Box as URL

Text container entirely as a link

[Alano]

Hi all,

I am developing my first web site. Within the main page I have three boxes containing text describing what services we aim to provide and each box has a background image. I want to have the entire box as a link to another page. How do I acheive this?

Thanks in advance

Regards

Alano

[benihana]

can you post a markup sample?

[graeme_p]

Put the image in the foreground, and put the text above it - put the text in the same div as the image, relatively position that div, and wrap an absolutely positioned div around the text.

[benihana]

or something like - CSS:

a {
display:block;
border:1px solid #333;
padding:12px 24px; /* top-bottom left-right */
background:#fff url(background.jpg) top left no-repeat;
}

[drhowarddrfine]

You can now wrap any(?) element in an anchor tag now.

<a><div></div></a>

[benihana]

but there is very rarely a need to.

[lucy24]

You can now wrap any(?) element in an anchor tag now.

Mechanically it's been possible for a long time-- that is, browsers will render the link as intended. I remember seeing it in a document made in 2011 with an XHTML DTD.

:: detour to dig up archived copy ::

Yup, <div>s inside the <a>. The difference is that the html (5) validator doesn't kick up a fuss if you treat <a> as anything other than an inline element.

[drhowarddrfine]

@benihana I wouldn't say that. Take what we have in a menu where an image of a person on the left and their description on the right but you want the whole thing to link to their bio and you want anyone to click anywhere on that element to do so. Wrapping the whole thing in an anchor is easy.

[benihana]

@drhowarddrfine personally id approach something like:

<li>
<p>
<a>
<img>
</a>
</p>
</li>

I guess i meant there isn't often a need to wrap a <div> specifically in an <a>, but I see your point.

[Alano]

Thanks everyone, some useful responses. Benihana I have attempted this the way you have advised and it works. However, one strange thing happens. The text in the box has a header and then a list of bullet list but the space between the header and the bullet list is NOT a hyperlink, but the rest of the box is. What am I doing wrong please?