Why are Bootstrap tabs displaying tab-pane divs with incorrect widths when using highcharts?

Question

So I\'m creating a page with tabbed content using Twitter\'s Bootstrap, yet the content of my starting active div is always different than that of my other tabs. For example

Answer 1

The Cause

This is not a Highcharts issue, at least not by itself, the problem is caused by the fact that Bootstrap uses display: none to hide inactive tabs:

.tab-content > .tab-pane, .pill-content > .pill-pane {
    display: none;      /* this is the problem */
}

This causes Highcharts not able to get the expected width to initialize the chart, thus defaults to 600px. This would happen to other tools using the same approach to hide content.

A Pure CSS Solution

Instead of working around the issue with an extra redraw or delayed initialization, we can achieve the hidden effect using height: 0; overflow-y: hidden, this way the hidden tab panes are still in place and having valid width:

/* bootstrap hack: fix content width inside hidden tabs */
.tab-content > .tab-pane:not(.active),
.pill-content > .pill-pane:not(.active) {
    display: block;
    height: 0;
    overflow-y: hidden;
} 
/* bootstrap hack end */

Update: We now target inactive tabs directly, via :not(.active), to avoid possible side effect if any.

This solution is seamless, so you no longer have to worry whether the chart is inside a tab-pane or not. And it's efficient as it fixes the width issue in the first place, thus there's no need to workaround the width issue afterward via resize/redraw/reflow using javascript.

Note about cascading order

This patch needs to be loaded after bootstrap css, because of CSS cascading order rules, in short, the latter rule wins.

Demo

Before vs After

Tip: switch to the Profile tab to see the difference.