[thelist] Moving to CSS for layout and design (was: CSS layout site check)

Mark Howells mark at mountain.ch
Tue Dec 11 04:20:52 CST 2001


The whole point of using CSS for layout is to move forward and use
technology which has been implemented for several years. Using tables to
create your layout is certainly one solution but it is, to all intents and
purposes, a long-standing hack that web designers came up with to change the
layout of their pages before a suitable means (CSS) came along. By sticking
with tables to control page layout, web design and development will reach a
point where there are no further opportunities for expansion, not least
because of the sheer amount of development time it takes to find and fix
bugs in a page containing nested tables more than a few levels deep.

While the change to CSS (either in full or in part) is one that requires a
little patience and ... deep breath ... a little effort on the part of the
web designer to learn a new technology, the benefits are endless. Imagine
halving your development times and reducing a page containing 30kb of HTML
tables to a simple DIV layout controlled with a global CSS file. Not only is
the code reduced, but the CSS file is cached on the first request, thus
reducing the overall download time. By changing the code on one simple page
in my current project from HTML tables to CSS, I reduced the file size by
over 50% at the first "sweep".

For those who would argue "what about visitors using Netscape 4.x?", I can
only say that with a little diligence, testing and learning, you can create
a site that works in all browsers from v4.x onwards using nothing but CSS
for layout. By accepting that the layout may be a little different between
browsers, by planning for this at the design stage, and by accepting that
you might not be able to replicate your current tables-based layout with
CSS, there is no reason not to catch up and use a technology that has been
around since 1996 (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1).

I have a list of good sources of CSS tutorial information and assistance
online at http://www.mark.ac/web/resources.php, while the email-based forum
WebDesign-L (http://webdesign-l.com/) (for web designers and developers)
often contains a broad range of discussion about the advantages and
disadvantages of CSS.

Regards
Mark Howells
Working in a Winter Wonderland
http://www.mark.ac

> Von: Erik Mattheis <gozz at gozz.com>
> Betreff: Re: [thelist] CSS layout site check
> 
> The layout looks nice in the browsers that get it as you intend it,
> but when there will be real people visiting with real browsers ...
> dunno, obviously if you can achieve the layout you want with CSS you
> can also do it with tables ... so why not tables?
> 
>> I've just done a (very) simple site using CSS for all the layout.
>> 
>> The site's at: http://www.taguchimonster.com/





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