fitting absolute positioned divs

[toshog]

hi all...

trying to do a small tabbed nav without reloading stuff. it's at:
http://guey.el.net/k/tests/tabs.html

the thing is i can not figure out why the absoulte positioned divs within the 'con' one are not fitting in the outer 'box' one... it's all in the source...

can somebody please take a look and explain.....

thanks...

[WebJoel]

hi all...

trying to do a small tabbed nav without reloading stuff. it's at:
http://guey.el.net/k/tests/tabs.html

the thing is i can not figure out why the absoulte positioned divs within the 'con' one are not fitting in the outer 'box' one... it's all in the source...

can somebody please take a look and explain.....

thanks...

Not sure what you're after, but this is a start...

#con div  {
	position: relative;
	display: block;
	margin: 5px 0;
padding:5px;
	/*float:left;*/
	border: 1px dotted red;
}

edit:changed "inline" to "block", added "padding:5px;"

[toshog]

position: relative;

cool... this seems to be desired..
whats the point of absolute positioning then?!

edit:changed "inline" to "block", added "padding:5px;"

wasn't inline... but thanks...

thank you....

[WebJoel]

cool... this seems to be desired..
whats the point of absolute positioning then?!

re:wasn't inline... but thanks...

Opps, -my-bad! *I* changed your "display:none': to "display:inline;" and it worked and I posted the result, but then realized that it placed the border around every sentence... looked very ugly, therefore I edited my post to changed inline to block...

thank you....

"absolute" positioning... think of it as z-index:0, ... it is 'not on the page', but 'floating over it', invisible to the content on the page, which starts at z-index:1. (And before you ask, -yes, IE permits negative-numbered z-indexes, however, compliant browsers won't.)
I am not a big fan or user of absolsute positioned items. They ARE very useful, but used sparingly.

You can place an abs-positioned anything inside of a relative-positioned DIV and make it work. But here, since you WANT the contents of the DIV to force-open the outer borders, you have to call this 'relative positioned', or else, it isn't even on the page...
Not explained too well, I realize. *sigh*

[JPnyc]

Absolute positioning does one thing you can't do any other way, it allows you to superimpose one element on top of another. I use it only when I have to for the precise reasons that Joel just laid out. When you use it there is no document flow.