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Thanks to a leak of Syrian web censorship data, internet researchers have been able to analyse, for the first time, exactly what steps an authoritarian regime takes to restrict traffic.
Back in October 2011, a group of hackers and net activists called Telecomix leaked the logs showing exactly how Syrian authorities were monitoring and filtering internet traffic within the country. The logs comprised of 600 GB of data representing 750 million requests on the web and showing exactly which requests were allowed and which were denied.
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Horizontal layouts of all kinds have intrigued me ever since I found out you could do that. I don’t know exactly why I’m fascinated with them… maybe it’s just my inner rebel talking. Whatever the reason, I’m just about ready to declare vertical scrolling obsolete, passé, and soooo last millennium.
Okay, that’s not really what I mean. Still, with the sudden increase in the amount of touch screens lying around, it becomes more difficult to assert that “up and down” are our best options. “Right and left” have become viable directions for content placement, as long as you’re not dealing with substantial volumes of text.
I never bothered to really build any horizontal layouts, though. The technical problems and limitations always seemed to outweigh any stylistic or navigational benefits there might be. That was before, however; and this is now…
I came across the technique described in this article the way I usually come across things: by trying to do something else entirely. I was attempting (you can laugh) to create a CSS grid framework based on display: table-cell (okay, stop laughing now).
Well, for reasons that now seem obvious, it didn’t work. You try making a responsive image grid with the table-cell property. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Simply put, table cells are designed to form a single, horizontal row. (I said stop laughing!) That’s what they do, and they don’t like it when you try to make them do anything else. I gave up on that project. A few weeks later, though, I was considering redesigning my portfolio again.
I thought it would be nice to put all of my projects on one page. I considered several organizational solutions for displaying my web, writing, and photography projects, and came up with this: I want to display these three categories as horizontally scrolling rows of thumbnails.
That’s when it hit me: “Table cells would be perfect for that. Also, you can vertically center things inside them! I’m so smart it hurts!” [Some dramatization here.]
I haven’t gone and redesigned my site yet, instead, I coded up the two examples of my technique that are in the .zip file linked to at the bottom of this article.
So, to give you a visual, here’s a demo I’ve worked up.
Here’s how each row is marked up:
<div class="horizontal">
<div class="table">
<article>
<h3>Project Title</h3>
</article>
<!-- Repeat this part as many times as necessary. -->
</div>
</div>
From there, the CSS required to make it work is simple enough:
// This container element gives us the scrollbars we want.
div.horizontal {
width: 100%;
height: 400px;
overflow: auto;
}
// table-layout: fixed does a lot of the magic, here. It makes sure that the "table cells" retain the pixel dimensions you want.
.table {
display: table;
table-layout: fixed;
width: 100%;
}
// Arranging your content inside the "cells" is as simple as using the vertical-align and text-align properties. Floats work, too.
article {
width: 400px;
height: 400px;
display: table-cell;
background: #e3e3e3;
vertical-align: middle;
text-align: center;
}
// Some styling for contrast.
article:nth-child(2n+2)
{
background: #d1d1d1;
}
Some horizontal layout techniques require the container element (div.horizontal, in this case) to have a defined pixel width equal to the combined width of the elements it contains. Other techniques require display: inline-block; I’m not a fan of this technique. With table-cell, just keep adding elements whenever you need to, and you’re good to go — it’s perfect for use with a CMS.
Okay, the other kind of horizontal layout is the full-screen horizontal layout. Creating this with the table-cell property requires some JavaScript. I used jQuery to speed things up. The JS requirement might make this technique more situationally useful, but it’s still cool.
Here’s a working demo.
The markup is similar:
<div class="horizontal">
<div class="table">
<section>
<h1>Full-Screen Horizontal Layouts</h1>
<p>Made with <code>display: table-cell;</code></p>
<p>By Ezequiel Bruni</p>
</section>
<!-- Repeat this part as necessary. -->
</div>
</div>
Here, however, it’s just one “row” that’s been made to fit the size of the browser window. Each <section> has, in this case, also been made to fit the browser window.
Here’s the CSS:
// Don't touch this part. It helps.
html, body {
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
overflow: hidden;
}
// In this case, I didn't want a scrollbar, so I used overflow: hidden. The container element is more essential than ever, though. The body element will not do.
div.horizontal {
display: block;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
overflow: hidden;
position: static;
}
.table {
display: table;
table-layout: fixed;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
}
.table > section {
width: 1600px; // The width is based on my monitor. It's replaced by jQuery anyway. Percentage widths do not work.
height: 100%;
display: table-cell;
background: #e3e3e3;
vertical-align: middle;
text-align: center;
}
As stated above, percentage widths do not work. Pixel widths are required. If you want to make each section fit your window dimensions, you’ll need to do it with JavaScript:
$(window).load(function() {
var vWidth = $(window).width();
var vHeight = $(window).height();
$('.table > section').css('width', vWidth).css('height', vHeight);
});
$(window).resize(function() {
var vWidth = $(window).width();
var vHeight = $(window).height();
$('.table > section').css('width', vWidth).css('height', vHeight);
}); You’ll notice that I also added the height. Well, that’s for Firefox. Firefox doesn’t play nice with percentage heights on the table-cell elements (incidentally, Firefox also throws a hissy fit if you make cells relatively positioned, and place absolutely positioned elements inside them).
Well, that’s my technique for horizontally placing content. You can download the source files here.
Have you designed a horizontal site? Have you used a different technique for horizontal scrolling? Let us know in the comments.
Featured image/thumbnail, sideways image via Shutterstock.
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-->We want to partner with splash [an organization that Brings students to UMBC on March 8th and teaches them fun skills]. We hope to help co-organize their event. We need 2-4 NSCS members to help out to serve as co-organizers and or volunteers.
If you want to help co-organize/ volunteer at SPLASH send an email to Jennifer Yim at jeyi1@umbc.edu Tell her you are with NSCS & would like to volunteer at splash.
--> We have March2College day coming up soon on April 11th, if you are interested in helping out. Please contact Keerthi Yarlagadda at vh91534@umbc.edu
March2College day is a day, where we bring students to UMBC and show them what college is like and have them take part in activities that make them excited about College.
--> We continue our Tutoring at catonsville middle school this semester. If you enjoy passing on knowledge. We would love to have 5 to 10 people regularly tutor on Wednesdays & thursdays from 3pm to 4pm.
You will need to be fingerprinted and background checked, however this will be paid for and transportation can be provided. If you are interested in this Tutoring please send an email to Keerthi Yarlagadda at
vh91534@umbc.edu
--> ask If anyone knows how to make videos, if they do tell them to send an email to ife at Ifemayo1@umbc.edu
--> We also have two new co-advisors Dr Sue smalls and Dr Mavis Sanders
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This article walks web developers through the basics behind the progress markup element and how it can be used to show progress in your HTML5 pages.
]]>Nearly two dozen UMBC faculty researchers and bwtech@UMBC entrepreneurs attended a media workshop held in the research and technology park’s new CyberHive on Thursday, February 20th. UMBC’s Office of Institutional Advancement organized the event in collaboration with bwtech@UMBC as an opportunity for researchers and entrepreneurs to learn about media relations and strategies to gain visibility for their work.
Attendees heard from three local journalists: Sarah Gantz from the Baltimore Business Journal, Liz Gormisky from Defense Daily, and Lisa Palmer, an NSF-funded science communication fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center and freelance journalist who has written for publications such as The New York Times, Scientific American and Slate.
In their talks and the Q&A session that followed, Gantz, Gormisky and Palmer discussed how to communicate and build relationships with journalists to generate interest in new research or technologies. Additional topics included how various types of publications work on different timetables and use different types of sources, and how to tailor story pitches to fit particular news outlets.
]]>Kovair Software announced today that it has successfully released a migration and synchronization solution between HP Quality Center, Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Microsoft Test Manager (MTM).
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