expand div to relative top-left positioned contents

Question

I have this problem where I am trying to show multiple graphs (based on jsPlumb) on a single page. Since I want each graph to be side by side on one row no matter how much space is available I am using a table (if I used divs with float:left, if not enough space is available some of the divs move down on a separate row).

Now each table cell contains a main div which in turn contains two or more node-divs. The way jsPlumb works is by creating a separate div for each node. I need to position each node at a particular top/left relative to its parent div.

The problem I have is that the main graphDiv in each table cell does not expand to fit its content. Some of the graph-node divs are outside of it. I understand that when you have "absolute" positioned divs they are not taken into account. But I am using "relative" positioned divs with top/left coordinates. Does the same thing apply? If so, what would be the best way for me to expand the table-cell/graphDiv to cover its content? (i have tried all the clear fixes and went thru all stack-overflow related posts but could not find a solution).

Here is a link to the jsfiddle page I set up: http://jsfiddle.net/7QkB2/28/

Answer 1

Have you tried displaying each div as an inline-block and turning off line wrapping on the enclosing div? You don't have to resort to tables if you want content with a dynamic width to display horizontally without wrapping.

div.graph {
  display: inline-block;
}
div.graph-container {
  white-space: nowrap;
}

Answer 2

I'm a little rusty but I share your pain in trying to get divs to properly expand to contain their contents.

As explained by this page http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/relativepositioning when you use relative positioning you're actually leaving behind a hole where the content used to be. I'd think of it almost as an optical illusion - The object is still reserving an invisible block in its old position, but it appears as if it has moved.

So in your case, the 3 nodes are still stacked in the upper left corner of the graph even though they look like they're floating outside of it. If you get rid of all the absolute and relative positioning on the nodes you'll see the table is sized to be big enough to fit their original positions.

I'd recommend usually only using position relative if you're only moving your content by a few pixels. Why they designed the css to work this way is a mystery to me, but maybe its something to do with the limitations of the rendering engines? When you use position absolute the object no longer has a "box" taking up space in the document. It's easy to position, but won't affect the spacing of anything else as you observed.

I'm not sure your exact application, but you may need to get creative with how you specify the spacing. If you know the dimensions you can always specify them, but I'm guessing you're not that lucky. Do you really want to set the position relative to the top-left corner, or just relative to the other nodes? I'd probably just use old-fashioned margins. That should allow you to specify the positions of the content that needs to fit in the table while maintaining the block model. Then if you need one of the nodes to overlap, position it using absolute positioning.