CSS Div stretch 100% page height
I have a navigation bar on the left hand side of my page, and I want it to stretch to 100% of the page height. Not just the height of the viewport, but including the areas hidden until you scroll. I don't want to use javascript to accomplish this.
Can it be done in HTML/CSS?
Answer
Here is the solution I finally came up with when using a div as a container for a dynamic background.
- Remove the
z-indexfor non-background uses. - Remove
leftorrightfor a full height column. - Remove
toporbottomfor a full width row.
EDIT 1: CSS below has been edited because it did not show correctly in FF and Chrome. moved position:relative to be on the HTML and set the body to height:100% instead of min-height:100%.
EDIT 2: Added extra comments to CSS. Added some more instructions above.
The CSS:
html{
min-height:100%;/* make sure it is at least as tall as the viewport */
position:relative;
}
body{
height:100%; /* force the BODY element to match the height of the HTML element */
}
#cloud-container{
position:absolute;
top:0;
bottom:0;
left:0;
right:0;
overflow:hidden;
z-index:-1; /* Remove this line if it's not going to be a background! */
}
The html:
<!doctype html>
<html>
<body>
<div id="cloud-container"></div>
</body>
</html>
Why?
html{min-height:100%;position:relative;}
Without this the cloud-container DIV is removed from the HTML's layout context. position: relative ensures that the DIV remains inside the HTML box when it is drawn so that bottom:0 refers to the bottom of the HTML box. You can also use height:100% on the cloud-container as it now refers to the height of the HTML tag and not the viewport.