Thread

Ok, this was my last day that i start to even think of trying to make something out from templates what so ever. Geesus why im that stupid. Puuh, from now on i make all by myself…

But yes, i had to ask:
Do you make all via CSS or do you use tables with x-pixels to get “blocks” right in to your sites?

as stupid as i am, i wont do flexible layouts so i make something like 900px wide and put all inside of that. Thats why im surfing what to do and how to do…phew, when i finally start to make something with idea, i hit my head to wall, week? or longer lol.

Hard…hard…for me at least to start idea from my head and make that come alive.

Slow down and breath. When you say “blocks” what do you mean? Are you looking to create a fluid width website or fixed width website?

FWIW, I’ve never figured out how to get CSS to arrange layouts the way I want them, beyond little things like floating a picture or something like that. For most layout purposes I do still use tables.

A lot of people have posted in these forums that tables should be used only for tabular data, not page layout, but I’ve seen too many examples of CSS-based layouts that turn out not to work as intended in certain screen resolutions, or with certain browsers or certain operating systems—or worse, the only way they do work is in certain screen resolutions, or with certain browsers or certain operating systems.

With tables you can specify a set number of pixels for width, or a certain percentage of the browser’s width regardless of the visitor’s screen resolution, or (amateurishly) determined solely by the width of the content in the table cells.

I’ve read repeatedly that CSS will work properly if done right, but others argue that “done right” all too often means “done perfectly,” and with too many layers of CSS instructions it’s very easy to confuse even a standards-compliant browser. So I stick with tables and wait for a more forgiving CSS protocol.

Slow down and breath. When you say “blocks” what do you mean? Are you looking to create a fluid width website or fixed width website?

Yeah, that i did =). I need fluid 500px wide autoheight “box” that i make via css. This is more desind and html/css help topic now than pure “lounge” talk!

Cheers:
- Tuittu

FWIW, I’ve never figured out how to get CSS to arrange layouts the way I want them, beyond little things like floating a picture or something like that. For most layout purposes I do still use tables.

A lot of people have posted in these forums that tables should be used only for tabular data, not page layout, but I’ve seen too many examples of CSS-based layouts that turn out not to work as intended in certain screen resolutions, or with certain browsers or certain operating systems—or worse, the only way they do work is in certain screen resolutions, or with certain browsers or certain operating systems.

With tables you can specify a set number of pixels for width, or a certain percentage of the browser’s width regardless of the visitor’s screen resolution, or (amateurishly) determined solely by the width of the content in the table cells.

I’ve read repeatedly that CSS will work properly if done right, but others argue that “done right” all too often means “done perfectly,” and with too many layers of CSS instructions it’s very easy to confuse even a standards-compliant browser. So I stick with tables and wait for a more forgiving CSS protocol.

Hmm, don’t entirely agree. Sure, it has to be done right. But in my experience IE6.0 and below are a real pain to get right. IE7.0 still has some serious problems. But usually you can get it right one way or another.

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).

Absolutely agree with Andy on that one and that book is an exceptionally good one. I got it as soon as it came out.

Best wishes,

Mark

Its made 2006 so how much does it has “old” info in it. Anycase i might order that from local shop cos i found that in there =) Another book for me that never goes to last page i guess =) (EE-book is waaay different if i someday somehow someway get it…heh).

Tables? What are those?

I’m going to go with Andy, Mark and Marcus on this one - CSS is the way to go. CSS Mastery is a great book, and so is Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke. I’m reading through it now, and I’m being blown away by some of the concepts.

It’s time to leave the use of tables for page layout behind.

Look into CSS resets.. Starting from scratch helps me define my CSS properly and doesn’t require alot of “IE time”. I run Windoze XP in Fusion and have IETester installed for the “IE time”.

Also, use margins for layout Divs…. Not padding. That is definitely a bad habit from tables and took some time to re-learn.

Hmm, don’t entirely agree. Sure, it has to be done right. But in my experience IE6.0 and below are a real pain to get right. IE7.0 still has some serious problems. But usually you can get it right one way or another.

I use Firefox 3.01, actually. I simply am not satisfied, never have been, with CSS to replace tables for my layouts. It may be the same mindset that keeps me writing HTML in a text editor because no HTML editor (especially not WYSIWYG) gives me the same amount of control.

With tables I know exactly where something is going to go. With CSS I have no such confidence.

I’m one of those who believes that tables should really only be used for what they were intended for - tabular data.

Admitted I started out using tables for layout but that was just because there simply wasn’t anything else around at the time that would allow for easy layout or nothing that was widely supported.

Nowadays you can make your site look the same in all browsers, admitted it can take a while but the rewards are much higher if you do it the right way as you will have less code and changes will end up being much quicker.

When I first started learning CSS it completely confused me as to how it all worked and I didn’t want to take up on it. After a few more months of working with it though I didn’t look back as everything was just much more simple. I think the thing that turned me around was the fact that I was pretty much using the layout techniques that are used nowadays but I was doing it with inline code which is totally ugly.

Simply by moving the inline code into an external CSS file I was getting the same result but just in a slightly different way but the rewards severely outweighed any method I had done before.

That works for me at least any way! 😉

Best wishes,

Mark

I’m one of those few that never used tables and spacer gifs for layout. I started with CSS. From my perspective though, I think that tables should be used only for tabular data as well. The markup just feels crowded with all those tables.

I picked up some bad habits by learning CSS from poking around in free templates, but I’m working on those as we speak. That’s been my biggest stumbling block so far. If you devote some time to CSS, you really start to feel it after a while. I work in a text editor and Photoshop/Illustrator. That’s it. This way I can build the CSS around the content, and then add the layout for presentation later. The markup seems cleaner and easier to follow as a result.

Also, I wanted to point out that I was able to put my little project site together using CSS without any IE hacks of any kind (That was actually a big win for me). The layout is a no frills 3 column, but I’m still a newbie compared to a lot of you guys here.

😉

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.

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!  😝