Tables have their place, but I'm considering rebuilding a few of my sites without them. I guess my personal interest is the ability to completely change the design by only changing the style sheet.

Anyone know of any pros/cons that I should be aware of, and of course other suggestions are always welcome.
Thanks!

Tables have their placeThey certainly do!

but I'm considering rebuilding a few of my sites without themWhy? If they have their place, let them be in their place! The place for tables is around tabular data within your content. There's no reason to avoid tables if your site content properly requires them.

But if you're just talking about the layout/structure of your pages, you would be correct in saying there is no place for tables for this part of a page's design.

Search for tables + CSS within this specific forum. You'll see a whole lot of weak arguments for using tables and a whole lot of strong arguments against them as layout devices. Of course, I'm biased ;)

I agree completely with the_pm.

I took the liberty of viewing the source of the site in your signature. This type of site does not need tables. In my very biased opinion you should convert this as soon as possible.

The main reason why I would reccommend this is because you are a design company. Designing great looking sites that are limited because of tables just doesnt make sense for you. It is so nice to be able to change your site in drastic ways by only editing a little code in your css files.

I certainly understand your point, but there is much more to my site than you may see. When I developed the invoice/billing, reviews, and project management areas of the site tables made the most sense. To rebuild all that now would take quite a long time. When a complete rework of my site is in order I will definitely remove the use of tables.

Please dont get me wrong. It is your site, do as you wish. I was just giving you an example. I like the design as well. Take Care. :agree:

I think tables are fine, it is my personal preference however I just started to code in CCS and make the layouts.

The only problem is when I have a website deadline, I can’t afford to research tags to make the layout work in CCS so tables are a quick way of getting the website up and running.

I'm slowly converting to CCS but rely on tables as a main backup.
In time I will code purely in CCS, I suggest you start making a slow transition to CCS like I am.

Now with the WEB 2.0 and Ajax as the new best thing, you have a new way of designing and thinking.

Greg

When I developed the invoice/billing, reviews, and project management areas of the site tables made the most sense.Actual invoices and project management workflows make sense in tables, because they (typically) contain tabular data. Again, we're not talking about the page/site layout surrounding this data, but anything that should be presented in tabular format should be presented in tables. Not only is there nothing wrong with this, it is a very *right* thing to do! Don't give up tables where tables should be used!

The only thing I do not like about tables is "NESTING" them - it can make the design messy and can also cause problems when trying to change the site (unless of course you design it just right). Other than that I think the second reply to your thread hit it bang on, tables have there place so let them stay! Try designing future sites in CSS rather than tables.

Haha, I nest tables all the time LOL.

I'll never get rid of tables where they are needed. I wouldn't know how to replace "table_foreach", but I am trying to switch over everything I can to CSS as soon as possible.

I haven't yet found any good resources on this new technique, so I've just been watching cssremix.com and learning from their source/styles.

CSS in my opinion is alot my useful. Though its harder to use, its well worth it.

CSS is nice to play with but tables make life easier in some cases.

When you improve with CSS, it will become easier and faster in the future.

i personally don't have a problem with tables. i think they're a good way to get the layout looking exactly how you want it.

however, css design is more flexible, esp in the long run and for cross-browser compatibility. there is a steep learning curve, however. i would start small and move into css design slowly.

My site is completely tableless, except for the portfolio page, and that's because I got a little lazy on it. Lol. I didn't have too many problems going tableless, and I like it better that way so far.

Nowadays DIV+CSS is the first choice. But TABLE is able to acquire more accurate position control and simpler. DIV+CSS outer of TABLE is commended as a transition plan.

Tables are overly used because it's much easier to get all browsers to show them up properly, which I think is a mistake.

I would suggest switching from tables to divs & CSS, and you'll love the control you have over your layout.

I still think it's funny that people with less experience go for the horribly messy coding that is tables. Tables require a lot of precise codes that make it hard to write and nearly impossible to edit.



I would also like to point out that I've recently read a post about someone who changed their site from tables to frames, and who was surprised because most people considered it to be taking a step backwards instead of forwards in their site's design. Most people argued that frames are useful to include menu bars or advertising. I'm guessing this is because they were ignorant of the possibility to include other files in a layout. This shows, in my opinion, that design and coding go hand in hand and require constant upgrading.

Well the debate goes on...
Personally the more someone learns about using mark-up and how it works, the more you start to recognise what the best usage of these different styles are. Condeming tables as bad coding is a mistake, they do have their place, bad coding is down to the coder not his tools. Tables and cascading styling can also work hand in hand as divs do.

...the only time you hear people arguing for tables (outside of tabular data) is when they (a) don't know CSS or (b) don't know CSS well enough. There's really no argument beyond that.

Do we discuss why it's better to put your pargagraphs into bold tags vs. paragraph tags? Of course not. Paragraphs go in paragraph tags. Tabular data goes in a table. And soon, with HTML 5, headers, footers, and so on will have tags outside of the div tag (which is a tag that has no semantically equivalent tag).