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Tables or Css?


ben3001

Tables or Css  

39 members have voted

  1. 1. Tables or Css

    • Tables
      6
    • Css
      33


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Yo im a kid that got online yesterday. My friend recommended w3schools. In a month I knew Html css javascript and some xml. (by I got online yesterday I mean I published the site i put 3 months work into.) On the table issue I think its a pointless debate. People who like tables use tables Css likers use css you wont force anyone to change over

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That's one side of the story. The other side is that the W3C is saying you are wrong if you use tables for non-tabular data, so they are trying to force people to change, and a lot of people are changing.

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jeez, I mean forcing people! Thats low. By the way when you say the web should only be writtin by peaple who know what they are doing do you think it would be that much better? I mean most of the sites worth visiting are coded in html 3.1. I mean look at microsoft.com! look at google! My site is more accesible than those ones. eg. My site zooms to fit the window, supports texdt resizing and soon will have aural stylesheets. That compared to how most developers code is fairly good. But i don't truly know what i'm alwasys doing

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That compared to how most developers code is fairly good.
That's true. But saying your site is more accessible than Google's is a stretch. I think Google is one of the better websites out there. And I'm not just talking about the main Google page, but Google labs, maps, groups, news, email, calendar etc. They all work well, they autodetect the user agent (PDA views if you're on a PDA, etc) and generally play nice with browsers.But yeah, it seems like the majority of sites out there are put together by someone using either Dreamweaver or Frontpage who doesn't understand what markup is, they just write some text in their WYSIWYG editor and voila, it's a webpage. And then there are others who take the code that those people produce, and copy and paste it and try to change a few things to suit them without understanding how it works or why. Continue that for a while and you get some horribly written major websites. If everyone coded their pages to be accessible and follow the standards like you are doing, then yeah, I think the web would be a better place.
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Yes but that is not possible without like re writing html so that it will crash if it has errors. Lets face it the best we can do is dream of it.

New browsers do near enough.New browsers already have problems reading poor coding and that will become more and more noticeable as newer versions come out and standards change more and more.All they would need to do is get rid of quirks mode and then people would have to code page properly or the page would not work properly.XHTML is more strick than HTML so this forces better coding too.
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  • 3 weeks later...
One other thing I don't like about CSS layouts is the rendering performance.  When I have to render a heavy CSS page, using most browsers, scrolling especially will not be smooth at all, it looks clunky like it has to constantly calculate positions, etc. 
I know this thread is pretty old at this point, but I ran across a site that illustrates this perfectly. A lot of people put as much as they can possibly think of on their blogs or myspace pages, without much thought going into usability. You end up with things like this:http://www.gmastasquirrel.com/It looks nice when it's just sitting there, but scrolling around feels more like a slideshow. No offense to the G Masta..Anyway, I thought of this thread when I was looking there, so I figured I would add to it, because I said I would.
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  • 2 years later...

I use both to make a layout of my sites. It's a good combination. So idk witch one to vote for. You should add both as an option.

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I use both to make a layout of my sites. It's a good combination. So idk witch one to vote for. You should add both as an option.
Stop bumping old topics. And I completely discourage the use of tables for website layout. It's not what they were made for.CSS is the correct and proper way to go.
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Dude, are you just looking for something to do? :)I think you'll find most of the regulars on this board have abandoned tables for layout, or, if they're young enough, never used them that way to begin with. I've been writing pages since 1993, so I went the table route in the beginning. A "good" layout always led to tables inside tables inside tables . . .Divs and CSS are just better in the long run. IMHO

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After reading this topic for the last hour, I've seen many, many different arguments, so i would like to put in my input. But firstly, I would like to say this: regardless of what's "best" according to standards, web developers are challenged to do what's "best" for users. I saw this very point made several times. The W3C has made great advancements to what CSS can do. I don't think the problem of support lies with them as much as it lies with browsers. In the end, browsers call the shots, which sparked this whole controversy in the first place. So, I'll begin with that topic.IE6 is old. It's not Microsoft's fault is doesn't support CSS2. It was great back in it's day. However, Microsoft did make the mistake of waiting too long, and IE7 is the result. I'm not a fan of IE7 anymore. It used to be my favorite browser before I started developing, but now I see the benefits of Firefox, more support. In fact, I heard there's a CSS property for rounded corners that is supported by Firefox. Everyone loves rounded edges, but no one loves the work put into making them cross browser. It's known fact that tables work better cross browser that pure CSS layouts, but you also lose a little bit that each browser can deliver. If every browser used the same standard, the standards of the W3C, I can guarantee table layouts would dwindle and die, as pure CSS layouts offer cleaner XHTML. But of course, the W3C and browser vendors won't work together like that. It'd make too much sense.It is true tables aren't meant for layouts. Everyone understands this. But why do developers need to spend hours hacking and hacking to make a layout that works with the old browsers? Even some current browsers don't support everything the W3C suggests to use. As I said before, as developers, we are challenged to what's "best" for the users, and that means giving a layout all users can enjoy. Face it, table layouts are less of a hassle to do this with.I'm not saying table layouts are the greatest thing ever. In fact, I stopped using them two years ago. Instead I've written pure CSS layouts for the websites I've developed lately and everything looks fine in IE7 and Firefox 2 & 3. I'm pretty sure they look fine in Opera as well, although I haven't tried. Truth be told, I didn't even pour that much time into getting it to look fine cross browser. Everything ended up looking fine from the beginning. So table layouts aren't required for consistent cross browser layouts. But on the other hand, my layouts are simple. I don't spend a lot of time saying "this element MUST be RIGHT here on the screen NO MATTER WHAT". I honestly don't care that much. I make it look organized, then pour my hours into PHP programming. I mean, people come for the content, not the little box that stays 10 px from the left all the time. Make the content readable, give the site a little color, and users tend to be happy with that.Now for the developers that do care about every little placement, table layouts are close to the only cross browser solution. Of course you could use CSS, but honestly, is written different CSS for different browsers any better than tables? In my eyes, no.Overall, I stray from tables because that is not there intended purpose. But I also stray from layouts that need CSS hacks to make things look good no matter what as well. In the end, I think developers spend too much time making the placement perfect, when the only people who appreciate those hours ARE developers. Most users just want to read and use the site easily, which can be obtained without over complex layouts, as my projects have proven.And to the original poster: I think you started a "religious" war.

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Good developers don't use tables. :) Tables are easy to use, but they aren't semantically good, and prevent the separation of presentation from structure.Anyway, here's what the W3 has to say: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/appendix/note...ml#notes-tablesWhat do they mean? :)

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I didn't read any of the replys but :CSS for designTable for dataThe reasons will become obvious when you start using those two principles, so I don't have to explain anything :)EDIT : and by table for data, I mean dynamicaly generated table for data. Table for forms are also tolerated.

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I didn't read any of the replys but :CSS for designTable for dataThe reasons will become obvious when you start using those two principles, so I don't have to explain anything :)EDIT : and by table for data, I mean dynamicaly generated table for data. Table for forms are also tolerated.
It's not necessarily dynamically generated. And not just any kind of data either.A table is for tabular data, meaning it has two dimensions. Nothing more than that,
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We in America know that just because something has more votes doesn't necessarily make it the best choice.Everything has its place. Tables have their place like everything else, and sometimes the situation calls for a table layout. It doesn't automatically make you a bad developer. Like anything else, over-using tables creates a problem.

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We in America know that just because something has more votes doesn't necessarily make it the best choice.Everything has its place. Tables have their place like everything else, and sometimes the situation calls for a table layout. It doesn't automatically make you a bad developer. Like anything else, over-using tables creates a problem.
Well said. Makes you wish Gore had won in the recount. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount
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