Have a fixed position div that needs to scroll if

Question

I have actually two issues, but lets resolve the primary issue first as I believe the other is easier to address.

I have a fixed position div on the left side of the scroll for a menu. Right side is a standard div that scrolls properly. The issue is that when the browser view-port is too small to see the entire menu.. there is no way to get it to scroll that I can find (at least not with css). I've tried using different overflows in css, but nothing makes the div scroll. The div that contains the menu is set to min-height:100% and position:fixed.. both attributes I need to keep.

The div containing the menu is inside another wrapper div that is positioned absolutely and height set to 100%.

How can I get it to scroll vertically if the content is too tall for the div?

That leads me to the other issue, that i don't want a scroll bar to display.. but I think I may already have an answer to that (only it doesn't work yet because I can't get the div to scroll to begin with).

Any solutions? Perhaps javascript is needed? (of which i know little about)

JS Fiddle Example

and the relevant code that is causing the issue (since posting the whole thing in here is waaay too long):

.fixed-content {
    min-height:100%;
    position:fixed;
    overflow-y:scroll;
    overflow-x:hidden;
} 

Also tried adding height:100% as well just to see if that was an issue but it didn't work either... nor did a fixed height, such as 600px.

Answer 1

The problem with using height:100% is that it will be 100% of the page instead of 100% of the window (as you would probably expect it to be). This will cause the problem that you're seeing, because the non-fixed content is long enough to include the fixed content with 100% height without requiring a scroll bar. The browser doesn't know/care that you can't actually scroll that bar down to see it

You can use fixed to accomplish what you're trying to do.

.fixed-content {
    top: 0;
    bottom:0;
    position:fixed;
    overflow-y:scroll;
    overflow-x:hidden;
}

This fork of your fiddle shows my fix: http://jsfiddle.net/strider820/84AsW/1/

Answer 2

Here are both fixes.

First, regarding the fixed sidebar, you need to give it a height for it to overflow:

HTML Code:

<div id="sidebar">Menu</div>
<div id="content">Text</div>

CSS Code:

body {font:76%/150% Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#666; width:100%; height:100%;}
#sidebar {position:fixed; top:0; left:0; width:20%; height:100%; background:#EEE; overflow:auto;}
#content {width:80%; padding-left:20%;}

@media screen and (max-height:200px){
    #sidebar {color:blue; font-size:50%;}
}

Live example: http://jsfiddle.net/RWxGX/3/

It's impossible NOT to get a scroll bar if your content overflows the height of the div. That's why I've added a media query for screen height. Maybe you can adjust your styles for short screen sizes so the scroll doesn't need to appear.

Cheers, Ignacio