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CSS Layout in Freeway (Pro only)

Note, if you want to create layouts that hold together when the text is increased in size then take a look at our Relative Page Layout KnowledgeBase article.

Freeway has supported full CSS layout since Freeway 4. You can draw absolute positioned layer items, fixed position layer items and relative positioned in-flow items. All these items are output as div elements with different CSS values to change the way they react to other CSS Layout items.

Absolute items

To draw an absolute layer item, select CSS Layout in the toolbar, then select the HTML option in the toolbar and draw an item. Note the Layer option will be checked and Absolute will be selected in the dropdown in the Inspector palette.

Absolute layer items are great because you can stack them on top of other items without them affecting anything else. They will always remain in the same position in the page because they are absolutely positioned. They can be positioned from the top or bottom and left or right of the page.

Fixed in Window items

A Fixed in Window item is created exactly the same way as an Absolute item, just select Fixed in Window from the Inspector palette, with the item selected.

Fixed in Window items will always remain in the same position in the browser window, regardless of the scroll position. The only exception to
this rule is when the page is being viewed in Internet Explorer 6 and below. Other items on the page are not affected by Fixed in Window items

In-flow items

To draw an in-flow item, double click the page, or any HTML item (to act as a container) and select Insert HTML Item from the Insert menu.

In-flow items can move position in the page if other in-flow items increase in size. If a visitor increases the size of the text in the page, or some content gets dynamically added to an in-flow item other in-flow items will get pushed down the page so they can still be seen. The only drawback to this is that the items can't be manually positioned in Freeway, they must be inserted into container items and positioned using margins. Freeway 5.5 has a new feature call Relative Page Layout (RPL) that addresses this problem by automating the process. To use this Action, make sure your pages are laid out using a grid structure. See the RPL KnowledgeBase article for more information.

There are also some great third party tutorials, screencasts and sample files to explain CSS Layout, in particular in-flow items, in Freeway. You can find them here:

http://www.thebigerns.com/freeway/stretchilina/
http://www.danjasker.com/store/screencasts/details/flexible-layouts-using-inline-box-model

For more information on CSS flow layout in Freeway take a look at page 11 and onwards in the Freeway Reference Guide.


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Last Updated
11th of February, 2009

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