Help needed with V9 CSS layout

[Goz]

If you can hear a rythmic dull thud over here in rural Northants, it's my head on the desk.

I'm redesigning a site and trying to stick a CSS layout where ever possible. But, the content in my right column starts below the finishing point of the content in either of the other two columns!

I've been looking for two days without joy.

If anyone with a greater understanding of CSS gets a moment and would like to put me out of my misery....



Andy

[TraceyHand]

ok..i don't have time to look too deeply into it but my money would be on floats and clears?

I presume you've worked that much out but I'd maybe look at it again from scratch (from a float/clear POV), tbh

[jont]

There is some seriously strange coding in there

#rightcolumn {
position:relative;
width:185px;
float:right;
margin-right:-184px;
color:#000;
left:1px;
}

for example is a bodge too far

I would seriously look at starting from almost afresh ... probably in Notepad to get the basics of the 3 column structure working first with some coloured backgrounds and then implementing into the outer layout.

Some of the nested inner <div> are also set at 100% .... this can have a bad effect especially in IE

[Goz]

I hear what you're saying Jon.

It is not a structure I designed myself. I "borrowed" it and applied it to my outer layer within this site. This structure has the benefit of having the main content higher up the document - ahead of the left and right columns (an SEO benefit, I believe). It also works in IE 6 & 7; Firefox 1.5 & 2; Safari and Opera 8.1 & 9

I've moved the design to this from a fluid layout - the reason for the move was when I resized windows I was losing elements all over the place! So, I opted for a fixed layout in the end.



I have found my problem - and it is a type of answer! I had declared "outerwrap" as an ID in my CSS but it should have been a class. A "#" instead of a "." How many times had I looked at that?

thanks for your replies.... must be time to give up now.....