Floating Layers

[COBOLdinosaur]

This topic is for questions and discussion about the ERT article "Floating Layers", http://www.expertsrt.com/scripts/Cd/floating_layers.html

Please stay on topic.  If you have off topic questions then start a new topic please.

Cd&

[Srirangan]

Cd&, I would like to know how well "position:fixed;" is being supported? If I'm not mistaken IE6 doesn't support it but there is a work around for it "body {height:100%;}" .. ??

I have worked towards building cross browser floating layers in the past, but I couldn't get a good enough "position:fixed;" solution.

- Sri

[COBOLdinosaur]

Fixed position works for FF and Opera, and some other standards compliant browers.  The fact that it is not supported by IE means if you use it you end up with a bunch of extra coding to handle cross-browser support. 

"body {height:100%;}" is a hack.  When you use hacks to get around IE weakness you create a page that can stop working at anytime there is a new version or SP.  M$ has not been consistent across version and anything outside of standards is subject to change without notice.

Using a scripted solution may not be as elegant as a hack, but you don't end up with as many broken pages when M$ releases a new version. 

Floating layers is really not very usable in every day page development.  Design trends are away from DHTML to thinner clients.