Summary

I'm going to stress again that I chose to cover fluid layouts in this chapter not because I think they are always superior to fixed-width versions. Rather, each has its appropriate place, and depending on the design requirements, it's not always a decision that Web designers should make solely by themselves.

That said, if fluidity is a characteristic you can add to your designs, then enjoy the benefits that your readers will gain from it.

Here are some things to keep in mind when building fluid layouts:

• Use the float property in order to build multicolumn layouts that can be cleared with a full-width footer.

• Subtract a percentage from column widths for gutters, or add an extra wrapper <div> to set padding separate from column width.

• Set min-width and max-width on the layout to prevent extreme dimensions in both directions. Try to ignore the fact that this is unsupported in IE/Win.

• Experiment with the Sliding Faux Columns approach to create the appearance equal-height (but flexible) columns with borders and backgrounds that meet the footer.

Now that we've covered the basics of building a flexible, fluid, CSS-based layout, let's pull together all the pieces that have been covered in the book thus far to create a complete, one-page bulletproofed design. The final chapter awaits.