Lining up the columns??

I tried trident. Boy, have I tried trident. I have at one time or another modified practically every variable, trying to get it to work with my design.

There are two really BIG problems: I can’t seem to get both left and right menus to display at the top of their columns. AND I cannot widen the left column. I mean, I have altered every possible number, but that column will not budge. It *should* be slightly bigger than the imagemap for site nav. I’ve worked on this so much yesterday I’m punch drunk…got up early this morning and started working on it again. I *know* this is just a matter of minor adjustments, but I’m running out of ways to tweak it. I’m to the hair-pulling stage now. (sigh) My blog is at: http://www.gymshoesmusic.us/Amp/ Below you’ll see what the current .css looks like, if anyone wants to take a crack at it. I’m going to get breakfast and a shower. (BTW, I *did* try vesuvius, but there was a layout problem with the index and css when I installed the default! *Huge* gap between my last entry and the next…so I’ve gone back to battling Trident.)
Thanks for your help and suggestions.

body {
background: #000000;
font-family: ‘Lucida Grande’, ‘Lucida Sans Unicode’, Verdana, sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
text-align: center; /* IE 5.5 hack */
}

#rap {
width: 1000px;
background: #FFB531 url(‘industrial1.jpg’) repeat-y left;
margin: auto;
margin-top: 20px;
margin-bottom: 20px;
padding: 0 0px 0 60px;
border: 1px solid #565;
border-bottom: 0;
text-align: left; /* IE 5.5 hack part II */
}

#container {
background: transparent url(‘wp-images/bg1.gif’) repeat-y right;
}

#masthead {
background: #C60808;
font: italic normal 100% ‘Times New Roman’, Times, serif;
letter-spacing: 0.2em;
margin: 0;
padding: 0 10px 0 60px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #565;
}

#main {
float: left;
width: 500px;
height: 100%;
}

#content {
float: right;
width: 700px;
padding: 0px 0px 0px 120px;
}

#menu {
float: left;
width: 300px;
padding: 0 100px 0 100px;

}

#rmenu {
float: right;
width: 195px;
}

Thanks for your suggestions.

I *did* try to get the math right, I *did* make main and content the same number and I *did* narrow the rap, but all of those things either singly or together make it MUCH worse.

I currently have both content and main at 500. I’m not sure what you mean about the math adding up. Assuming that “content” and “main” are counted as one (since I cannot figure out what the difference between them), I’ve got a column that’s 195 & one that’s 200. Add in the 500 central column and that’s a total of 895…5 pixels short of my 900 rap—and I can’t decrease the rap because it messes up the right menu.

The original numbers for the Trident template were: rap 797, main 645, content 485, menu 150, rmenu 150…those numbers don’t add up either! And content and main aren’t the same number!

I *had* to increase rap to make the content on at least the right column display at the top of the column. If I decrease the rap to even 850, the right menu goes to the bottom of the page. 🙁

Using all the original widths in the Trident design gives me *both* columns with the navigation text at the bottom of the page.

I still haven’t gotten the left menu *up* to the top of the column. I’d like the design to match the overall site design as closely as possible. The modification I did of the original WordPress css looked good except the left and right columns did not end evenly with the middle text column. If I can’t get Trident modified to get that left menu to the top I may have to go back to it. 🙁

I’m open to more suggestions…

PS…In case you’ve lost track, here’s the current settings:

#rap {
width: 900px;
background: #FFB531 url(‘wp-images/industrial2.jpg’) repeat-y left;
margin: auto;
margin-top: 20px;
margin-bottom: 20px;
padding: 0 0px 0 0px;
border: 1px solid #565;
border-bottom: 0;
text-align: left; /* IE 5.5 hack part II */
}

#container {
background: transparent url(‘wp-images/right1.gif’) repeat-y right;
}

#masthead {
background: #C60808;
font: italic normal 100% ‘Times New Roman’, Times, serif;
letter-spacing: 0.2em;
margin: 0;
padding: 0 10px 0 60px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #565;
}

#main {
float: left;
width: 510px;
padding: 0px 0px 0px 202px;
height: 100%;
}

#content {
float: right;
width: 500px;
padding: 0px 0px 0px 202px;
}

#menu {
float: left;
width: 200px;

}

#rmenu {
float: right;
width: 195px;
color: #fff;
}

Well, sachmo and I worked on this and neither of us could get trident to work the way it should. 🙁

I did, today, finally get the site nav menu up to the top of the left column, but now the blog menu on the right side is down at the bottom of the page! 🙁

Could someone suggest something for me to tweak? Here’s what I’ve got up now:

#main {
float: right;
padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
height: 100%;
}

#content {
float: right;
width: 500px;
padding: 0px 250px 0px 0px;
}

#menu {
float: left;
width: 200px;
padding: 10px 0px 10px 8px;

}

#rmenu {
float: right;
width: 195px;
color: #fff;
}

Thanks! 🙂