in this case at least) guarantees the background is the same for all.

Answer 6

As you said, the problem with using a faux background with your #iconHolder is highlighting each column on mouseover.

So here's what I suggest:

1) make individual faux columns absolutely positioned at the same location as the original column

You'll use the z-index property to ensure the content is on top

The HTML

<div id="col1"></div>
<div id="col2"></div>
<div id="col3"></div>

<div id="faux1"></div>
<div id="faux2"></div>
<div id="faux3"></div>

The CSS

#iconHolder {
    position: relative;
}

#col1, #col2, #col3 {
    position: relative
    z-index: 100;
}

#faux1, #faux2, #faux3 {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    bottom: 0;
    background-color: #DDD /* don't add a background to your real columns, just your faux */
    z-index: 50;
}

#faux2 {
    left: 20em;
}

#faux3 {
    left: 40em;
}

2) attach your onmouseover/onclick events to both the faux column AND the normal column

function highlight() {
     faux.style.backgroundColor = "yellow"
}

function whatever() {
    //your code here
}

column.onmousover = highlight
faux.onmouseover = highlight
column.onclick = whatever
faux.onclick = whatever

If you need more details on the javascript, just ask, I just wouldn't have any idea on the jQuery equivalent, though.

Yes, I realize that this is a little bit hackish, but it gets the job done without having to calculate the height or anything. Hope this helps!