Expressing IT

Before we had to deal with CSS to create our page layouts, aligning some content inside a table cell seemed just child’s play. Simply set the “align” or “valign” property of the table to have the alignment of your choice, piece of cake!
With CSS layouts, though we have “vertical-align” property for the elements, it doesn’t seem to be as simple as the “align” or “valign” properties. To be more specifiic the “vertical-align” never seems to solve any of your problems, especially if are write a piece of cross-browser CSS.

Without the use of HTML Tables, THE PROBLEM of centering on object, be it an image or some text within a containing division, has probably been every UI/CSS developers nightmare at some point. This problem further extrapolates your worries of aligning, if the object to be centered is dynamic in nature, i.e. when its height is variable(unknown height).

Though there is no known straight forward solution that would work across the range of browsers we have to deal with, the solution that I have tried to arrive at does seem to work in the few browsers that I have tried it in ( IE6, IE 7, FF).

SOLUTION:
In browsers like Mozilla, Opera and Safari, The strange behaving “vertical-align” property can be brought to its senses, simply by setting the “display” property of the containing division to “table-cell” (display: table-cell).

The problem still remains with IE family of browsers, who, yet do not seem to understand what to with the “table-cell” property and ignorant as they are, they just ignore it. The solution given below, though simple, ads a few more DOM elements to your HTML to make things happen.

The CSS and HTML looks like this
.outer_container {
display: table;
text-align:center;
height: 140px;
width:140px;
position: relative;
overflow: hidden;
float:left;
margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;
}
.obj_container {
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: middle;
#position: absolute;
#top: 50%;
#left:50%;
}
.obj{
#position: relative;
#top: -50%;
#left:-50%;
margin:0px auto 0px auto;
}

HTML: -
<div class=”outer_container” >
<div class=”obj_container” >
<div class=”obj”> <img src=”image1.jpg”/><br/> views :3456 </div>
</div>
</div>

The result looks like this:-

view the demo here | Download Source Files (Downloaded 280 times)

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Understanding the solution:
For the browsers that understand display: table and display:table-cell properties, it seldom needs any explanation. For IE, with the use an IE specific hack (hash hack), we absolutely position the object container (obj_container) in half of the available height. Then object(obj) within is position relatively and is moved up by half of its height … Well! I seem to understand the look the on your face, but It works. Try it!
The above techniques are combined to give us the above cross browser solution.

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The CSS can be easily modified as below to achieve, vertical-align:top or vertical-align:bottom

TOP Align CSS
.obj_container_top {
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: top;
#position: absolute;
#top: 0%;
#left:50%;
}
.obj_top{
#position: relative;
#top: 0%;
#left:-50%;
margin:5px auto 0px auto;
font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:10px;
color:#cccccc;
}

HTML: -
<div class=”outer_container” >
<div class=”obj_container_top” >
<div class=”obj_top” > <img src=”image1.jpg”/><br/> views :1234 </div>
</div>
</div>

The result looks like this:-

BOTTOM Align CSS
.obj_container_bottom {
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: bottom;
#position: absolute;
#bottom: 0%;
#left:50%;
}
.obj_bottom {
#position: relative;
#bottom: 0%;
#left:-50%;
margin:5px auto 0px auto;
}
HTML: -
<div class=”outer_container” >
<div class=”obj_container_bottom” >
<div class=”obj_bottom” > <img src=”image1.jpg”/><br/>views :1234 </div>
</div>
</div>

The result looks like this:-

view the demo here | Download here

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Horizontal centering of the object simply achieved with the margin property , by setting the margin-left and the margin-right to auto

Seems like ages, since I was trying to find a reasonable solution to this alignment problem. But now with this solution, I feel at little peace.

With a hope that someday

• vertical-alignment property in CSS will work like it does inside a table cell, WITHOUT having to beat much around the bush
• At least, setting margin –top:auto and margin-bottom:auto, will give as the same result as with margin-left and the margin-right set to auto
• The Browser wars will be over some day.
• There will just ONE Browser for ALL.

Download the CSS and HTML of the above solution here (Downloaded 280 times) ..for understandability, the CSS is not been optimized

PS: And by the way, those are thumbnails of some pictures I have clicked…