[SOLVED] How can I set a <td> width to visually truncate its displayed contents?

How can I set a <td> width to visually truncate its displayed contents?

I'm trying to set a column width of a table, which works fine until it gets to the point where child elements would be visually truncated ... then it won't size any smaller. ("visually truncated"-what doesn't fit appears to be hidden behind the next column)

Here is some sample code to demonstrate my problem:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" 
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
    var intervalID = null;

    function btn_onClick()
    {
        // keep it simple, only click once
        var btn = document.getElementById("btn");
        btn.disabled = true;     
        // start shrinking
        intervalID = window.setInterval( "shrinkLeftCell();", 100);
    }

    function shrinkLeftCell()
    {
        // get elements
        var td1 = document.getElementById("td1");
        var td2 = document.getElementById("td2");

        // initialize for first pass
        if( "undefined" == typeof( td1.originalWidth))
        {
            td1.originalWidth = td1.offsetWidth;
            td1.currentShrinkCount = td1.offsetWidth;
        }

        // shrink and set width size
        td1.currentShrinkCount--;
        td1.width = td1.currentShrinkCount;  // does nothing if truncating!

        // set reporting values in right cell
        td2.innerHTML = "Desired Width : [" 
                    + td1.currentShrinkCount 
                    + "], Actual : [" 
                    + td1.offsetWidth + "]";

        // Stop shrinking
        if( 1 >= td1.currentShrinkCount)
            window.clearInterval(intervalID);
    }
</script>
</head>
<body>
    <table width="100%" border="1">
        <tr>
            <td id="td1">
                Extra_long_filler_text
            </td>
            <td id="td2">
                Desired Width : [----], Actual : [----]
            </td>
        </tr>
    </table>

    <button id="btn" onclick="btn_onClick();">Start</button>
</body>
</html>

I've tried setting the width in different ways including

td1.offsetWidth = td1.currentShrinkCount;

and

td1.width = td1.currentShrinkCount + "px";

and

td1.style.width = td1.currentShrinkCount + "px";

and

td1.style.posWidth = td1.currentShrinkCount;

and

td1.scrollWidth = td1.currentShrinkCount;

and

td1.style.overflow = "hidden";
td1.width = td1.currentShrinkCount;

and

td1.style.overflow = "scroll";
td1.width = td1.currentShrinkCount;

and

td1.style.overflow = "auto";
td1.width = td1.currentShrinkCount;

I realize, I could probably use DIV's, but I'd prefer not to since the table is being generated from a bound control, and I don't really want to get into rewriting asp.net controls.

Having said that, I thought as a last ditch effort, I could at least wrap each 'td1's contents with a DIV, and the overflow would take care of things, but even replacing

<td id="td1">
    Extra_long_filler_text
</td>

with

<td id="td1" style="overflow:hidden;">
    <div style="margin=0;padding:0;overflow:hidden;">
        Extra_long_filler_text
    </div>
</td>

didn't work.

Does anybody know how I can set a width to visually truncate its contents?

BTW-My target browser is IE7. Other browsers are not important right now, since this is an internal app.

Solution

I just tried adding table-layout: fixed; to the <table> and it worked for me on IE7.

In a fixed table layout, the horizontal layout only depends on the table's width, the width of the columns, and not the content of the cells

Check out the documentation.