I remember spending ages on various ways to implement "the golden layout" or whatever it was called. Edit: Holy Grail. One header on top, then three columns, and then a footer. And the middle of the three columns should scale with screen width and screen height, such that the rightmost column was at the edge, and the footer was at the bottom of the screen if content was less than screen height.
And then a-list-aparts "faux columns" to make the columns seem to have the same height.
I have a CSS book from that time, one I kept too long because I felt it was one of the better CSS books in its time and hasn't been replaced as I keep a certain amount of books for decorative purposes and haven't bought new development books in a while.
The final chapter, in a "putting it all together" style spent most of its time om a holy grail layout.
If I was writing a modern CSS book, this topic would be somewhere in the second quarter in a chapter on grid and flexbox.
And then a-list-aparts "faux columns" to make the columns seem to have the same height.
Edit: It was the "Holy Grail" it was named https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_grail_(web_design) So hard to do that it even has its own Wikipedia page, heh