the any ratio I want is the point of the exercise. i don't know how many or what size. i want the first column to be just wide enough, and the second column to fill the space. what you suggested does not do that, but thanks for playing
Now that you've explained the rest of your requirements, I can see that `fr` is not suitable for the purpose. In the meantime you've gotten a better answer for the updated requirements, in particular min-content and max-content.