title: 100% height with fixed footer and embedded Google Map
body: <p>I have a problem with a layout - it's not online anywhere, just local, but if you copy and paste the code below into an html page and run it locally you will see the same page I do.</p>
  
  <p>It's very nearly there. What I'm trying to achieve is a page with no scrollbars using up all available vertical space. Yes, I can set "overflow:hidden" on the container declaration and that helps, but it's not quite right.  I want to actually have the google map surrounded with a 1em border.  I have this on 3 sides but the 100% height declaration on the content div crashes the bottom border. If you don't realise the implications of a percentage-sized google map div, then the parent HAS to have a height declared for it to work.  As the footer is absolute and outside of the flow, there is no "bottom" border to work to and the layout just doesn't work. The content div 100% height basically seems to take its size from the viewport and not the containing div.</p>
  
  <p>It's driving me mad... just can't seem to work out how to do this and I'd really appreciate some input.</p>
  
  <p>Start here:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"&gt;
  
  &lt;html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;
  &lt;head&gt;&lt;title&gt;Google map test&lt;/title&gt;
  &lt;script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;
  &lt;style type="text/css"&gt;
  html,body {
   margin:0;
   padding:0;
   height:100%; /* needed for container min-height */
   background:fff;
  
   font-family:arial,sans-serif;
   font-size:small;
   color:#666;
  }
  
  h1 { 
   font:1.5em georgia,serif; 
   margin:0.5em 0;
  }
  
  h2 {
   font:1.25em georgia,serif; 
   margin:0 0 0.5em;
  }
  
  div#container {
   position:relative; /* needed for footer positioning*/
   margin:0 auto; /* center, not in IE5 */
   width:960px;
   background:#fff;
   border-left:1px solid #ccc;
   border-right:1px solid #ccc;
  
   /*height:auto !important;  real browsers */
   height:100%; /* IE6: treaded as min-height*/
  
   min-height:100%; /* real browsers */
  }
  
  div#header {
   border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;
   border-left:1em solid #ccc;
   height:108px;
   position:relative;
  }
   div#header h1 
   {
       position:absolute;
       bottom: 0;
       left:0.5em;
   }
  div#header2
  {
   border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;
   border-left:1em solid #999;
      height: 40px;
      position: relative;
  }
   div#header2 p 
   {
       position:absolute;
       bottom: 0;
       left:0.5em;
   }
  div#headerInternal
  {
   border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;
   border-left:1em solid #cc3300;
      height: 40px;
      position: relative;
  }
   div#headerInternal p 
   {
       position:absolute;
       bottom: 0;
       left:0.5em;
   }
  
  div#headerInternal2
  {
      height: 40px;
      position: relative;
  }
   div#headerInternal2 p 
   {
       position:absolute;
       bottom: 0;
       left:0.5em;
   }
  
  
  div#rightCol 
  {
      float:right;
      width:29%;
   padding-bottom:5em; /* bottom padding for footer */
  }
  
  div#content 
  {
   float:left;
      width:70%;
      height:100%; /* fill that hole! */
   border-right:1px solid #ccc;
  }
   div#content p {
   }
  
  div#footer {
      position:absolute;
   clear:both;
   width:100%;
   height:40px;
   bottom:0; /* stick to bottom */
   background:#fff;
   border-top:1px solid #ccc;
  }
   div#footer p {
    padding:1em;
    margin:0;
   }
  
  .paddedContent 
  {
      height:100%;
      margin: 1em;
  }
  &lt;/style&gt; 
  
  &lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;
  function initialize() {
      var latlng = new google.maps.LatLng(52.397, 1.644);
      var myOptions = {
          zoom: 8,
          center: latlng,
          mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP
      };
      var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById("map_canvas"), myOptions);
  }
  
  &lt;/script&gt;
  &lt;/head&gt;
  
  &lt;body onload="initialize()"&gt;
      &lt;div id="container"&gt; 
      &lt;div id="header"&gt; 
          &lt;h1&gt;Title here...&lt;/h1&gt; 
      &lt;/div&gt; 
      &lt;div id="header2"&gt; 
          &lt;p&gt;Secondary menu...&lt;/p&gt;
      &lt;/div&gt; 
  
      &lt;div id="rightCol"&gt;
          &lt;div id="headerInternal2"&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Right Header&lt;/p&gt;
          &lt;/div&gt; 
          &lt;p class="paddedContent"&gt;This is the right column&lt;/p&gt;
      &lt;/div&gt;
      &lt;div id="content"&gt; 
          &lt;div id="headerInternal"&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Page Context Menu&lt;/p&gt;
          &lt;/div&gt; 
          &lt;div class="paddedContent"&gt;
              &lt;div id="map_canvas" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt; 
          &lt;/div&gt;
          &lt;div id="footer"&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;This footer is absolutely positioned&lt;/p&gt; 
          &lt;/div&gt; 
      &lt;/div&gt; 
  &lt;/div&gt; 
  &lt;/body&gt;
  &lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>