[thelist] <thead> vs. <th>?

Mike Combs mike at combsnet.com
Tue Apr 9 09:05:07 CDT 2002


That's what I get for hand typing the example in the middle of the night...

It's the W3 page that's confusing me.

What is the rule of thumb for using <thead> to encapsulate the <tr> and
<td>, and when should I use <th>?  Or should I use <thead> to encapsulate
<th> to be really safe?

I can't imagine a scenario where some of the column head cells would be
<th> and others would be <td>, so wouldn't you always use <thead> with <td>
and have no need for <th>?

Also, I thought about using <th> to mark the leftmost column, since the
data there doubles as labels for the rows, but W3 seems to explicitly
discourage this.  Am I reading that right?

Thanks for the help.

At 09:49 AM 4/9/2002, you wrote:
>if your row consists of <th>s, then i'd stuff them in a <thead>... after
>all, that's
>what the <th> is for, to specify a header cell...
>
>your <thead> should also contain the <tr></tr> pair, not replace them...
>
>you can find specifc usage guidelines at:
>http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html#h-11.2.3
>
>i'd avoid accepting their examples as gospel,  however...




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