I thought people liked tables more than frames and then I get a message that tells me to never use tables for layouts...

Uhh.. Tables are better than frames...

Although, there are other ways, e.g. Layers

Hmmmh, it would be quite difficult to make a site without the use of tables...

That's what I keep hearing is that tables are better than frames but then all of a sudden this guy says to never use tables for layouts, maybe he means layers?

Maybe, layers are difficult to use...

Frames are evil, tables are supposedly evil (the W3C is too IMHO :D), CSS will take over the world.

Originally posted by filburt1
Frames are evil, tables are supposedly evil (the W3C is too IMHO :D), CSS will take over the world. LOL

I'm already using CSS and yes it does make a lot of things easier. :)

tables and layers are pretty similar...

Ahhh layers, they don't work if someone has their text size set at a different settting or different config. Tables are cool. CSS is amazing I have been working with it to get used to it. Haven't implemented it in any sites though.

Originally posted by iamdave
Hmmmh, it would be quite difficult to make a site without the use of tables...

No.

Tables are not to be used for layout. It violates the W3C spec:

Tables should not be used purely as a means to layout document content as this may present problems when rendering to non-visual media. Additionally, when used with graphics, these tables may force users to scroll horizontally to view a table designed on a system with a larger display. To minimize these problems, authors should use style sheets to control layout rather than tables.

See also:

http://wdvl.internet.com/Authoring/Style/Sheets/Positioning/Toss/
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/practicalcss/

I as told to find a website that doesnt use tables aside from wc3,org:


http://www.sgtaylor.com/
http://www.alistapart.com/
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/betterliving/
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/box_lesson/boxes.html
http://glish.com/css/
http://www.bluerobot.com/
http://www.bluerobot.com/web/layouts/
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/

Hell, even the New York Public Library:
http://www.nypl.org/styleguide/

A free blogging tool:
http://www.pmachine.com/features.php

Than I was told:

Of course those poor souls still using Netscape 4.x or Lynx are up the creek with pure CSS sites.

In short, sweet words: CSS1 support is at least partially available for more than 96% of the current browser population, with a good CSS2 support for about 80% of today's browsers.

Less people have Flash than are CSS compatible. Yet people here seem to love websites with fancy Flash deisgns that can not be navaigated by many.

And about that text browsing (lynx) and about people who use cell phones to access the net and those with disabilites?

HTML does not take them into account. XHTML is a better replacement for them as it increases accessibility:

The future of the web is accessibility.

Your content must be accessible to disabled readers. More importantly, your content must be accessible to other computers. Computers will be pumping your site into more intelligent search engines, which will need to glean meaning from your document structure, not just the raw text. Computers will be automatically downscaling your page for smaller screens . Computers will be picking out the content in a page and automatically hiding the index and table of contents.

Computers can understand XML. Computers can't understand complex HTML that uses what are supposed to be structural elements (like TABLE) to layout your content.

Furthermore, as we have more and more versions of browsers out there in the wild, it becomes harder and harder to support them and test in all of them. The only viable solution is "graceful degredation". Code for the standards. Hope the browsers implement the standards.

Also:

The whole point of XHTML is to make the semantic structure of a web page more obvious. You're not laying out a magazine page here; you're structuring information, and adding some optional tips (I can override any formatting in your page at the touch of a button) on how it might be formatted. The information and its semantic structure is the important thing, not the presentation. If the presentation is the important thing, send me a paper magazine.

And:

W3C is looking to the future. It sees the very real possibility of the Web becoming more than a bunch of largely static pages that you surf with browsers whilst sitting in front of a PC. On one front, the separation of content and presentation is allowing users to stream news straight to their desktop, to build new interfaces without changing any underlying data (have you seen the Google-like Amazon.com interface?). On another front, the Web is moving to cellphones, set-top boxes, refrigerators, you name it. And if there isn't some standard language in which all these devices can communicate, some easy way for MyDesktop to get what it needs from UberNews.alt without hiccups, then this future is not going to happen.

My favorite quote:

The zen of web design is understanding that HTML means that all clients will (should) be able to view your page, not that they will all be able to view your page as you view it or as you intended for them to view it.

And lets take some advice intended for pros who do this for a living how it can save companies money:

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/33/index1a.html

And going back to the browsers issue:

http://www.alistapart.com/stories/tohell/

As well as:

http://www.gerbilbox.com/newzilla/general/general03.php

Which lets you know Mozilla is a browser design to adhere to the webstandards.

And about lynx, it works fine with a CSS heavy site. I use lynx all the time. But people who have poor code that doesnt even validtate as html 4.01 focres me to use a gui browser. Its the wanna be webmasters who dont know what a div tag is that kill accessibility.

XHTML 2 isnt the current recomndation though, and wont be for a while. They will be taking suggestions through Januray and will probably make it a recomendation sometime midsummer. Until than XHTML 1 is the spec recomended by wc3 as well as webstandards.org:

http://www.webstandards.org/about/

And XHTML 1 is backwards compatible due to the fact its a subset of HTML 4.

Any website I design is XHTML 1 Strict complaint and looks fine in lynx, mozilla, IE 5+, and NS 4+. It takes a lot more to get it to look right in ****ty browsers due to the fact that they are not compliant. If all browsers were complaint, my work would be cut in half.

Use of tables is fine to display data, but should not be used purely as a means for layout. The web is not about typography. Have you tried browsing the web on a Palm Pilot? A lot easier with sites that are complaint than sites that have huge tables full of images that take up twice the size of the screen.

For data, thats ideal for tables. But images that are cut up and than pieceds together with tables as well as sites like this:

http://netstarhost.com/
http://www.axxishost.com/
http://www.silicon-edge.com/

(I just pulled those at random from shared hosting offers)

...are not in compliance and will give disabled people trying to browse the net as well as many other interfaces, a very hard time.

Tables are great and do have a purpose. See here:

http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wcgl-last-call

(oddly enough, if you follow the link at the top to teh linear version, it leads you here http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wcgl-last-call-linear.html and the link now lets you switch to tabular. The reason is tables give a lot of currently uncommon tools of accessing the net a hard time)

The thing that had me thiking tables were being used for layout was "lots of blank spaces". Usually people use lots of blank spaces to spread thngs out and play typographer. Thats not how the web is supposed to work. Maybe a few years ago when every web page was supposed to look the same no matter who was looking at it, but no more. The future of the web is accessibility and keeping that in mind, people will be visintg your website from their cell phone, palm pilot, watch, toaster, TV, and many more. Warner ten Kate emphasized this (a link is found on the last link I just gave you) here:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public...anMar/0339.html

And about Mozilla.org being filled with tables and far from validating in any sort of way, yes, Im aware, I sent them a nasty email a long time ago.

In a perfect world every browser would be 100% complaint. Than I would write for spec and evryone would be happy, even people who surf the web on their toaster.

And you can make websites that look nice and validate. You just need to know what you are doing. These are perfect examples:

http://www.alistapart.com/
http://www.bluerobot.com/

Right now many people use desktop PCs, but they are being replaced, and XHTML 1 is supposed to be a stepping stone to the new web, where cell phones, toasters, fridges, palm pilots, watches and TVs all surf the web. That is why XHTML 1.0 is 100% backwards complaint (CSS is another story for NS 4 users, they will just see unformatted test in a linear fashion).

But in the end, the web should not look the same everywhere you view it. It needs to migrate fully to XML, which computers, search engines, pal pilots, etc can and do understand. They can not understand HTML. HTML is just that, a "mark up language", which is fine if everyone is using PCs, but is horrible when people use palm piloots, watches, etc. You need XML, which is something computers can break down and restructure accordinly adn that is the purpose of XHTML 1.0 to form a bridge between mark up language to the new web of seperating content versus layout.

Does it make it harder at first? Yes. XHTML is very strict compared to HTML. Is it the future of the web? Yup. Im just gettting ready early. HTML 4.01 is still a valid spec, but even in that, they dont want you using tables for layout. XHTML is just the bridge to the future. The longer you wait, the more work you will have to do.

The guy who sent you the PM wasnt Alturus, was it? Hes almost as much of a code nazi as I am!

Frames such as well:

And frames are sort of dead in favor of CSS:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/styles_vs_frames.html
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9612.html
http://www.voltapublishing.com/netg...eatures/frames/
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum10/527.htm
http://web.mit.edu/cwis/frames/

Google around for more, including:

Some nice CSS places are:

http://www.people.hbs.edu/rswartz/FRAMES/frames.html



ALA is a great website work learning more, here are some other links to look through:

http://www.alistapart.com/stories/practicalcss/
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/betterliving/


Frames break the webs core design of one url per "page". Say you have a page of content, and you leave your menu on the left as the nav bar with all your links there. Someone finds the content page via google and likes it, and wants to explore the rest of your site, but cant as all it has is the content page and no navigation whatsoever. Not too good if you ask me. Not to mention text browsers dont like frames at all.

Just sya no to frames and tables for content layout. CSS :)

The W3C invents stuff and depreciates it within 6 months. Moore's law be damned...

Originally posted by Acronym BOY


No.



In short, sweet words: CSS1 support is at least partially available for more than 96% of the current browser population, with a good CSS2 support for about 80% of today's browsers.

Less people have Flash than are CSS compatible. Yet people here seem to love websites with fancy Flash deisgns that can not be navaigated by many.

And about that text browsing (lynx) and about people who use cell phones to access the net and those with disabilites?

HTML does not take them into account. XHTML is a better replacement for them as it increases accessibility:

The future of the web is accessibility.

Your content must be accessible to disabled readers. More importantly, your content must be accessible to other computers. Computers will be pumping your site into more intelligent search engines, which will need to glean meaning from your document structure, not just the raw text. Computers will be automatically downscaling your page for smaller screens . Computers will be picking out the content in a page and automatically hiding the index and table of contents.

Computers can understand XML. Computers can't understand complex HTML that uses what are supposed to be structural elements (like TABLE) to layout your content.

Furthermore, as we have more and more versions of browsers out there in the wild, it becomes harder and harder to support them and test in all of them. The only viable solution is "graceful degredation". Code for the standards. Hope the browsers implement the standards.

Also:

The whole point of XHTML is to make the semantic structure of a web page more obvious. You're not laying out a magazine page here; you're structuring information, and adding some optional tips (I can override any formatting in your page at the touch of a button) on how it might be formatted. The information and its semantic structure is the important thing, not the presentation. If the presentation is the important thing, send me a paper magazine.

And:

W3C is looking to the future. It sees the very real possibility of the Web becoming more than a bunch of largely static pages that you surf with browsers whilst sitting in front of a PC. On one front, the separation of content and presentation is allowing users to stream news straight to their desktop, to build new interfaces without changing any underlying data (have you seen the Google-like Amazon.com interface?). On another front, the Web is moving to cellphones, set-top boxes, refrigerators, you name it. And if there isn't some standard language in which all these devices can communicate, some easy way for MyDesktop to get what it needs from UberNews.alt without hiccups, then this future is not going to happen.

My favorite quote:

The zen of web design is understanding that HTML means that all clients will (should) be able to view your page, not that they will all be able to view your page as you view it or as you intended for them to view it.

And lets take some advice intended for pros who do this for a living how it can save companies money:

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/33/index1a.html

And going back to the browsers issue:

http://www.alistapart.com/stories/tohell/

As well as:

http://www.gerbilbox.com/newzilla/general/general03.php

Which lets you know Mozilla is a browser design to adhere to the webstandards.

And about lynx, it works fine with a CSS heavy site. I use lynx all the time. But people who have poor code that doesnt even validtate as html 4.01 focres me to use a gui browser. Its the wanna be webmasters who dont know what a div tag is that kill accessibility.

XHTML 2 isnt the current recomndation though, and wont be for a while. They will be taking suggestions through Januray and will probably make it a recomendation sometime midsummer. Until than XHTML 1 is the spec recomended by wc3 as well as webstandards.org:

http://www.webstandards.org/about/

And XHTML 1 is backwards compatible due to the fact its a subset of HTML 4.

Any website I design is XHTML 1 Strict complaint and looks fine in lynx, mozilla, IE 5+, and NS 4+. It takes a lot more to get it to look right in ****ty browsers due to the fact that they are not compliant. If all browsers were complaint, my work would be cut in half.

Use of tables is fine to display data, but should not be used purely as a means for layout. The web is not about typography. Have you tried browsing the web on a Palm Pilot? A lot easier with sites that are complaint than sites that have huge tables full of images that take up twice the size of the screen.

For data, thats ideal for tables. But images that are cut up and than pieceds together with tables as well as sites like this:

http://netstarhost.com/
http://www.axxishost.com/
http://www.silicon-edge.com/

(I just pulled those at random from shared hosting offers)

...are not in compliance and will give disabled people trying to browse the net as well as many other interfaces, a very hard time.

Tables are great and do have a purpose. See here:

http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wcgl-last-call

(oddly enough, if you follow the link at the top to teh linear version, it leads you here http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wcgl-last-call-linear.html and the link now lets you switch to tabular. The reason is tables give a lot of currently uncommon tools of accessing the net a hard time)

The thing that had me thiking tables were being used for layout was "lots of blank spaces". Usually people use lots of blank spaces to spread thngs out and play typographer. Thats not how the web is supposed to work. Maybe a few years ago when every web page was supposed to look the same no matter who was looking at it, but no more. The future of the web is accessibility and keeping that in mind, people will be visintg your website from their cell phone, palm pilot, watch, toaster, TV, and many more. Warner ten Kate emphasized this (a link is found on the last link I just gave you) here:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public...anMar/0339.html

And about Mozilla.org being filled with tables and far from validating in any sort of way, yes, Im aware, I sent them a nasty email a long time ago.

In a perfect world every browser would be 100% complaint. Than I would write for spec and evryone would be happy, even people who surf the web on their toaster.

And you can make websites that look nice and validate. You just need to know what you are doing. These are perfect examples:

http://www.alistapart.com/
http://www.bluerobot.com/

Right now many people use desktop PCs, but they are being replaced, and XHTML 1 is supposed to be a stepping stone to the new web, where cell phones, toasters, fridges, palm pilots, watches and TVs all surf the web. That is why XHTML 1.0 is 100% backwards complaint (CSS is another story for NS 4 users, they will just see unformatted test in a linear fashion).

But in the end, the web should not look the same everywhere you view it. It needs to migrate fully to XML, which computers, search engines, pal pilots, etc can and do understand. They can not understand HTML. HTML is just that, a "mark up language", which is fine if everyone is using PCs, but is horrible when people use palm piloots, watches, etc. You need XML, which is something computers can break down and restructure accordinly adn that is the purpose of XHTML 1.0 to form a bridge between mark up language to the new web of seperating content versus layout.

Does it make it harder at first? Yes. XHTML is very strict compared to HTML. Is it the future of the web? Yup. Im just gettting ready early. HTML 4.01 is still a valid spec, but even in that, they dont want you using tables for layout. XHTML is just the bridge to the future. The longer you wait, the more work you will have to do.

The guy who sent you the PM wasnt Alturus, was it? Hes almost as much of a code nazi as I am! [/QUOTE]And you can make a half-way decent site without tables?

i have herd you can make a decent site with out the use of frames or tables or CCS. i havent seen anything to back this clame up at all. any chance for a url or two from people who serf a bit mre then my self?
thanks
:D

Originally posted by Kit
I thought people liked tables more than frames and then I get a message that tells me to never use tables for layouts...

There's always someone that will tell you what you is wrong. While frames can present an issue, tables are fine. A large amount of the talk revolves around complex nested tables with set pixel widths. Using a simple table layout with % widths will conform to practically anything - at least the 99.9% of people that will visit your website.

If you wish to spend three times the effort to make 0.01% of your viewers happy then do so by all means, but I've long since decided to stick with appealing to the vast majority. :) In some cases a design brief will include the need for Netscape 4.7, which just means the CSS layout will be a little more annoying to get right (and involve me having to install that pos on my desktop again).

I've seen sites built in layers fall apart in pretty spectacular ways in different browsers in the past so I personally don't use them.

Greg Moore

Originally posted by jamenjaw
i have herd you can make a decent site with out the use of frames or tables or CCS. i havent seen anything to back this clame up at all. any chance for a url or two from people who serf a bit mre then my self?
thanks
:D

Without CSS? Or frames or tables? How do you handle layout?

Or do you just have straight text like a book?

Originally posted by Neo3Net
Ahhh layers, they don't work if someone has their text size set at a different settting or different config.

Naa, that's tables which break with different font sizes ;)

The last few site I made are all table less, I'm going to make some changes in my own site to get rid of the one table left (It doesn't even have content in it to start with).

Big news though, on the down with tables thing:

http://wired.com/

One site closer to a table-for-layout-free web :D

(And its not layers, its divs mostly, but not even them all the time!)

Douglas

Doug:

Thanks for that link, I just noticed that myself when I saw this article:

http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55675,00.html

And decided to come back here, but you beat me to it. :D

You know what the best part of CSS (and a programmer who knows how to use it) is? Resolutions dont matter, the content dynamiclly resizes (though you can set up your CSS for it not to as well). I cant stand browsing a site at 1600x200 with my browser full screeen, just to see that someone has a table that is 800 pixels wide leaving half my monitor empty. It makes it look like I am reading a newspaper with a really small column.

Not sure if that's the best argument ;)

This site uses tables (and really its the best way to do the content layout..) and in tynamically resizes...

Douglas