span with width or inline div

[Jeff Thies]

I have something like this:

<span style="width:12 ex; text-align: right">field label</span><input
type="text" ...>

(I suppose it may be better to do that with label. I'm not really sure
what that tag is about.)

that emulates this ever popular table layout (but is foldable):

<tr><td align="right">f ield label</td><td><input type="text"
....></td></tr>

What I don't remember is whether giving spans widths is legal or not?
This could be done with inline divs, but I seem to recall that either
isn't legal or Opera is not fond of them. Which is it?

Jeff

[Brian]

Re: span with width or inline div

Jeff Thies wrote:[color=blue]
>
> <span style="width:12 ex; text-align: right">field label</span><input
> type="text" ...>
>
> (I suppose it may be better to do that with label.[/color]

Yes, it would.
[color=blue]
> I'm not really sure what that tag is about.)[/color]

< http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.9 >
[color=blue]
> that emulates this ever popular table layout (but is foldable):
>
> <tr><td align="right">f ield label</td><td><input type="text"
> ...></td></tr>
>
> What I don't remember is whether giving spans widths is legal or not?[/color]

No. Inline elements cannot have a width set.
[color=blue]
> This could be done with inline divs, but I seem to recall that either
> isn't legal or Opera is not fond of them. Which is it?[/color]

I don't know about Opera. But declaring a div (or any block level
element) as inline would, I think, then preclude setting a width.

My advice:
use label, since it assigns semantic meaning to the input labels.
Float them left, essentially making them block level. Declare a
width. Note that, in NS6/Mac (and possibly NS6/Win), floating a label
element makes it disappear entirely! IIRC, putting the actual text in
a span element, and floating that fixes it. I can't find the post at
the moment. I'll continue looking, and post a link if I find it.

--
Brian
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