Bootstrap fixed header and footer with scrolling body-content area in fluid-container

Question

I was surprised I could not find a simple answer to this problem by Googling, but most responses to scrolling content panels either did not work properly, or did not work wi

Answer 1

Another option would be using flexbox.

While it's not supported by IE8 and IE9, you could consider:

• Not minding about those old IE versions
• Providing a fallback
• Using a polyfill

Despite some additional browser-specific style prefixing would be necessary for full cross-browser support, you can see the basic usage either on this fiddle and on the following snippet:

html {
  height: 100%;
}
html body {
  height: 100%;
  overflow: hidden;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}
html body .container-fluid.body-content {
  width: 100%;
  overflow-y: auto;
}
header {
    background-color: #4C4;
    min-height: 50px;
    width: 100%;
}
footer {
    background-color: #4C4;
    min-height: 30px;
    width: 100%;
}

<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.2/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<header></header>
<div class="container-fluid body-content">
  Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>
  Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>
  Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>
  Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>
  Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>
</div>
<footer></footer>

Answer 2

Until I get a better option, this is the most "bootstrappy" answer I can work out:

JSFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/TrueBlueAussie/6cbrjrt5/

I have switched to using LESS and including the Bootstrap Source NuGet package to ensure compatibility (by giving me access to the bootstrap variables.less file:

in _layout.cshtml master page

• Move footer outside the body-content container
• Use boostrap's navbar-fixed-bottom on the footer
• Drop the <hr/> before the footer (as now redundant)

Relevant page HTML:

<div class="container-fluid body-content">
    @RenderBody()
</div>
<footer class="navbar-fixed-bottom">
    <p>&copy; @DateTime.Now.Year - My ASP.NET Application</p>
</footer>

In Site.less

• Set HTML and BODY heights to 100%
• Set BODY overflow to hidden
• Set body-content div position to absolute
• Set body-content div top to @navbar-height instead of hard-wiring value
• Set body-content div bottom to 30px.
• Set body-content div left and right to 0
• Set body-content div overflow-y to auto

Site.less

html {
    height: 100%;

    body {
        height: 100%;
        overflow: hidden;

        .container-fluid.body-content {
            position: absolute;
            top: @navbar-height;
            bottom: 30px;
            right: 0;
            left: 0;
            overflow-y: auto;
        }
    }
}

The remaining problem is there seems to be no defining variable for the footer height in bootstrap. If someone call tell me if there is a magic 30px variable defined in Bootstrap I would appreciate it.

Answer 3

Add the following css to disable the default scroll:

body {
    overflow: hidden;
}

And change the #content css to this to make the scroll only on content body:

#content {
    max-height: calc(100% - 120px);
    overflow-y: scroll;
    padding: 0px 10%;
    margin-top: 60px;
}

See fiddle here.

---

Edit:

Actually, I'm not sure what was the issue you were facing, since it seems that your css is working. I have only added the HTML and the header css statement:

html {
  height: 100%;
}
html body {
  height: 100%;
  overflow: hidden;
}
html body .container-fluid.body-content {
  position: absolute;
  top: 50px;
  bottom: 30px;
  right: 0;
  left: 0;
  overflow-y: auto;
}
header {
    position: absolute;
    left: 0;
    right: 0;
    top: 0;
    background-color: #4C4;
    height: 50px;
}
footer {
    position: absolute;
    left: 0;
    right: 0;
    bottom: 0;
    background-color: #4C4;
    height: 30px;
}

<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.2/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<header></header>
<div class="container-fluid body-content">
  Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>
  Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>
  Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>
  Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>
  Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>Lorem Ipsum<br/>
</div>
<footer></footer>