All I want is a sticky, permanent header and footer and the rest of the page for...

btbuildem · on Oct 18, 2019

  .foo {
    display: grid;
    grid-template-rows: 10% 80% 10%;
    height: 100vh;
  }

  <div class="foo">
    <div>header</div>
    <div>text</div>
    <div>footer</div>
  </div>

Izkata · on Oct 19, 2019

That'll still shrink/stretch the header/footer based on window size, which usually isn't what you want (headers and footers usually being a static height). Really, this layout flows from top to bottom, so my instinct wouldn't even be to use grid - just leave the divs as blocks and give them the appropriate height:

  <div>
    <div class='header'></div>
    <div class='content'></div>
    <div class='footer'></div>
  </div>

  .header { height: 30px; }
  .footer { height: 20px; }
  .content {
    height: calc(100vh - 50px);
    overflow: auto;
  }

Bonus: If you have to support it still, this version works all the way down to IE9.

tux1968 · on Oct 18, 2019

Don't think that has the desired effect; at least if I understood the request properly.

The text area won't get a scrollbar when more text is added to fill the view area. It seems in this case you would have to manually ensure that the text you gave could fit in 80% of the screen, or bad things happen visually. Also, the header and footer aren't permanent, they are affected by the entire-page scrollbar.

nicoburns · on Oct 18, 2019

All you need is an `overflow-y: scroll` on the text element, and it will work as desired. The whole page won't have a scrollbar, because no content will be overflowing past it's boundaries.

Grid is ideal for these kind of layouts.

tux1968 · on Oct 18, 2019

Thanks, that worked. Although I did still have to suppress the page scrollbar with "body { overflow-y: hidden; }" Not sure why.

snuxoll · on Oct 19, 2019

Might need to use normalize or reset to deal with margin collapse, even then I’ve noticed the behavior at random times. The CSS box model is simple yet obtuse all at once.

zozbot234 · on Oct 18, 2019

HTML Frameset/Frames used to do that quite nicely. I'm not sure why they were removed in newer HTML standards, with no good replacement.

neon_electro · on Oct 18, 2019

If the header and footer are permanent, what does the text do as you scroll the page if not going behind those elements?

mkl · on Oct 18, 2019

Maybe they want to avoid breaking scrolling with space and page down, which so many sites with headers and footers do by having the covered up text still count for positioning.

wolco · on Oct 18, 2019

use the following attr on the element and put it on top for the header and bottom for the footer.

position: fixed;

arminiusreturns · on Oct 18, 2019

To prevent header and footer eating text and nav? Also doesnt using fixed take it out of the grid?

wolco · on Oct 18, 2019

You don't want those elements part of your grid.