All DIVS positioned by default relatively. There are some situations when you might need to use absolute position for element of a page but in most cases
positining div relatively will serve you design needs. Beside absolutly position divs not always behave they way they should.


Cheers, DS

I meant I reset all divs by default be relative.

DS

Relative means, 'relative to where the element WAS (because you'll be moving it) in the normal document flow.' However, as mentioned, it's also the means by which you say a div is to the be index point (top left for 0,0) for any child within that div.

I use absolute and relative about the same. If I know the content is set and not dynamic, then I use absolute which eliminates more css bugs than dealing with floats and if there are small changes, no worries, I just update coordinates.

But, lately I've been using JQuery and its positioning utility because it doesn't require any element to be 'relative' nor 'absolute'... and you can plan for dynamic content as if you were using floats but have much more precise measurements. One wrapper contains, say, four columns of info and in the the document flow, more content is added before that wrapper, then the wrapper moves down to allow for the new content but since JQuery's position is based on that wrapper and the child elements are based off of the wrapper that moved, it all moves.

Check it out. Search for "JQuery" "position utility" NOTE: it's not the same as using the position method as in $(#someDiv).position(top:20,left:40); that's essentially the same kind of thing as using sheer CSS absolute positioning.

An example of what you do:
$("#myContent").position({
my: "left top", // Horizontal then vertical, this line (yes, it's 'my') defines what is being moved and what point to reference..in this case the top left of the div
at: "right top", // Horizontal then vertical, where are you aligning the div to? In this case to the right top of the div below
of: $("#referenceDiv"), // Element to position against...sort of what would be position:relative.
offset: "20 0" // Pixel values for offset, Horizontal then vertical, negative values OK
});