HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
over the content. To display the hidden context, hide the opaque layer,
revealing the content underneath.
H.3.1.6. The width attribute
Layers are only as big as necessary to contain their content. The initial
width of a layer is defined to be the distance from the point at which the
layer is created in the current text flow to the right margin. Netscape 4
then formats the layer's contents to that width and makes the height of
the layer tall enough to contain all of the layer's contents. If the con-
tents of the layer wind up smaller than the initial width, the layer's width
is reduced to this smaller amount.
You can explicitly set the width of a layer using the
width
attribute. The
value of this attribute defines the width of the layer in pixels or as a per-
centage of the containing layer. As expected, Netscape 4 then sets the
height based upon the size of the layer's contents, wrapped to the spe-
cified width. If elements in the layersuch as imagescannot be wrapped
and instead extend past the right margin of the layer, only a portion
of the element is shown. The remainder is clipped by the edge of the
layer and is not shown. This is similar to the behavior of an image in
the main document window. If the image extends beyond the edge of
the browser window, only a portion of the image is displayed. Unlike the
browser window, however, layers cannot sport scroll bars allowing the
user to scroll around in the layer's contents.
H.3.1.7. The src attribute
The contents of a layer are not restricted to what you type between its
<layer>
and
</layer>
tags; you can also refer to and automatically load
the contents of another document into the layer with the
src
attribute.
The value of the
src
attribute is the URL of the document containing the
layer's content.
