Brooke — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 13:07:05 +0000

Thanks to someone here - I've had a lot of help switching to a pure css layout. I am not perfect - and the positioning is still confusing to me - but I LOVE It! It is just so much more powerful and very accessible -
I don't have to fiddle with that at all.

It gets two thumbs up in my opinion!

demonhale — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 07:18:00 +0000

2 years into it and I'm a pure CSS fan... tables are useful for tabular data though...

Neutron2k — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 15:19:27 +0000

I switched from Tables to CSS layouts about 6 months ago. Its much more efficiant. Only problem is cross browser compatibility with browsers like IE that refuse to conform to the W3C Standards so you have employ a load of CSS hacks for each browser to get it looking right.

anyone know css hacks for Opera 8?

timjpriebe — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 14:35:17 +0000

I'm sure I've posted this before, but my goals are generally to make a good looking website that the client that is happy with and that is relatively easy for me to maintain. I just use whatever tools are necessary to make that happen. Sometimes it's a complete separation of design and structure, sometimes it's automatically exported tables from Fireworks to Dreamweaver, other times it's an open source CMS.

Busy — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 11:13:16 +0000

were they created with editors?

A big editor fault is the loose use of tables, tables can be added fine, but if you adjust it then remove it you only remove some of it. Nested table are bad, a few years ago people just threw table after table in trying to get the desired result. The problem was they didn't know how to use tables. Tables can be a mission to understand but once you do they are easier than doing easy stuff (yeah brain went dead). I am sure there or lots of badly design CSS sites out there, deeply nested div's ...

The Webmistress — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 09:53:29 +0000

I agree with you Alex, I use tables for structure and CSS for styling and I see no problem with that. However it is absolutley amazing how many sites I have taken over recently for rebuilds where the previous 'designers' used so many nested tables it was hard to actually find the content, now that's scary!

lex — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 01:19:17 +0000

Busy wrote: Tables still validate to strict so don't see the big issue is

Ok this is how tables are meant to work (from anti table folks). Tables were created to display tabular data only. Say I go along with that, an example would be a calendar, probably a perfect example as it's displaying numbers and week days. Now lets add a note to saturdays date (in that cell), now is this still being used correctly? if not why not, it hasn't changed a lot from orginal, structure and outcome the same. How about we add entries into every date, like a diary. Still correct now? if not why not? it hasn't changed the structure, code or anything. lets add a picture in some of the days (could be a smiley, could be the mona lisa), different now? still same structure, same base. But wait, omg we added so much we now designed a new web page? so now the anti-table people are crying foul because we are using it for a layout, yet it is still proper method from start.

The problem isn't what tables should be used for, the problem is anti-table uses not being able to use tables correctly so they bag them and use CSS which in some cases can be easier.
Tables when used correctly is ideal for screen readers. I have had the oppurtunity to hear what a hearing impaired person hears, the same reader could not read a CSS site (this was a couple of years back).
I'm sure somone is going to refer me to w3c, ever stopped to wonder why. Lets take Microsoft as an example, back in the days of win 95,98 etc it came out with a program called comic chat (made and supported by them), I think it was win98se onwards they stopped but the folder remains (windows/chat). Why did they drop it? two reasons, one they couldn't make money on it and two they couldn't advance it. It was already beyond it's time. They have now gone to 'microsoft chat' which is java based because it can be upgraded and ads etc can be throwen on it. now think again about tables, how could tables be advanced? they can't and the fact people abused them (I blame microsoft for this - frontpage, word, publisher ...) it's only right to try dump them in favor of something else. (Netscape gave us tables by the way).

They say CSS sites are easier to edit, say you wrote this forum in pure CSS, now give it to someone else to edit, if you didn't label the classes well, this person has to first learn your style before they can edit it. Done in tables you turn borders on and bang you can adjust to suit no matter who wrote it. Am sure someone will sa, what about a redesign of your site ... (as this often comes up for reason of using CSS), my responce, what about it? if you're going to redesign your site the CSS code will have to be changed same as tables, a modification is not a redesign. A redesign is just that - a total redesign. Now add server side into it, even harder again (not talking a simple form).

People that say things like "if you use tables your so old ..." reminds me of all the people that follow stupid trends, one around here (NZ) is scarfs, I mean, what the heck, it's summer, you'd rather follow a trend than be comfortable?
If you want to use tables because it's either easier, quicker or does a better job then use them, if you don't then don't, no one is forcing you to use them.

Busy, this subject has had me thinking all day. Yes I actually got a break from designs for a few days. hahaa. And you know what. I 100% agree with you. I just installed Cart Keeper (shopping cart script) for a client. Although it had Tables in the design, In order to make any custom changes I had to dig through 7 CSS files!!! like site.css, nav.css, category.css and so on, as soon as I saw class="largetext" I had to dig through 7 CSS files to find that varible.

This was just an example of taking over someone elses CSS work. I myself use CSS in a single file. Also the real meaning behind my CSS usage was originally so the browser would keep a consistent font size no matter what font size the viewer choosed.

This is a real good subject!

For me I have had great luck with tables. And when I'm in the HTML mode, I have 3 different browsers and refresh my page in each browser to make sure the look doesn't change. For an example I learned to keep all the inside the tags because IE and Netscape control their Breaks differently but if the Break is within a CSS Class then they will stay consistent.

My websites are generally built to be seemless. So any little break will show up like a sore thumb. Nothing worse then seeing a small white line through a what is suppose to be a seemless table. All fun. Its nice to collaborate on stuff. I try to talk to friends and their like . Sure man, wanna beer

lex — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 01:07:19 +0000

timjpriebe wrote: Alex, all the real design work is in the CSS file, if that's what you mean. That's really the point of seperating your code and your style.

You can always view the CSS file, if you didn't know. You can copy the URL of the CSS file out of the HTML code, or, if you have Firefox, you can use their webmaster toolbar and click on CSS -> View CSS.

Yes i realize all the structure is in the CSS When I said work (in a general meaning) , I merely meant all the design hours is focus putting together a functional CSS file.

Although very impressive indeed, I still can't see ALL the benifits of 100% CSS and spend all that extra time putting it together. I will dig a bit into here and there, but in order to have me sold for 100% CSS site will have to carry alot more benifits then bragging rights. Good job though.
Is there a Pro/Con list for CSS VS Tables?

timjpriebe — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 21:14:18 +0000

Alex, all the real design work is in the CSS file, if that's what you mean. That's really the point of seperating your code and your style.

You can always view the CSS file, if you didn't know. You can copy the URL of the CSS file out of the HTML code, or, if you have Firefox, you can use their webmaster toolbar and click on CSS -> View CSS.

Busy — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 21:13:04 +0000

Tables still validate to strict so don't see the big issue is

Ok this is how tables are meant to work (from anti table folks). Tables were created to display tabular data only. Say I go along with that, an example would be a calendar, probably a perfect example as it's displaying numbers and week days. Now lets add a note to saturdays date (in that cell), now is this still being used correctly? if not why not, it hasn't changed a lot from orginal, structure and outcome the same. How about we add entries into every date, like a diary. Still correct now? if not why not? it hasn't changed the structure, code or anything. lets add a picture in some of the days (could be a smiley, could be the mona lisa), different now? still same structure, same base. But wait, omg we added so much we now designed a new web page? so now the anti-table people are crying foul because we are using it for a layout, yet it is still proper method from start.

The problem isn't what tables should be used for, the problem is anti-table uses not being able to use tables correctly so they bag them and use CSS which in some cases can be easier.
Tables when used correctly is ideal for screen readers. I have had the oppurtunity to hear what a hearing impaired person hears, the same reader could not read a CSS site (this was a couple of years back).
I'm sure somone is going to refer me to w3c, ever stopped to wonder why. Lets take Microsoft as an example, back in the days of win 95,98 etc it came out with a program called comic chat (made and supported by them), I think it was win98se onwards they stopped but the folder remains (windows/chat). Why did they drop it? two reasons, one they couldn't make money on it and two they couldn't advance it. It was already beyond it's time. They have now gone to 'microsoft chat' which is java based because it can be upgraded and ads etc can be throwen on it. now think again about tables, how could tables be advanced? they can't and the fact people abused them (I blame microsoft for this - frontpage, word, publisher ...) it's only right to try dump them in favor of something else. (Netscape gave us tables by the way).

They say CSS sites are easier to edit, say you wrote this forum in pure CSS, now give it to someone else to edit, if you didn't label the classes well, this person has to first learn your style before they can edit it. Done in tables you turn borders on and bang you can adjust to suit no matter who wrote it. Am sure someone will sa, what about a redesign of your site ... (as this often comes up for reason of using CSS), my responce, what about it? if you're going to redesign your site the CSS code will have to be changed same as tables, a modification is not a redesign. A redesign is just that - a total redesign. Now add server side into it, even harder again (not talking a simple form).

People that say things like "if you use tables your so old ..." reminds me of all the people that follow stupid trends, one around here (NZ) is scarfs, I mean, what the heck, it's summer, you'd rather follow a trend than be comfortable?
If you want to use tables because it's either easier, quicker or does a better job then use them, if you don't then don't, no one is forcing you to use them.