Wed designers / programmers / authors - read this!

[Sirotnikov]

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/html/97/25/index2a.html?tw=authoring

If you remember we had a discussion a while ago about whether or not to use frames, and much criticism arose against using tables for page designing.

Well I invite you to look at the following easy manual, that will get you started on bringing back the control over your webpage without any evil tables.

Page 1

God, I love tables. Tell me if you can't relate: I start out with my table tags and make them, um, 600 pixels wide. Then I do my first row with four <td> cells. I'll put my content in the last one - those first three are just placeholders for later. Oh wait, it's not taking my <td> widths. Oh, well. I'll put a spacer GIF in there.

Now I'll do my second row. Oh, hold on. I didn't put in enough placeholder <td> tags. I'll have to go back and add some more. No, wait! I'll just make one of the <td> tags colspan=2. There, that does it. Now I'll put some images in and ... darn! The images aren't lining up flush. What's going on? I'll turn off all the cell padding. Shoot! That's still not working. Oh, that's right. I remember now. You can't have any spaces or line breaks in the table. So I'll have to put it all on one line. Let's see... MAN this sure makes it hard to read.

.....

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/html/97/25/index2a.html?tw=authoring

[Master Zen]

I agree. I use FrontPage for my web editing since HTML is a drag for me, but try to accomodate as much as I can with CSS. It seems every day I learn something new about CSS which is extreeeeeeeemely powerful and can do practically everything you can imagine.

Interesting that just before reading this I was making tests with CSS on tables in my site

[Asher]

Just what's so bad about tables anyway?

[Master Zen]

btw, those Overflow commands are awsome! Makes frames all but useless...

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Asher
Just what's so bad about tables anyway?

Since I use FrontPage, tables are no problem, but making tables from scratch in HTML is incredibly confusing if you ask me.

[Asher]

Just takes some getting used to and the proper mindset.

[St Leo]

CSS positioning works on the current version of both major browsers, and is still in consideration by the W3C.

Is this a bit out of date?

I recommend reading a few articles by Eric Meyer and getting a CSS sidebar for your browser. That's all you need.

In Opera, go to http://devedge.netscape.com/toolbox/...op-visual.html, rightclick among the hotlist (F4) tabs, and choose Add Panel...

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Asher
Just what's so bad about tables anyway?

They are a kludgey hack. Just because you and I have been using them for years doesn't mean they are a good solution for the problem of laying stuff out.

[ixnay]

I made my website with a bunch of tables sometime last year. It's begging to be redone but I'm too lazy to get around to doing it.

[Asher]

Tables: grid-based positioning of content.
What we're aiming for: grid-based position of content.

Kludgey hack is where?

CSS is different, personally I've always found it to be quite annoying compared to straight HTML. Just a personal preference.

Much like I prefer Notepad to Word, I prefer HTML to CSS.

[Ted Striker]

I like your method Asher

It will load faster and has a greater chance of success of loading correctly on every browser

Plus it's easier to edit

[ixnay]

Well, when you have tables inside of tables inside of tables in an attempt to lay things out it's annoying and near impossible to figure out if you go back to edit it. Which is how my website was. But I went through tonight and converted to CSS positioning (it was actually easier than I thought) and now things are a lot easier to work with and change.

[Sirotnikov]

Tables: grid-based positioning of content.
What we're aiming for: grid-based position of content.

I'm sure you'd agree that a grid of ScreenWidth x ScreenHeight pixels, overwhich to place any HTML element, using "left : x; top: x; position: absolute" would be much more gridlike and exact, when it comes to serious grid-like positioning.

Furthermore, who says that having every page on the web look like a frigging table/ form, is good?

[Master Zen]

Here's another good page with examples on CSS: http://www.w3schools.com

it's the reference I use when editing my CSS pages

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Asher
Tables: grid-based positioning of content.
What we're aiming for: grid-based position of content.

Kludgey hack is where?

It's kludgey because tables are not meant to be used for doing layouts. It's like using duct tapes to fix chair legs: it works, but you're not using the right tools.