CSS - Side By Side Divs In A Nested Div

Alright, I run a joomla site and im working on making a 100% tableless xhtml compliant template. I'm very new at this so im trying my best to learn.

I used the Lean version of skidoo's layout as the base and then added all the appropriate php tags needed to make it a joomla template. For the one part I need two modules to load right next to each other near the top of the page to mimic the table version of the Latest News and Popular Modules. I'll show you code snipits of how I did it.

Code:

 
html:
      <div id="contentColumn">
        <div class="inside">
          <!-- middle column content begin -->
          <p class="blocktext">
            <?php mosLoadModules( 'banner', -1 ); ?>
          </p>
          <div id="users">
            <?php mosLoadModules ( 'user1' ); ?>
          </div>
          <div id="users">
            <?php mosLoadModules ( 'user2' ); ?>
          </div>
          <p>
          <div id="nofloat">
            <?php mosLoadModules ( 'top' ); ?>
            <?php mosMainBody(); ?>
            <?php mosLoadModules ( 'bottom' ); ?>
          </div>

css:

/*top users */
#users {
    float:left;
	width: 300px;

}
#nofloat {
	float: none;
	
}

So anyways this does indeed put each div tag side by side but my problem is that I need the following PHP code ( <?php mosLoadModules ( 'top' ); ?> <?php mosMainBody(); ?> <?php mosLoadModules ( 'bottom' ); ?>) to return to the next line after the div's, but instead it jumps everything to the right and breaks the template. So I added the nofloat css and that fixed it and put the rest of the content below the side by side div's but now it doesn't work in FireFox. Now I tried padding-top and that worked in both browsers, but its not flexible as the side by side div modules are not always there and I don't want 200px of white space on the pages that don't show it. Also as a side note I tried putting <?php mosLoadModules ( 'user1' ); ?> and user2 into separate div tags that that floated left and right but it had the same outcome, so I stuck with one float left that seems to work the same.

My question is what can I do to make this content show after the side by side div's and not beside it in both browsers?

You can see what I mean by looking at this test site in both IE 6 and FireFox.
http://www.wii-volution.com/testbed/

Thanks for any help you guys can give me!

Hi!

I want to have let's say 4 divs of width:25% horizontally side-by-side.

Ex: (I'll ry to draw it )

| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |

Thank you.

So I'm not really new to CSS or HTML though I might as well be considering the last time I did anything in either that had much substance was a class back in high school, about 6 years ago.

This is what I want...

DIV1 --------------- DIV2 --------------- DIV 3

2 would be in the center with 1 and 3 floating left and right respectively.

Instead I'm getting this...

DIV1 --- DIV2

----------------------------------------- DIV 3

or

DIV1
DIV2
DIV3




...I hope you guys get the idea. I'm having trouble figuring it out.

My ext CSS sheet, if you care to look, is he
http:// livingway.110mb. com/mainstyle.css

the frame in question, he
http:// livingway.110mb. com/main.htm

I'm hoping it'll let you all look at them. It's nothing professional yet because I'm only trying to give an update idea to our "webmaster". Anywho, let me know what I'm doing wrong. My brain hurts right now.

i have two divs that are side by side and i want them to have the same height, but i will not know the height ahead of time as the content for at least one of the divs is dynamic (calendar list) and can contain no items up to as many items as there are time intervals in a day.

the html for the section in question is Code:

<div id="spotlight-wrapper">
	<div class="spotlight">
		<h3>Currently...</h3>

		<div id="training" class="spotlight-sub">
			<ul>
				<li><strong>Running</strong> 3mi/4mi/3mi</li>
				<li><strong>Bench Press</strong> 175lbs</li>
				<li><strong>Deadlift</strong> 205lbs</li>
				<li><strong>Squats</strong> 275lbs</li>
			</ul>
		</div>

		<ul class="inline-list">
			<li>
				<a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/features/crichton/airframe/" title="Random House Publishing: Airframe">
					<img src="/images/reading.png" alt="Airframe by Michael Crichton" />
				</a>
			</li>
			<li>
				<a href="http://www.google.com/musicl?lid=HnJbFL6nobL&aid=lqUKIAaw6tN&sa=X&oi=musiamp;c&ct=result" title="Google Music: Hinder - Extreme Behavior">
					<img src="/images/listening.png" alt="Extreme Behavior by Hinder" />
				</a>
			</li>
			<li>
				<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_(film)" title="300 the movie on Wikipedia">
					<img src="/images/movie.png" alt="300 - Tonight We Dine In Hell" />
				</a>
			</li>
			<li>
				<a href="http://www.fox.com/house/" title="Fox's House M.D. starring Hugh Laurie">
					<img src="/images/television.png" alt="House M.D. on Fox" />
				</a>
			</li>
		</ul>
	</div>

	<div class="spotlight">
		<h3>In the public...</h3>
		<div id="calendar">
			<ul id="events">
				<li>
		   		<strong>09/25 20:00 - 09/25 21:00</strong>
		   		<br />House MD
		    	</li>
		    	<li>
		   		<strong>09/26 16:00 - 09/26 17:00</strong>
		   		<br />Weekly Tempo Run
		    	</li>

		    	<li>
		   		<strong>09/26 17:30 - 09/26 18:30</strong>
		   		<br />RPM (Christi)
		    	</li>
		    	<li>
		   		<strong>09/27 06:00 - 09/27 07:30</strong>
		   		<br />Weight Training
		    	</li>
		    	<li>
               <strong>09/28 06:00 - 09/28 07:30</strong>
		   		<br />Weight Training
		    	</li>
		    	<li>
		   		<strong>09/28 08:30 - 09/28 09:30</strong>
		   		<br />RPM (Lauren)
		    	</li>
		    	<li>
		   		<strong>09/29 07:30 - 09/29 09:30</strong>
               <br />Long Run
		    	</li>
			</ul>
		</div>
	</div>
</div>

and my unsuccessful attempt at the necessary css Code:

div#spotlight-wrapper {
	min-height: 317px;
}

div.spotlight {
	width: 471px;
	height: 100%;
	float: left;
	margin: 19px 12px 7px 0;
	background: #373737;
	overflow: hidden;
}
	div.spotlight h3 { background: #555555; margin: 0; padding: 7px; }

here is a live sample

I've been having some issues getting a design for a site I'm co-authoring to display correctly using CSS. I know that what I'm trying to do should be possible, but I haven't been able to figure it out and am getting pretty damn frustrated with the whole thing. I could probably do it with tables, and right now I have it set up with some javascript that I threw together, but css+divs would be the ideal solution.

Anyways, this is basically what I want to try and do (that's the javascript version). Just resize the window a bit to see what i'm getting at.

Here's the source:
Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
	<title>Title</title>

	<style type="text/css">
		<!--
 
		#leftpane {
			float: left;
			height: 100%;
		 	border: 1px solid black;
		}


		#rightpane {
			float: right;
			height: 100%;
		 	border: 1px solid black;
		}

		-->
	</style>

	<script type="text/javascript">
		<!--
	
		// get rid of all this javascript and figure out a way to do this with css
		
		var windowWidth = 800;
		
		window.onload = function() {
			getWindowSize();
			resizeLeftPane();
		}
		
		window.onresize = function() { 
			getWindowSize();
			resizeLeftPane();
		}
	
		function getWindowSize() {
			if(window.innerWidth) {
				windowWidth = window.innerWidth;
			} else if(document.documentElement.clientWidth) {
				windowWidth = document.documentElement.clientWidth;
			} else if(document.body.clientWidth) {
				windowWidth = document.body.clientWidth;
			}	
		}
		
		function resizeLeftPane() {
			var rightpaneWidth = document.getElementById('rightpane').offsetWidth;
			var margin = 10;
			
			document.getElementById('leftpane').style.width = String(windowWidth - rightpaneWidth - margin * 3) +'px';
		}
		
		//-->
	</script>
</head>

<body>
	<div id="leftpane">
		<p>this pane needs to stretch as wide as it can while leaving room for the image at right, whose width is arbitrary</p>
	</div>
	<div id="rightpane">
		<img src="http://movingboxstudios.com/testz0rz/images/box.jpg" height="100%" alt="image" />
	</div>

</body>
</html>

Basically I need a way to have 2 elements next to eachother, 1 of which is an arbitrary size and the other be wide enough to fill the rest of the containing block. Any help would be much appreciated.



EDIT: Here's a link to the actual working design, maybe that'll help in understanding my question (don't open it in IE unless you want a facefull of ugly).