CSS Problems - Expanding Columns and graphics

[IBM]

There used to be a time that if you wanted a graphic to fill a space, you'd stick it inside a 100% table. Whatever the size of the page, there your table would be, and the graphic happily stretching away inside it.

Now, I've got a page, nice and simple. It's got a Header (800px by 40px), a navigation bar (800px by 20px), the main body (split up into a side bar on the left, and the main content on the right), and a footer.

Here's a pic


So I want the body section to expand. I want the divider graphic to repeat on the y axis to cover any expansion, and I want the footer to move downwards to respect any such expansion of the main body.

Sounds simple. But when I try it I get all kinds of problems. Either the expansion happens and the divider graphic doesn't grow with it, or the expansion makes the divider longer, but the footer doesn't move at all, leaving it with graphic all over the place.

Is it something to do with nesting the div tags correctly? Should the footer be placed within the side bar tag? Am I missing something?

There's no code to show yet, it's just a problem I've run into before and never resolved to my satisfaction. If anyone has any ideas, I'll try to replicate the problem I've had before and let you see, but I really don't want to have to start messing with this stuff again. Life's too short, you know?

[nvening]

You want the header (the blue image?) to stretch not repeat correct?? - im guessing you mean for different screen res?

[IBM]

Sorry, first attempt not clear enough.

The Body Section, split between the side bar and the main content area. Between the two is a 1px blue line running vertically between the header and the footer. I want this to expand. Typically I'd use a 1px by 1px graphic, and tile it. Or even a table cell set to that colour.

But now it's handled by CSS I don't want to use tables. And it's a pain in the arse sometimes.

[bobbyzero]

I'd use a repeating background on the body of the page, then override it for the header and footer so that the line doesn't show through.
(background would be as wide as the page, with the blue pixel in the right place, then tiled vertically)

Code-wise, I wouldn't put any of the divs inside each other. Usual method is Header - Body - Sidebar - Footer.

If you have some hosting, it might be worth installing Wordpress and the sandbox theme to play around with
http://www.plaintxt.org/themes/sandbox/

[IBM]

Bobby, cheers....when you mentioned about the repeating background I remember somebody elses page which did exactly that. At the time I couldn't figure out why they'd done it. Obvious when you think about it.

Thanks