CSS: Placing divs left/center/right inside header

Question

I've been trying to create a site with the following structure:

But I can't seem to get the header correct (e1 left, e2 centered, e3 right). I want the three elements e1, e2 and e3 to be left, middle and right positioned. This is what I'm trying:

<div id="wrapper"> <div id="header">     <div id="header-e1">         1     </div>     <div id="header-e2">         2     </div>     <div id="header-e3">         3     </div> </div> <div id="nav">     links </div> <div id="content">     content </div> <div id="footer">     footer </div> </div> 

With this css:

#wrapper {     width: 95%;     margin: 20px auto;     border: 1px solid black; }  #header {     margin: 5px; } #header-e1 {     float: left;     border: 1px solid black; } #header-e2 {     float: left;     border: 1px solid black; } #header-e3 {      border: 1px solid black; }  #nav {     margin: 5px; } #content {     margin: 5px; } #footer {     margin: 5px; } 

Can someone give me tips to what I can do? The structure is going to be used on a mobile website.

UPDATE

The code I have above gives me this: But I want the 2 centered and the 3 on the right side. I don't want to set the width to a percent because the content in the elements may vary, meaning it may be 20/60/20 - 10/80/10 - 33/33/33 or something else.

Answer 1

Utilize the Magic of Overflow: Hidden

If you can swap the html position of 2 & 3 like so:

<div id="header-e1">     1 is wider </div> <div id="header-e3">     3 is also </div> <div id="header-e2">     2 conforms </div> 

Then you can set this css which will cause 2 to "fill" the available space because of the overlow: hidden on it. So if 1 & 3 expand, 2 narrows (shrink window down to see what happens at really small size).

#header-e1 {float: left;} #header-e2 {overflow: hidden;} #header-e3 {float: right;} 

Technically, you could keep your current html order and your float: left on both 1 & 2 and make 3 the flex div with overflow: hidden. You could do the same with 1 by reversing the order of the html completely and setting 2 & 3 to float: right with 1 having overflow: hidden. To me it would seem best to have the middle flex, but you know your application better than I.

Answer 2

If you are trying to make the site with a responsive width, you can try the following (33% is roughly one-third):

#header-e1 {     float: left;     width:33%;     border: 1px solid black; }  #header-e2 {     float: left;     width:33%;     border: 1px solid black; }  #header-e3 {     float: left;     width:33%;     border: 1px solid black; } 

You could also used fixed widths for the divs. If you want the further from each other you can play with their left/right margins etc. Hope that helps!

Here is an edit for no widths:

#wrapper {     position:relative; (add to wrapper) }  #header-e1 {     position:absolute;     left:0;     border:1px solid black; }  #header-e2 {     position:absolute;     left:50%;     border:1px solid black; }  #header-e3 {     position:absolute;     right:0;     border: 1px solid black; }