WebDesign: Use StyleSheets

superhoops1973

guys, tables are dead. use stylesheets for layout
came across a great website, must for web developers

http://www.htmldog.com

zAbbo

welcome to 3 years ago

superhoops1973

but lots don't spread the good news and all that...



lots of people still use tables. god damn awful! when you work in a company, your hands can be tied.

look at this site!

Winters

A mix of both are best. There are still things you can do in tables far quicker then playing around with stylesheets.

Trust me .. its my job.

Talliesin

Winters wrote:

A mix of both are best. There are still things you can do in tables far quicker then playing around with stylesheets.

Trust me .. its my job.

Tables are a kludge for anything other than tables.

Trust me… it's my job.

superhoops1973

I think we need to pay huge attention to accessibilty etc.. and tables are a huge barrier to this.

Also, for semantic web to work, web developers should us H1, H2, P BLOCKQUOTE etc... and not every use the font tag to achieve these in the format the want.

I work in a company that has formatting embedded into every page. I won't mention names of website design tools, but some of them should be banned and there should be a jail sentence for using them :rolleyes: as they put so much muck into pages. Everyday I go to work I curse it

Ph3n0m

my only problem is that cross platform and yes even cross browsers - divs used in website creation are rendered differently - which leads to further frustration for any developer/designer.

personally i have found I can create the layout I want much easier with tables (in relation to widths, etc) - however I find the task is increased more so when using divs - especially the different layouts of a div that do not necessarily work, or are valid (according to w3c).

JustHalf

It's not about what's easier for you, it's what's best for the job. I wouldn't trust a painter who'd skip the undercoat because it was easier for him.

Cross-browser compatability is possible, and isn't that hard once you know what you're doing (and know where to look to find out how to solve the more arcane bugs).

To produce a fresh, refined, high-quality XHTML/CSS template takes me between 6 to 12 hours (depending on whether or not I'm using fancy tricks like SIFR, and the complexity of the style). On even a small site, this should only be a small fraction of the amount of work. Even it takes you a single hour to create a table-based template, that should only be a small amount of the total work to be done.

Tables are sometimes the best tool for the job of layout, but that is the case so rarely that you should have some pretty damn solid reasons (like a large install base of Netscape 4 in a particular institution) for this. The default choice is to use CSS for layout.

pork99

I think the place for tables in semantic markup is when displaying tabular data (well d'uh) such as that pulled from a database - table as in database table, <tr>s corresponding to records, <td>s to each field and <th>s to column names.

I find table-less layout are the "dog's b-ll-x" - very much the way ahead. But you do have to be prepared to put up with a bit of cross-browser frustration with regards to things like the box-model and differing interpretations of what relative positioning means.

But apart from a couple of buggy things like that (which can be worked-around) designing without tables (or spacer gifs - remember spacer gifs? :eek: ) is so much better it's ridiculous.

dahamsta

90% of the CSS sites I develop need kludges to get the layout I want.

Seriously, if you want to be 100% standards-compliant, that's your lookout and i won't stop you. But do us a favour, leave the evangelism at home until such time as those standards have been implemented. It just makes you guys sound like complete nerds. Mind your business.

adam

JustHalf

All of the essential layout tools (positioning, etc) are implemented in modern browsers. There are bugs of course, but there are bugs to worry about when implementing a table-based layout.

I don't quite get what you are trying to say Adam. Your "kludges" line, taken in the context of the rest of your post, would seem to indicate that you think CSS hacks are bad; so bad, in fact, that if you can't implement a layout without using them then you shouldn't use CSS for layout at all. I hope I'm misinterpreting you. Can you clear this up for me?

As an aside, the point I was trying to make in the third paragraph of my previous post was that a difference of 5-6 hours in template implementation time shouldn't make much of a difference in terms of overall work done. To build on this point: I believe any additional effort to be worth the time spent, and I also believe that if you know what you are doing then CSS layouts take less time to create than table-based layouts.

superhoops1973

dahamsta, not evangelism, just smarter.. work away with your tables. as long as it keeps you happy. continue to use what is universally accepted as bad practice by people who know. :rolleyes:

i work for a company who decided to outsource some website work to a third party. Now i work closer to the server and web design isn't necessarily my concern, but what came back from the professional web design company was nothing short of a disgrace, yes they have spacer gifs. 2005 i ask you. don't shame yourself by producing anything similar

superhoops1973

Folks, I bumped into a CSS tool while i was getting familiar with RSS. It's called TopStyle.

http://www.feeddemon.com/

anyone know of any better?

btw: RSS is fantastic. feed demon is :cool:

Syth

There's also the very stylish http://www.csszengarden.com

mneylon

superhoops1973 wrote:

dahamsta, not evangelism, just smarter.. work away with your tables. as long as it keeps you happy. continue to use what is universally accepted as bad practice by people who know. :rolleyes:

Grow up.
You make it sound like:
1 - You are the first person to discover CSS
2 - You know best
3 - You know better than the rest of us

You don't.

Browser support for CSS has improved and will get better, but going around the place evangelising, as Adam quite correctly put it, won't help your cause.

JustHalf

The bit I liked the best was where superhoops1973 implied Adam was an idiot. Great way of convincing others of your opinion there.

dahamsta

For the record, IANAWD (I Am Not A Web Developer). Or rather I am, but it's just one part of what I do. I'm a consultant: Jack of all trades, master of none, but quite good overall like, imho, even if I do say so myself, if that's ok with everyone, no offense like, etc.

JustHalf wrote:

All of the essential layout tools (positioning, etc) are implemented in modern browsers. There are bugs of course, but there are bugs to worry about when implementing a table-based layout.

Very true, but old skoolers like me have been working with those (table-based) bugs for so long that we know them like the back of our hand now, dealing with them is second nature. Moreover, as clients develop these bugs tend to get worked out, and the ones that aren't are often handled transparently by tools like DW and FP. Of course the "solutions" and "handling" are often kludges too, but it's all about balance and, dare I say it, personal choice. Which is the point I was trying to make.

Your "kludges" line, taken in the context of the rest of your post, would seem to indicate that you think CSS hacks are bad; so bad, in fact, that if you can't implement a layout without using them then you shouldn't use CSS for layout at all.

Not at all, in fact I try very hard to produce sites that adhere to standards, and I'd say the majority of the sites I've developed in the past year - which wouldn't be a whole lot tbh, I farm out the bigger jobs these days - have been CSS only, and largely standards-compliant. However I won't be a slave to standards at the cost of creavity, earnings, or even bandwidth; i.e. if adhering to standards means compromising on the look that I want, or cutting into my profit margin, or even cluttering up my code wih hacks, then I'm going to work around them.

The site I'm developing at the moment is a perfect example. I did it in tables to get the layout the way I wanted it, because it's quicker and easier that way in DW, which won't render a lot of CSS hacks. Now that I'm happy with it I've stripped out a lot of the tables, and of course ALL of the formatting is done with CSS, but stripping out the major positioning stuff was leaving me with a ton of crufty, ugly, bandwidth hogging code, and I don't like that. So for me, tables are far from dead.

As an aside, the point I was trying to make in the third paragraph of my previous post

Just in case there was a misunderstanding: I wasn't replying to any particular post in the thread, just making a general comment.

a difference of 5-6 hours in template implementation time shouldn't make much of a difference in terms of overall work done.

Again though, this is subjective. The last three sites I did were brochures done largely as favours, and those guys aren't getting 5-6 hours out of me total, never mind on template developement. (Ironically, the last three sites are all pretty much standards-compliant, but that's just by-the-by.)

adam

superhoops1973

blacknight the keyboard warrior :rolleyes:

10 years + developing software for proper software companies. i should know more than most. I make mistakes, but am always looking for improvements. I think its important to share knowledge..

mneylon

superhoops1973 wrote:

blacknight the keyboard warrior :rolleyes:

10 years + developing software for proper software companies. i should know more than most. I make mistakes, but am always looking for improvements. I think its important to share knowledge..

And what a lovely charming attitude you have too

superhoops1973

JustHalf wrote:

The bit I liked the best was where superhoops1973 implied Adam was an idiot. Great way of convincing others of your opinion there.

its not just my opinon

http://www.webstandards.org/learn/faq/

Ph3n0m

superhoops1973 wrote:

its not just my opinon

http://www.webstandards.org/learn/faq/

ok so by that reasoning, should we all use standards that in the real world could cut down a website audience numbers? the problem is not with the standards, it is how browser technology implements them.

earlier someone said they go for 100% compatibility and so do I - nothing to do with ease of use, etc. Hell I try to use valid HTML/xHTML whenever I use it - but in some cases to get a site working for everyone, you have to use bad code - its a fact of development.

It is not a problem of the developers - it is a problem of those who create the browsers and how they implement the "standards". the number of times I have cried over a site looking great on all browsers on a PC - only for the Mac to come along and **** all over it.

I will use as close to the standards as possible - otherwise I will continue to use what works for everyone, not just the elite of browsers

superhoops1973

yes i know some browsers don't comply to the standards, well microsoft thinks it is the standard. but i won't write code that doesn't comply with standards..

yet another link

http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/

Archytas

Im sure you all know this but blind screen readers... text readers... and A whole lot of other things cant read your table layout crap. And pixel spacers? wtf? AOL got f**ked for it and so will any other mainstream site if they're not accessible. AOL had to pay out big for their ignorance and hopefully people will start to change their outlook. And their websites.

dahamsta

Archytas wrote:

Im sure you all know this but blind screen readers... text readers... and A whole lot of other things cant read your table layout crap.

Whose table crap? Mine? Everyone that uses tables? Paul Knight from 63 Cable Terrace, Ankh Morpork? Anyway, setting aside the fact that that's a gross (and badly constructed) overstatement the first thing you should do is file a complaint with Boards.ie about their site, because that's used "table layout crap" since it was born, and continues to do so today. Then you should file complaints with the rest of the sites on the web running vBulletin, phpBB, UltimateBB, and all the other forum software solutions, because 99.99% of them use tables too.

They use tables for layout because the developers tried using CSS for their layouts, but they either didn't work for some users (irony, eh?) or ended up producing gallons of HTML (which is not good on already-heavy sites like these). So they reverted to tables, like many others have. Oh, and stick in complaints to the millions upon millions of other sites running tables while you're at it. Because, according to you, they're unreadable by a tiny minority and all but useless. (Of course they're not unreadable, but let's not waste time with facts here!)

And pixel spacers? wtf?

I doubt anyone in here's used a pixel spacer in years, but way to go on picking an item up out of a thread without actually examining the details. You go girlfriend.

BTW, superhoops? If that's a football related handle and you have an account on Foot.ie, let me know what it is so I can ban you on general principle.

adam

superhoops1973

dahamsta

ban me from foot.ie.. because you don't like what i got to say.. nice one. ban me all you like..

keep diggin

superhoops1973

legacy is something we all got to deal with. tables are used all over web, that cann't be changed. i'm just saying that its best to use CSS from now. The goverments and EU are going to sometime require complete accessiblity. Archytas has a point. Just because able bodied people can read websites and admire how nice they look, what about those not so fortunate

JustHalf

dahamsta wrote:

Very true, but old skoolers like me have been working with those (table-based) bugs for so long that we know them like the back of our hand now, dealing with them is second nature. Moreover, as clients develop these bugs tend to get worked out, and the ones that aren't are often handled transparently by tools like DW and FP. Of course the "solutions" and "handling" are often kludges too, but it's all about balance and, dare I say it, personal choice. Which is the point I was trying to make.

Sounds like me two years ago. I've been using HTML since a school project in 1996, so I'm well aware of how to use tables.

One of the big problems with CSS layout is that you need to hand-code pretty much everything to get the result that you want. Now, I've hand-coded sites for as long as I can remember - I've never been happy with the output of tools like Dreamweaver - so this transition is easier for me. I would recommend weaning yourself off the editors though - you are at the mercy of their faults.

dahamsta wrote:

Not at all, in fact I try very hard to produce sites that adhere to standards, and I'd say the majority of the sites I've developed in the past year - which wouldn't be a whole lot tbh, I farm out the bigger jobs these days - have been CSS only, and largely standards-compliant. However I won't be a slave to standards at the cost of creavity, earnings, or even bandwidth; i.e. if adhering to standards means compromising on the look that I want, or cutting into my profit margin, or even cluttering up my code wih hacks, then I'm going to work around them.

Let's break this one down:

Creativity:
There is very little you cannot do with pure CSS that you can do with tables, and there is plenty that you cannot do with tables that you can do with CSS: floats and absolute positioning give you an amazing level of control. The argument that CSS-based design is an impediment to creativity seems alien to me. You just need to look at the various CSS galleries to see why.

Bandwidth:
Everything I've ever heard, until now, has told me that the use of CSS for layout has decreased bandwidth usage relative to site traffic. I've read case studies of redesigns that reduced their page weight by half. If you've found a case where the reverse is true I'd really like to see it.

Earnings:
Because of the many benefits of seperating presentation from content - the bandwidth savings, the improved accessibility, the ability to enact site-wide changes in design by changing one file, the ease of creating parsers for clean and structured XHTML documents, etc - using standards gives you a competitive advantage. By refusing to use standards you put yourself at a disadvantage, and this may hurt your earnings.

I don't see how the use of standards could reduce your earnings.

dahamsta wrote:

The site I'm developing at the moment is a perfect example. I did it in tables to get the layout the way I wanted it, because it's quicker and easier that way in DW, which won't render a lot of CSS hacks. Now that I'm happy with it I've stripped out a lot of the tables, and of course ALL of the formatting is done with CSS, but stripping out the major positioning stuff was leaving me with a ton of crufty, ugly, bandwidth hogging code, and I don't like that. So for me, tables are far from dead.

I don't buy your argument. I'd like to see your evidence, and if I can see where you're having problems perhaps I can help you out?

JustHalf

superhoops1973 wrote:

ban me from foot.ie.. because you don't like what i got to say.. nice one. ban me all you like..

Banning from foot.ie aside, can someone ban this guy from the Webmaster board?

mneylon

Archytas wrote:

Im sure you all know this but blind screen readers... text readers... and A whole lot of other things cant read your table layout crap. And pixel spacers? wtf? AOL got f**ked for it and so will any other mainstream site if they're not accessible. AOL had to pay out big for their ignorance and hopefully people will start to change their outlook. And their websites.

And last time I checked this was Ireland, so we are not bound by US laws.

I'm sure the EU will get round to enforcing accessibility at some stage but they haven't yet.

Even when they do that does not mean that you have to stop using tables.

superhoops1973

your a moderator justhalf. why don't you do it? who do you think you are? what have i said thats so wrong. please tell me. i'd love to know.

dahamsta

JustHalf wrote:

Sounds like me two years ago. I've been using HTML since a school project in 1996, so I'm well aware of how to use tables.

I wasn't suggesting you weren't. Presumably you weren't suggesting that I'm two years out of date.

One of the big problems with CSS layout is that you need to hand-code pretty much everything to get the result that you want. Now, I've hand-coded sites for as long as I can remember - I've never been happy with the output of tools like Dreamweaver - so this transition is easier for me. I would recommend weaning yourself off the editors though - you are at the mercy of their faults.

I handcode PHP because I don't like IDE's, I find them cumbersome and crufty. However handcoding has faults too, in that it can lengthen development time and increase the possibility of error. I reckon you know what you're doing, so I wouldn't recommend that you switch to an editor. Which begs the question: Do I look like I don't know what I'm doing? That sounds a little snappy, but I'm just trying to amplify the point I've been trying to make: Handcoding works for you, and that's great; but it's not better, it's just better for you.

You just need to look at the various CSS galleries to see why.

When I look at CSS galleries, I see very pretty sites that have been developed with the limitations of CSS in mind. Underneath the pretty colours I see an awful lot of same-same going on on the layout front.

Everything I've ever heard, until now, has told me that the use of CSS for layout has decreased bandwidth usage relative to site traffic.

On the formatting front, certainly, but I've already said that I use CSS for formatting. On the layout front, I find that trying to hack a site to get it to layout as I'd like without tables often results in messy, ugly, and often very large stylesheets.

By refusing to use standards you put yourself at a disadvantage, and this may hurt your earnings.

I'm not refusing to use standards, you're saying I am.

I don't buy your argument.

To be perfectly frank JustHalf, I don't think you understand it. You seem to be trying to argue that standards are Good, which is pointless because I never said they were Bad. I said that I'll do things my way and you do them yours, and that should be an end to it.

I'd like to see your evidence, and if I can see where you're having problems perhaps I can help you out?

I'll send you a URL privately later on that you can look at, of a development version of my own website, which is half-css-half-tables. If you can show me a way of converting it to CSS without a load of cruft, I'd be only too happy to use it -- I was going to post here to ask it if it was possible later on anyway, before I put it live.

adam