html css layout. Fixed total width, 3 columns, dynamic middle column

Is this at all possible?

Sometimes the left menu is not there, so i want the middle col to take up that space too.

Sometimes the right menu is not there, so middle should take its space too.

All should be wrapped in a contain开发者_开发问答er with fixed width (1000px).

ALA has a old but brilliant answer that I believe could solve almost any similar question: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/holygrail/

Of course the problem's with the details: Do you want the contents in the middle column to resize based on the available space, or float up side-by-side to occupy the extra space. Adding to that complexity may be elements that are unstretchable (images, etc.), some that have a min- and max- width (paragraphs of text have a certain optimal range of widths for readability). Like I said, the devils in the detail - details which it seems only you possess at this time. With these much information this is all we could provide.

That can be done with ahem table-based layouts. Using floats, I believe you need to use some sort of logic to set the width of your middle column. This can likely be done in a single line of jQuery (test if the left column is present or empty, reset middle column width), if you don't want to do it on the backend.

You'll probably want to look at how to make equal height columns.

Also on this site, the author provides "The Perfect 3 Column Liquid Layout."

I'm assuming you can predict on server-side, whether a menu will appear or not, so you could just insert fixed width in your template, which saves you from any css-hacks.