WebDesign: Use StyleSheets

JustHalf

dahamsta wrote:

I wasn't suggesting you weren't. Presumably you weren't suggesting that I'm two years out of date.

Nope, I don't know where you are. I was bringing that up to make the point - which I completely failed to make - that being comfortable with using tables shouldn't prevent you from moving onto a better tool. CSS is a better tool for layout purposes in the resounding majority of cases. I sincerely doubt that every job to you

dahamsta wrote:

Which begs the question: Do I look like I don't know what I'm doing?

You complain about weaknesses that CSS has - like excessive bandwidth use - when using CSS for layout tends to result in the exact opposite of what you're getting. This suggests that either:

1: You are implementing your XHTML/CSS in an odd way.
2: You are working on a layout problem that I've never seen.

If it is (1), I'd like to help you out. If it's (2), I am genuinely curious... I'd like to see what this layout problem is.

dahamsta wrote:

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.

The reason I brought up hand-coding is that this is still the only decent way to implement CSS layouts. It's a pity, but a reality.

You seem to be approaching this from the perspective of what is easier for you. Is this a correct assumption?

dahamsta wrote:

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.

Table-based sites are developed with the limitations of table-based layouts in mind. What's your point?

dahamsta wrote:

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

If that's not the case, then I am misunderstanding you.

dahamsta wrote:

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.

Perhaps if I phrase it like this: a rock will put a nail into a piece of wood, but a hammer is better, and in the long run better for you.

dahamsta wrote:

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.

Alright. I'll take a look at it and make suggestions.

Altheus

Christ, I've never read such crap in all my life. The TABLE tag has plenty of life in her left. CSS is great and all things to all men, but to a mid-level designer/developer, not some code nerd who does not even need to reference his variables, it can very intimidating to make the move over to CSS.

Justhalf I completely disagree with your hammer/rock/nail analogy. I believe it would be more like decided to use a brush or a hoover on a parquet floor. The brush will pick up pretty much everything, get into all the corners, and if there's a spot you've missed you can get at it. The hoover is a little less thorough, but it's quick easy, and undoubtably effective. I suppose a combination of both might be the solution, a little hand brush and pan.

Anyway it's a stupid analogy, you're arguing evangelically now.

As a designer moreso than a developer, I design with an image primarily which I try to then translate onto the web.

CSS is a perfectly round hole for my oddly shaped peg.

People will argue that a good design complies to standards, while others will argue a good design gets round the standards.

My belief is a balance should be made based on the designer's ability to put out the best design he can given the tools he knows.

dahamsta

I'll go around the rounabout one more time, but after that I'm getting off...

JustHalf wrote:

CSS is a better tool for layout purposes in the resounding majority of cases.

In your opinion. In my opinion, it's a tool. Not a better tool, or a worse tool, just a tool.

You complain about weaknesses that CSS has - like excessive bandwidth use

Obviously bandwidth was a bad choice of words. I thought I'd cleared this up in my last post, but obviously not. Rather than restate, look for the words "messy" and "ugly".

when using CSS for layout tends to result in the exact opposite of what you're getting

Using CSS for formatting certainly decreases bandwidth, however as I've said, I already use CSS for formatting. When it comes to layout, we're back to the words "messy", "ugly" and "large" again.

The reason I brought up hand-coding is that this is still the only decent way to implement CSS layouts. It's a pity, but a reality.

Which is, I might add, a major flaw with CSS.

You seem to be approaching this from the perspective of what is easier for you. Is this a correct assumption?

Easier, faster and cheaper; I'm pretty sure I covered this earlier.

Table-based sites are developed with the limitations of table-based layouts in mind. What's your point?

What's yours? Your comment suggests that I use only table-based layouts, which you know isn't true.

I agre with Altheus on the analogy, but I've already made that clear.

Seriously, I have to get off the roundabout now. I'm dizzy.

adam

Archytas

dahamsta wrote:

file a complaint with Boards.ie

I'm currently arguing this same fact with a number of county councils in Ireland that their websites are unaccessible. One thing at a time folks....

dahamsta wrote:

They use tables for layout because the developers tried using CSS for their layouts

How do you know? I know plenty of bad programmers who will never try unless their made to.

dahamsta wrote:

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!)

Tiny minority? 180million? Thats not tiny. By any means. And at the last counting 1.5million(Americans) use computers and the internet every day. That isn't a tiny number either.

And again I didn't say tables weren't readable. They clearly are. But tables in "layout"- and this is what we're talking about here - are wrong. You can use tables in forums or diplaying data. Just try(try) not to use them for layout.

I'm not trying to keep this "argument" going. Just adding some facts that I may have left out in my rashly written other post.

DJB

Baz.... you still criticising ppl!!!!

Dave

DJB

bazH wrote:

welcome to 3 years ago

Baz.... you still criticising ppl!!!!

Dave

dahamsta

Archytas wrote:

How do you know? I know plenty of bad programmers who will never try unless their made to.

I know because I was on their forums when they posted about it. See, you probably didn't even notice this because you're another obsessive , but what you did there in that one small paragraph is both insult me and call me a liar. This is why I don't like evangelists, and how this whole topic got started.

adam


LoLth: no problem with heated debate but lets not start abusing one another.

Figment

A little more fuel for the debate.
http://www.decloak.com/Dev/CSSTables/CSS_Tables_01.aspx

I use both as needed.

P&L

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 ... etc

A common misconception but this is not true at all, if you understand accessibility it is possible to create a table-based layout that is accessible to the common assistive devices.

And prudent if you have more than 100 visitors a day, as it seems to me that's where you start encountering accounability to NN4 users.

Archytas wrote:

I'm currently arguing this same fact with a number of county councils in Ireland that their websites are unaccessible.

Really? I'm interested, I have written a letter to one of the councils on the same issue, they had mistakenly believed their site was AA, but wasn't even A... and they even have a JAWS user testing for them.

Anyway, I didn't need to have any arguement I found them very receptive and they are addressing the issue.

What councils have you contacted? If you are interested in Irish public web accessibilty (and not sending accessibility ransom e-mails), please feel free to contact me by e-mail [colin at puffandlarkin dot com]. I'm planning some work in this area too.

JustHalf

P&L wrote:

A common misconception but this is not true at all, if you understand accessibility it is possible to create a table-based layout that is accessible to the common assistive devices.

It is true, however, that (X)HTML/CSS layout makes this easier to do.

P&L wrote:

And prudent if you have more than 100 visitors a day, as it seems to me that's where you start encountering accounability to NN4 users.

I don't quite understand what you're saying here... can you please clear this up for me?

P&L

JustHalf wrote:

It is true, however, that (X)HTML/CSS layout makes this easier to do.

OK, first off 'easier' is subjective to design targets.

Secondly we're talking complex layouts, not single-column centered blog and CSS Vault clones.

To create a site that is 100% consistent accross all browsers, without using hacks, purely in CSS is next to impossible.
Just to create a CSS site for modern browsers is very easy i agree, and the better the browser the easier it gets.
If I was just designing for Opera, I could nearly do it all in CSS 3 very easily and not compromise design in any way.
But with Gecko in the equation I have restrict myself to CSS 2.1.
Add IE6 to that and I'm looking at CSS 1 (and three-quarters of 2 maybe)

Now add to that older browser versions and the various operating systems, support for CSS gets worse and worse, you can not even depend on CSS 1

Now say hello to hacks and more hacks, sniffers and and so much messing that you could be creating literally up to and over 10 variations with the only purpose of making the HTML page appear the same in every situation.

And if your really good you can even make all those hacks and variations and rules validate, wow
People seem to have lost the irony of creating several different standards compliant version to make a page appear the same accross browsers.
The point of standards is to avoid the need to make any browser specific code (be it CSS, HTML, Javascript or whatever).

It doesn't matter whether the cause for browser specific code is propietry browser features or bad standards support, the result is always the same: lack of forward compatibility and more work every time a client gets updated.

Now, on the flip-side you have table based layouts, they require 1/20th the hacking. They work now, always have and always will. This IMO makes them 'easier'.

JustHalf wrote:

P&L wrote:

And prudent if you have more than 100 visitors a day, as it seems to me that's where you start encountering accounability to NN4 users.

I don't quite understand what you're saying here... can you please clear this up for me?

If you must account for *4 browsers it will be faster and cheaper to use table based layouts, hence prudent.
If there are 2% users on *4 browsers then the more visitors you have, naturally the more visitors that use older browsers.

=================================

No after having said all that... personally I wouldn't be seen dead using tables I'm very comfortable with CSS, I love working with it and am a big fan of simple layouts.

I believe full seperation of content from seperation and good semantics is the way forward, especially in regards to accessibility, but maybe if I was doing a public information site I would have to rethink that and introduce some tabes for layouts.

I'm also considering going back to HTML 4.1 Strict for everything in future, but that's a whole other story.

P&L

...or to put all another way:

Show me a complex CSS layout that looks the same accross all browsers without using hacks...

Hacks are still hacks whether they validate or not.

Archytas

P&L wrote:

A common misconception but this is not true at all, if you understand accessibility it is possible to create a table-based layout that is accessible to the common assistive devices.

I can count on one hand the number of webdesigner able to do that!
Well probably... I don't claim to know every web-designer....

P&L wrote:

Really? I'm interested.... What councils have you contacted?

Eh... Kildare CoCo.(Dublin and naas UDC but only recently) So many parts of their websites are all over the place. and their planning application thingy is horrible.... Just try and use it in any browser except for IE6.... even 5 is weird. But yeah argue is probably a bit strong. They seem to be getting on it but very very slowly. But there's a goverment protocol(probably the wrong word but writing this in a hurry) for all coco websites(I briefly looked over it a long time ago) and they break it all over the place. But I get emails every so often from them and they were very apologetic.

So I cant say things aren't changing because they clearly are but... still room for more :rolleyes:

mewso

O.k. a word from soneone responsible for a county council website. I had the pleasure of reading Designing with Web Standards some time ago and found it a very convincing arguement.
The realities of a large site, a county council one being a good example, present their own difficulties.
If you visit our site you will see a veritable pot-pouri of images and links all over the place. As the person who designed and programmed most of the site I unfortunately have no control over what goes on it. Every day you have someone saying they need a link on the front page to something and the county manager wants it now you can't say no and so you end up with a menagerie.
As to standards. With our browser based CMS it is almost impossible to ensure standards and just as unrealistic to suggest that only html/xhtml/accessible savvy persons should be responsible for content.
In the end you do your best. Layout is currently using tables and I intend to change that as soon as I can. All images and links on the front page have alternative text and I have so far managed to fend off requests for blinking text and scrolling marquees (most of the time). Slowly but surely you start to move in the right direction. The people creating the content for large websites have no knowledge of standards, nor do they care. Of course they will be forced to care when governement sites must conform to accessability guidelines. Unfortunately this will be when somebody who makes decisions will hand a cheque to some 3rd party to render our site accessible. I have been designing and programming web sites for 7 years and believe me when I tell you these people still don't ask me for my opinion.
We're getting there but if the tag at the very top of your site says
"<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">"
for example then you are entitled to use tables for layout. When it says otherwise then you might see 3 divs instead of 3 trs but only then.

P&L

musician, I reckon you're miles ahead of everyone else in the fact that you know the problems, a lot of the council webmasters are misinformed and still believe they are OK to use the word 'image' as alt text, because you must use alt text with images...
Their other major problem (as you eluded to) is that they believe everything can be fixed by throwing money at it...

Anyway, afore ye go and build that CSS site, might be worthwhile to wait for the relaese of the GAWDS CMS solution. It not publically available yet, but it will apparantly be fully accessible for content managers and produce safe code. I've seen a few CMS tools (mostly blog ones) that produce safe code very well, so I have no doubt in these guys ability to the same and do it very very well.

P&L

Archytas wrote:

I can count on one hand the number of webdesigner able to do that!
Well probably... I don't claim to know every web-designer....

it's fairly easy, just use Opera as your preview browser and disable tables or use text browser emulation. (ok there's a bit more to it but not that much )

Archytas wrote:

Eh... Kildare CoCo.(Dublin and naas UDC but only recently) So many parts of their websites are all over the place. and their planning application thingy is horrible.... Just try and use it in any browser except for IE6.... even 5 is weird. But yeah argue is probably a bit strong. They seem to be getting on it but very very slowly. But there's a goverment protocol(probably the wrong word but writing this in a hurry) for all coco websites(I briefly looked over it a long time ago) and they break it all over the place. But I get emails every so often from them and they were very apologetic.

So I cant say things aren't changing because they clearly are but... still room for more :rolleyes:

Yeah, I had reason to examine the Kildare one before, alot of problems at the time alright IIRC.
Well Rome wasn't built in a day and all that, it's just great to hear that they are moving inthe right direction

Archytas

Thanks for the input. Its actually the first time I've heard from an actual CoCo website designer/builder. The last time I emailed people about it(even [email]webmaster@(coco).ie[/email]) I got a reply back from someone who more than likely didn't know what a table was(apart from something to eat of). And it also seems to be a little script but then thats how customer service works

But yeah thanks for the input. Was mucho appreciated! But its clear that people other that webdesigners have to be educated on the topic of accessibility! I.e all those people who want blinking sentences etc.!

Thanks

mewso

P&L wrote:

Anyway, afore ye go and build that CSS site, might be worthwhile to wait for the relaese of the GAWDS CMS solution. It not publically available yet, but it will apparantly be fully accessible for content managers and produce safe code. I've seen a few CMS tools (mostly blog ones) that produce safe code very well, so I have no doubt in these guys ability to the same and do it very very well.

Well we tendered and bought a 3rd party CMS which is LAMP based and I wasn't asked once for my opinion on the matter. I have no problem with php but I just got my MCAD and I do believe that ASP.NET is the most progressive technology at the moment especially with version 2 due to be released at the end of year with built in support for accessibility and xhtml (i.e. a server control can be set to render xhtml compliant html code). I have no love for Microsoft I just use what I consider the best option of the time. We are now facing what I consider a backwards step onto this new package and I suspect the guys supplying it have promised the world with no real certainty that they can deliver. Time will tell but the end result for me is that I will probably just be developing individual applications for the site.

P&L

musician wrote:

.... I wasn't asked once for my opinion on the matter.... ....the guys supplying it have promised the world with no real certainty that they can deliver.....

I know all about those scenarios! I don't envy you, we should setup a support group :P

Just on the ASP.NET thing, I had my first introduction to it recently, I couldn't believe how much more sense it made to me than PHP, it just seemed to 'fit' the shape of my brain...
But I don't have much choice other sticking to Open source for now as I'm an hobbiest more than anything else.

mewso

P&L wrote:

Just on the ASP.NET thing, I had my first introduction to it recently, I couldn't believe how much more sense it made to me than PHP, it just seemed to 'fit' the shape of my brain...
But I don't have much choice other sticking to Open source for now as I'm an hobbiest more than anything else.

As a hobbyist and assuming you have windows I would recommend you check the betas that are freely available at the moment:-

ASP.NET 2 Framework beta

With the beta framework installed you can then get Sql Server 2005 Express and the IDE software (all in beta) all here.

I think this stuff is the dogs you know what and should make all our lives easier. No doubt I'll start a row with php lovers but I have nothing against any technology I just find the .Net stuff to be heading in the more exciting direction at the mo.

P&L

thanks musician

pork99

musician wrote:

I think this stuff is the dogs you know what and should make all our lives easier. No doubt I'll start a row with php lovers but I have nothing against any technology I just find the .Net stuff to be heading in the more exciting direction at the mo.

Comparing .Net with PHP isn't comparing like with like anyway - the open source equivalent of .Net is J2EE surely? PHP corresponds more to the original ASP set-up with all the functionality embedded in the web pages instead of in servlets and "code-behind"(?).

As far as I'm aware PHP is for SME type sites, .Net and J2EE is more for corporate enterprise level work. I could be wrong, I'm no expert on either (though I used to work for a company that did a lot of J2EE development so I have a rudimentary idea of it).

So any opinions on how .Net compares to J2EE would be more to the point? Even if off topic

To get back on topic, a factor putting people off adopting table-less css layouts might be Dreamweaver's piss-poor support for it. I used to use DW a lot when I was doing table based layouts - switched to Homesite when I started using CSS-P a lot though.