[thelist] arguments pro css & xhtml / con tables

Christian Heilmann codepo8 at gmail.com
Wed Jun 21 00:54:06 CDT 2006


> No I hadn't before. Thanks for that, but they seem to be simple column
> layouts, like all the other CSS layout sites. I know how to do column
> layouts in CSS already thanks, and I use them when I can, but often I get
> given a layout to do that is not a simple column layout,

Like what? A circular or triangular layout? What else but column
layouts are there on the web? Can you give us an example?

> or is a column
> layout that requires a background colour to go all the way to the bottom of
> the content and needs a graphic to line up with the bottom of the content or
> something like that, and that's when I return to tables.

I personally found that to be a real task with Firefox and tables.
Clever cutting of your images, fading into background colours and
repeating them makes it quite easy to do it with CSS though - as
positioning background images does work in elements but can get tricky
with table cells. Again, it may be that the design is just too strict
for its own good - there are designs that also force you to bloat your
code with extra DIVs and spans. The times of being able to define a
height and pixel gutters are IMHO over - especially when you also take
accessibility and font resizing into consideration.

Here I go again: If your Design requires you to jump through hoops in
your HTML and CSS there are several possible reasons:
a) You are using the wrong techniques in your CSS (some older
tutorials are simply outdated)
b) You have to support very old browsers
c) You have to use a backend system that meddles badly with your HTML
d) The design is just not flexible enough to be a web design -
although it may be a stuning print design

> oh and BTW, my table layout pages validate to HTML strict. And I do
> everything else with CSS - it is just layout that I often do with CSS.

This validates  HTML strict:

&nbsp;<a href="bla.html" style="color:#999">link<span
class="bla">cool</span></a><br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="bla.html" style="color:#666">link</a><br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="bla.html" style="color:#333">link</a><br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="bla.html"
style="color:#000"><b>link</b></a><br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="bla.html" style="color:#336">link</a><br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="bla.html" style="color:#669">link</a><br>
&nbsp;<a href="bla.html" style="color:#99c">link</a><br>

a) Does it make sense?
b) Do you want to maintain it two months down the line?



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