Single element/div extend to width of screen

[Dr.McNinja]

My site is based on MediaWiki and I have the page width set to 1200 with a padding of 2.5em.

Everything i put on the page will not go beyond the content area and if it does (e.g. width:110%) it extends off the right side.

I want to have a line (or more) extend to 100% of the screen width which will be for the menu.

The only way I can do this in my limited knowledge is to set the page width to 100% but limit all content to 1200px width. How can i do this a different way?

[boomskins]

If I think I follow what you are saying, you essentially want a two column fluid layout. If this is true, you can go use one of Dreamweavers templates for a two column fluid layout. When you first open the program and you start a new document you can select it there. You could also google "two column fluid div" and probably get a good start from there.

Jake

[vanishdesign]

I'm not exactly sure what you're driving at. Please explain more slowly so this doofus can understand. A link to your page or posting your HTML/CSS would be helpful.

Off the top of my head, use percentages for width and use the min-width CSS property

[Dr.McNinja]

All content is restricted by the body and all my menus are made as content and not seperate sections. This is based on default mediawiki skin called MonoBook (wikipedia).

When I set width to 100%, it will extend onto to the edge of the body minus the padding. I want to make this menu independant of the body so that it extends to 100% of the screen.

I want to keep it all within the body so i can edit it as a normal wiki page - i know this can be done by adding a new header section for the menu but then it wouldnt be editable on the page.

So basically, i want a header in the body.