Why Does The Overflow-Y Property Not Work with Percent Height

Why Does The overflow-y Property Not Work With Percent Height

TL;DR Use the viewport height/width instead of a percentage. Change 100% to 100vh, and you're done!

EDIT:

The percentages take the precentage of the parent element. For example:

console.log("Parent's width: " + document.getElementById("parent").offsetWidth);
console.log("Child's width: " + document.getElementById("child").offsetWidth);

#parent {
  background: yellow;
  width: 500px;
  height: 150px;
}

#child {
  background: orange;
  width: 50%;
  height: 100px;
}

<div id="parent">
  <div id="child">
    I am 250px wide!
  </div>
</div>

Why is percentage height not working on my div?

Use vh (viewport height) instead of percentage. It will get the height of the browser and size it accordingly, e.g.

height:90vh;

try this code

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>JS Bin</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id ="wrapper">
    <div id="tabs" ng-controller="TabsDataCtrl">
        <tabset>
            <tab id="tab1" heading="{{tabs[0].title}}" ng-click="getContent(0)" active="tabs[0].active"
               disabled="tabs[0].disabled">
            </tab>

            <tab id="tab2" heading="{{tabs[2].title}}" ng-click="getContent(2)" active="tabs[2].active"
                 disabled="tabs[2].disabled">
            </tab>
        </tabset>
    </div>

    <div id="leaflet_map" ng-controller="iPortMapJobController">
        <leaflet center="center" markers="markers" layers="layers"></leaflet>
    </div>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

with css

<style>
    #wrapper{height:60vh;}
    #tabs {width:20% float:left; height:60vh; overflow-y:scroll; overflow-x:hidden;}
    #leaflet-map{width:78%; height:60vh; overflow-y:scroll;  overflow-x:hidden;}
</style>

Div height percentage based but still scrolling

You could try the following.

You HTML is:

<div id="container">
    <div id="header">The header...</div>
    <div id="content">
        <div id="messages">
            <div class="message">example</div>
             ...
            <div class="message">example</div>
        </div>
        <div id="input">
            <div class="spacer">
                <input type="text" />
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

Apply the following CSS:

html, body {
    height: 100%;
}
body {
    margin:0;
}
#header {
    background:#333;
    height: 50px;
    position: fixed;
    top: 0;
    width: 100%;
}
#content {
    position: absolute;
    top: 50px;
    left: 0;
    right: 0;
    bottom: 45px;
    overflow-y: scroll;
}
#messages {
    overflow: auto;
}
#messages .message {
    height: 79px;
    background: #999;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #000;
}
#input {
    position:fixed;
    bottom:0;
    left:0;
    width:100%;
    height: 45px;
}
#input .spacer {
    padding: 5px;
}
#input input {
    width: 100%;
    height: 33px;
    font-size: 20px;
    line-height: 33px;
    border: 1px solid #333;
    text-indent: 5px;
    color: #222;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

See demo at: http://jsfiddle.net/audetwebdesign/5Y8gq/

First, set the height of 100% to the html and body tags, which allows you to reference the view port height.

You want the #header to be fixed towards the top of the page using position: fixed, similarly for your footer #input.

The key is to use absolute positioning on #content to stretch it between the bottom edge of the header and the top edge of the footer, and then apply overflow-y: scroll to allow it to scroll the content (list of messages).

Comment
The source code for the #input block may be placed outside of the #content block.

scroll bar on div with overflow:auto and percentage height

In answer to your question, yes overflow:auto will work, but you will need height: 100% on the HTML tag as well:

html,body {    
    height:100%;
    margin: 0;
}
#header {
    height: 100%;
}
#content {
    height: 100%;
    overflow: auto;
}

The way your markup is structured though will produce two divs both the same height as the viewport one on top of the other. Is that what you intended?

If so here is a jsFiddle that illustrates your example. I've tweaked the markup and added additional content so that the content div overflows as you require.

http://jsfiddle.net/chrissp26/WsNjm/

Why Does The Overflow-Y Property Not Work with Percent Height