How to force inline divs to stay on same line?

Question

I'm trying to make a three-column layout. I'd like the width of the left and right columns to be only as wide as their children content. I'd like the center column to expand to fill the remaining space.

I'm trying the following (overview, jsfiddle link included below):

#colLeft {
  display: inline;
  float: left;
}
#colCenter {
  float: left;
  display: inline;
  overflow: none;
  white-space: nowrap;
}
#colRight {
  display: inline;
  float: right;
}

<div id="parent" style="width:100%">
  <div id="colLeft">left</div>
  <div id="colCenter">Some really long text in the center. Some really long text in the center.</div>
  <div id="colRight">right</div>
</div>

fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/5kszQ/

but the center column pushes the right column below it when its content is too long. I'd like all three columns to be inline, and have the center column shrink as necessary. This is what the above is giving me:

instead I would like:

Thanks for any help

Answer 1

Here's one method using inline-block for the left and middle and position:absolute for the right element.

jsFiddle

HTML

<div id="parent" style="width:100%">
    <div id="colLeft">left</div><!--
    --><div id="colCenter">Some really long text in the center. Some really long text in the center.</div>
    <div id="colRight">right</div>
</div>

CSS

html, body {
    margin: 0px;
    padding: 0px;
}
#parent {
    background-color: #eee;
    height: 48px;
    position:relative;
    overflow:hidden;
    white-space: nowrap;
}
#colLeft {
    background-color: #ff8b8b;
    height: 48px;
    display: inline-block;
}
#colCenter {
    background-color: orange;
    height: 48px;
    display: inline-block;
    overflow: hidden;
}
#colRight {
    background-color: #c3d0ff;
    height: 48px;
    display: inline;
    float: right;
    position:absolute;
    top:0;
    right:0;
}

Since it relys on inline-block, there is a comment in between the <div>s to get rid of the spacing illustrated in this image:

text-overflow:ellipsis

To achieve this when using text-overflow:ellipsis you may need to fallback on JavaScript, here is a possible solution (jsFiddle).

window.onresize = updateDimensions;

function updateDimensions() {
    var parent = document.getElementById('parent');
    var left = document.getElementById('colLeft');
    var right = document.getElementById('colRight');
    var middle = document.getElementById('colCenter');

    middle.style.width = (parent.offsetWidth - right.offsetWidth - left.offsetWidth)  + 'px';
}