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for pleasure! a quick glimpse at life outside! As we sit here on the EE Forums….

Don’t get me wrong, I do use CSS and I lurvs my stylesheet—and as stated in my first post I do use CSS layout code for small things that I’ve found will work right most of the time. But even those don’t always work the way I want them to.

I can agree with you on this 100%. I really don’t think you would have to feel pressured to move away from what works best for you. I can say without hesitation that when working with CSS it sometimes seems fickle..like the wind.  😜

As for “tables should only be used for tabular data,” I would argue that this is probably not too different from saying “windows should only be used for ventilation.” Because that’s why people started leaving openings in their walls, centuries before anyone learned how to make a pane of glass.

What are windows used for in most buildings today, now that we have central heating and air? Lighting? That’s what electric lighting is for! Windows should only be used for ventilation. Period!  😝

This made me chuckle because you’ve raised a great point McGehee! There really is more than one way to knock out a website. So what if tables originally were created for displaying tabular data, they can most certainly be used for layout as well. So I guess it really does come down to personal preference.

I think that CSS has come a long way in the last several years though. Most modern browsers don’t have too much trouble with it anymore, and thankfully the dinosaur that is IE6 is on its way out. I think the lack of consistent browser support for it made it a frickin’ nightmare to work with up until even a year and a half ago, but that’s becoming less of an issue now. CSS is getting much easier to work with. I personally really can’t think of any reasons not to run with it all the way now (but again, that’s just me).

Just to reiterate my point it was more that when designers first started on the internet there wasn’t any provision for layout as such. There were tables though which people started thinking “Hey this can let me do what I want”. Now I will be the first to admit that I used to use tables for layout although looking back on it this is not what they were ever intended for. Yes you can still carry on and use them today for layout if you like but CSS really does make it all much much easier.

It does take a while sometimes to get away from the way you do things with tables, I know as I had a real time with it (CSS) when I first started and I was thinking about giving up. This was all even before I knew anything about any problems with IE even!

I persevered though and I have to say hand on heart that I will only ever use CSS now and tables only when I am showing tabular data. I code everything by hand and never ever use any WYSIWYG editors to help me out at all.

So to say again yes of course you can use tables for layout if you like, you can do whatever you like such as using spacer .gifs and all the other older methods but really nowadays there are much better / easier ways of achieving the same result which will not only (once you understand it all) make work easier and quicker for you but will also make your pages a lot more accessible to people on the internet which I believe is something we really all should be taking note of nowadays.

Just my thoughts though.

Best wishes,

Mark

Just to reiterate my point it was more that when designers first started on the internet there wasn’t any provision for layout as such. There were tables though which people started thinking “Hey this can let me do what I want”. Now I will be the first to admit that I used to use tables for layout although looking back on it this is not what they were ever intended for. Yes you can still carry on and use them today for layout if you like but CSS really does make it all much much easier.

It does take a while sometimes to get away from the way you do things with tables, I know as I had a real time with it (CSS) when I first started and I was thinking about giving up. This was all even before I knew anything about any problems with IE even!

That pretty much explains the issue and resulting problems of Tables vs. CSS layout. Designers wanted layout and control in the early days and Tables were the only real solution. For the most part, CSS 2.1 can handle most layout requirements previously handled by Tables, but CSS requires more planning, more tinkering, and, sometimes, a compromise on the layout design, whereas Tables are often easier to set up, with plenty of well-known hacks to get it right. I manage a number of sites and only two are left with Tables. All others have been converted to CSS, and most work well in major browsers; IE 7.x, Firefox, Safari. MSIE 6.x is the real CSS troublemaker.

i think CSS is the way to go 99% of the time… However… there is that 1% of the time where you may decide it is sensible to use another route - whether this be because of time, projects restrictions, cost, browser issues, flexibility, etc, etc…

However, the initial step into CSS is the hardest. Once you have your processes and methods in place you can develop for all browsers pretty quickly and easily.

I think there is no right or wrong way to produce a web page… CSS might be right, tables might be right… I guess the theory boils down to which loads quicker and is most flexible for future changes - hence on this basis css usually wins out for me.

One thing you could try is to reproduce one of your current sites into a CSS layout format. Start with a easy one of course. You will learn a lot I will guarantee that. I use CSS so much that I can just look at a design for 2 seconds and know how I am gonna code it up with CSS. You soon will get this way, you just have to have a positive mind set when using CSS, think of it as a puzzle. You need to put the puzzle together in a valid way with less markup. Maybe thinking that way might make it more interesting for you. I don’t know, people think in different ways, but I do know this learn CSS, it will help you out in so many ways you won’t believe it.

Tables? What are those?

I usually put my meal in top of them and sit down and eat! Someone uses them to build part of webpages also like those 2 in your sig?

One thing you could try is to reproduce one of your current sites into a CSS layout format. Start with a easy one of course. You will learn a lot I will guarantee that. I use CSS so much that I can just look at a design for 2 seconds and know how I am gonna code it up with CSS. You soon will get this way, you just have to have a positive mind set when using CSS, think of it as a puzzle. You need to put the puzzle together in a valid way with less markup. Maybe thinking that way might make it more interesting for you. I don’t know, people think in different ways, but I do know this learn CSS, it will help you out in so many ways you won’t believe it.

Yeh that would be one way. I started from zero and few new things learned already. I’m working on with my live dev. site that is mostly done with css and it is (atm) the first website ever that i havent use any tables, heh. Dunno how its gonna be when its ready but atm it looks nice to my eyes!

Cheers:
-  Tuittu

Tables? What are those?

I usually put my meal in top of them and sit down and eat! Someone uses them to build part of webpages also like those 2 in your sig?

Touche! :lol:

My advice - grab yourself a copy of CSS Mastery and read it, tis a great book. Don’t even think about starting to use tables for layout, it’s a bad idea from the off for far more reasons than ‘how it looks’.

Getting a layout to work in CSS consistently isn’t too tricky. I don’t think I’ve seen a table based layout that couldn’t be done to pixel perfect precision with CSS (with far less code and far more flexibility of course).

Just before moving into professional web design, I bought and read this book twice. It’s worht it’s weight in gold plated latinum (trekkie reference) - seriously it will probably be the best book you buy.

I have never used tables for layout and wouldn’t even know where to begin if I had to. CSS is very flexible and powerful.

Geesus, prize to one book is from 9.95 euro to 43euros. How sick is that? Oh well, now i just wait for my CSS and CSS Mastery to come…(another books that i guess i never read to the last page, as the photoshop CS (1000pages)...havent read that…hmhm…over 100 pages or so, lol).

There is elegance and power in CSS that is lacking in the sheer brute force of tables. One valid metaphor might be that tables are like bitmaps and CSS like vectors.

It’s a big mindset change but when you force yourself to switch you can see there’s no going back even if occasionally you know something would have been a bit easier in the short term with tables.

I think what most people find is that if they lay out the css CORRECTLY it works much better than tables do. The problem is that tables do not look the same on different browsers. Well that’s one problem.

Once you get the hang of div styles you’ll make them wherever you want and unless you’ve got data in them that’s format required you’ll see that the fluidity is better in css, and it’s more powerful.

It’s more just a matter of getting use to the new way. Using tables isn’t wrong per say, it’s just not the most efficient, cross browser compatible way to do it.

2006 would be fine since CSS hasn’t changed since then. until there’s a new version it won’t change. Heck the best css editor I use is TopStyle and it’s last rev is from 2006.

I think what most people find is that if they lay out the css CORRECTLY it works much better than tables do. The problem is that tables do not look the same on different browsers. Well that’s one problem.

Agreed. Though, the same can be said of CSS. MSIE 6.x doesn’t know how to spell CSS, let alone render it correctly. MSIE 7 is improved, but nowhere nearly as accurate and consistent as Firefox or Safari (or Opera, et al).

That makes it more than a challenge for some layouts for CSS, when, quite often, Tables render similarly.

Once you get the hang of div styles you’ll make them wherever you want and unless you’ve got data in them that’s format required you’ll see that the fluidity is better in css, and it’s more powerful.

Agreed. It’s those rascal exceptions per browser that drive me nuts. Some browser developers should be sentenced to six months on the electric chair.

I’m talking about you, Microsoft.

I’ve always had major CSS problems with multiple columns beyond three. It’s easy in Tables, not so much in CSS.

I made the change from IE to FF a few months ago. But it wasn’t because of negative rendering from IE, it was because of the add-ons for Firefox that simply aren’t available for ie, or are, but aren’t nearly as powerful in the ie version (firebug).

There’s no sense in getting into a ie 6 discussion, but suffice to say I see the reasoning behind the programming differently than some. However, I agree that the best way to do it is like Firefox and simply stick to the standards and do it strictly.

I’m not a long time designer so I don’t have nearly the experience of others, but I’m seeing the things people are complaining about quite often now. So it’s interesting.