How to make a div fill a remaining horizontal space?

Question

I have 2 divs: one in the left side and one in the right side of my page. The one in the left side has fixed width and I want the one of the right side to f

Answer 1

The solution comes from the display property.

Basically you need to make the two divs act like table cells. So instead of using float:left, you'll have to use display:table-cell on both divs, and for the dynamic width div you need to set width:auto; also. The both divs should be placed into a 100% width container with the display:table property.

Here is the css:

.container {display:table;width:100%}
#search {
  width: 160px;
  height: 25px;
  display:table-cell;
  background-color: #FFF;
}
#navigation {
  width: auto;
  display:table-cell;
  /*background-color: url('../images/transparent.png') ;*/
  background-color: #A53030;
}

*html #navigation {float:left;}

And the HTML:

IMPORTANT:For Internet Explorer you need to specify the float property on the dynamic width div, otherwise the space will not be filled.

I hope that this will solve your problem. If you want, you can read the full article I wrote about this on my blog.