Stretch Child DIV to Height of Parent (Without hardcoding height)

Question

I have a parent DIV with a child DIV that I'd like to have stretch to the bottom of the parent. At present it does not despite having height:auto!important; A screenshot illustrating the issue can be seen here .

The relevant HTML (as a Jade template) is as follows:

    .main.top0
    .infoPanel.koneksa_bg_blue
        .innerPanel.mtop0.mbottom0
            .infoCaption.font8em.koneksa_white 404
            .infoCaption.koneksa_white We can't find the page you are looking for
            .infoCaption.koneksa_white
                | Don't worry. Just try to go back or  
                a.koneksa_white.underline(href='/') home
    .footer.stickyBottom.koneksa_bg_gray.koneksa_fg_light_gray

The main DIV is the parent and the infoPanel is the child (colored in blue in the image above) that I am struggling to stretch.

The corresponding CSS is as follows:

.main {
    width:100%;
    min-height:700px;
    height:auto!important;
    overflow: hidden;
    z-index: 1;
    top:3em;
    position: relative;
}
.infoPanel {
    width:100%;
    height:auto!important;
    display: block;
    padding:0;
}
.innerPanel {
    width:90%;
    padding:40px 0;
    height:auto!important;
    margin:0 5%;
    display: block;
}

I'm aware that this is a fairly common question but it seems like the answer is always to include a hard-coded height. I would like to avoid this because while that was a perfectly fine solution for the desktop styling this is intended to be displayed on mobile devices and as such I'd like it to be a bit more responsive than a hard-coded height.

Thanks for any insights that you can provide.

EDIT:

The generated HTML as requested:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/html"></html>
<head>
   <meta charset="UTF-8">
   <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale = 0.8, user-scalable = yes">

   // Imports removed

   <link href="/assets/css/mvp.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" media="screen and (max-width: 768px)">
   <link href="/assets/css/mvp_wide.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" media="screen and (min-width: 769px)">
</head>
<body class="tk-futura-pt koneksa_gray">
   <div class="fullNav koneksa_bg_white boxShadow">
      <div class="centerPanel">
         <div class="mleft2 left khmoniker"></div>
         <div class="menu right"><a href="/login" class="right mright2 menuItem">customer login</a></div>
      </div>
   </div>
   <div class="main top0">
      <div class="infoPanel koneksa_bg_blue">
         <div class="innerPanel mtop0 mbottom0">
            <div class="infoCaption font8em koneksa_white">404</div>
            <div class="infoCaption koneksa_white">We can't find the page you are looking for</div>
            <div class="infoCaption koneksa_white">Don't worry. Just try to go back or  <a href="/" class="koneksa_white underline">home</a></div>
         </div>
      </div>
      <div class="footer stickyBottom koneksa_bg_gray koneksa_fg_light_gray">
         <div class="innerPanel">
            <div class="caption left">
               <h5 class="konekea_blue_gray mtop2">&copy; template-filler</h5>
               <div class="kh_reverse_logo mtop2"></div>
            </div>
            <div class="caption right"><a href="/terms.html" target="_blank" class="konekea_blue_gray mtop2">Terms</a><a href="/privacy.html" target="_blank" class="konekea_blue_gray mtop1">Privacy</a><a href="/" target="_blank" class="konekea_blue_gray mtop1">Corporate</a></div>
         </div>
      </div>
   </div>
</body>

Answer 1

One solution that works in all modern browsers is to do the following:

html, body {
    height: 100%
}

.main {
    position: absolute;
    top: 3em;
    bottom: 0;
    width: 100%;
}

This seems an unusual solution but modern browsers will actually respect all 4 sides being defined at the same time and stretch the element to match. Here is an example jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/nqt7vqs1/2/

You can do the same with all child elements as well because position: absolute implies position: relative for the purposes of positioning child elements.

If this solution doesn't work, another option is to do the following:

html, body {
    height: 100%
}

.main {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    height: 100%;
    margin: 3em 0 -3em 0;
    overflow: hidden;
}

This is a "hidden margin" trick that also works in all modern browsers. Same Fiddle with these settings: http://jsfiddle.net/nqt7vqs1/3/

Stretch Child DIV to Height of Parent (Without hardcoding height)

Question

1 answers

solution1
-1 2015-02-04 21:43:38

Stretch Child DIV to Height of Parent (Without hardcoding height)

Question

1 answers

solution1 -1 2015-02-04 21:43:38

solution1
-1 2015-02-04 21:43:38