Making Buttons - <Button> or <Div>

a vs button vs div vs input type='button

There's a good article that summarizes the differences nicely

In short:

|                       |       General usage        | Complex designs | Can be disabled |
|-----------------------|----------------------------|-----------------|-----------------|
| <button>              | General button purpose.    | Yes             | Yes             |
|                       | Used in most cases         |                 |                 |
| --------------------- | -------------------------- | --------------- | --------------- |
| <input type="button"> | Usually used inside        | No              | Yes             |
|                       | forms                      |                 |                 |
| --------------------- | -------------------------- | --------------- | --------------- |
| <a>                   | Used to navigate to        | Yes             | No              |
|                       | pages and resources        |                 |                 |
| --------------------- | -------------------------- | --------------- | --------------- |
| <div>                 | Can be used for clickable  | Yes             | No              |
|                       | area which is not button   |                 |                 |
|                       | or link by definition      |                 |                 |

Placing buttons in a div

Hope this will solve your problem and help you align your buttons like you wanted.

* {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  outline: 0;
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

body {
  height: 100vh;
  display: grid;
  place-items: center;
}

.container {
  position: relative;
  width: 300px;
  height: 300px;
  display: grid;
  grid-template-rows: auto;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr);
}

.container button {
  color: white;
  display: grid;
  font-size: 1rem;
  position: relative;
  place-items: center;
  border: 1px solid white;
}

.container button:nth-child(odd) {
  background-color: red;
}

.container button:nth-child(even) {
  background-color: green;
}

<div class="container">
  <button>Top Left</button>
  <button>Top</button>
  <button>Top Right</button>
  <button>Left</button>
  <button>Center</button>
  <button>Right</button>
  <button>Bottom Left</button>
  <button>Bottom</button>
  <button>Bottom Right</button>
</div>

Need to make a clickable div button

There are two solutions posted on that page. The one with lower votes I would recommend if possible.

If you are using HTML5 then it is perfectly valid to put a div inside of a. As long as the div doesn't also contain some other specific elements like other link tags.

<a href="Music.html">
  <div id="music" class="nav">
    Music I Like
  </div>
</a>

The solution you are confused about actually makes the link as big as its container div. To make it work in your example you just need to add position: relative to your div. You also have a small syntax error which is that you have given the span a class instead of an id. You also need to put your span inside the link because that is what the user is clicking on. I don't think you need the z-index at all from that example.

div { position: relative; }
.hyperspan {
    position:absolute;
    width:100%;
    height:100%;
    left:0;
    top:0;
}

<div id="music" class="nav">Music I Like 
    <a href="http://www.google.com"> 
        <span class="hyperspan"></span>
    </a>   
</div>

http://jsfiddle.net/rBKXM/9

When you give absolute positioning to an element it bases its location and size after the first parent it finds that is relatively positioned. If none, then it uses the document. By adding relative to the parent div you tell the span to only be as big as that.

Button vs. Clickable Div in HTML

<button> has some inbuilt things that you may like, but also has some styling restrictions that not apply to <div>.

<button> can be focused, where <div> has to have tabindex attribute to make focus work.
Pressing it can submit a form if configurated for ex. has built in onclick handler: <button onclick="submit()">

Usage of <button> applies to HTML5 document specification which puts divs in place of containers elevating role of contextual elements like <footer>, <section> and <button>.

In short I always use <div>s as can style it how I need and program them how I like, am not fancying predefined behaviours as they can vary on different browsers :)

Creating a div by pressing a button

Your not off by much. You were selecting the div you already created in the html, and some of your js syntax is off.

Try this jsFiddle

function createDiv ()
  {
  var boxEle = document.createElement('div');
  var container = document.querySelector('.app');
  boxEle.style.width = '100px';
  boxEle.style.height = '100px';
  boxEle.style.backgroundColor = '#f00';
  container.appendChild(boxEle);
  }

html/css, make a button look like a div

Some CSS styles you should always be able to apply to HTML buttons:

1. background-color -> change the background colour of a button.
2. font-size -> change the font size of a button label.
3. padding -> change the padding of a button.
4. border-radius -> add rounded corners to a button.
5. border property -> add a coloured border to a button.
6. box-shadow property -> add shadows to a button.

Here's a coloured border button example:

<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><style>.button {    background-color: white; /* button background */    color: black; /* label colour */    border: 2px solid #0040ff; /* 2px blue line border */    padding: 10px 20px;    border-radius: 10px; /* rounded corner style */}</style></head><body>
<h2>A styled button.</h2>
<button class="button">Button label</button>
</body></html>

Adding 100 buttons in a div

The code that creates element is document.createElement and You call it ones in first example, hence only one element is created.

appendChild does not creates an element, it appends already created element to some parent.

If it is already appended, then does nothing

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