how to layout forms with css

Neal <neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 01:20:53 -0400, Harlan Messinger
hmessinger.removethis (AT) comcast (DOT) net> wrote:

Neal <neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

But isn't the purpose of a table to offer a comparison amongst the
data? I
think a table needs columns and rows which compare similar data, but
this
isn't for that purpose really.

The purpose of a TABLE is to present tabular data. "Data" can be
anything, including user-entered data or places for them to enter it.
The first paragraph of the Tables section of the spec:

"The HTML table model allows authors to arrange data -- text,
preformatted text, images, links, forms, form fields, other tables,
etc. -- into rows and columns of cells."

I was just thinking about Barry Pearson too. In his honor, I'll start
from the start.

The definition describes damn near anything. Even tabular layout. The
definition isn't that good. The only way to make sense of it is to look at
the element's name, table.

Clearly, img is meant to deliver an image, not some other object. And form
is obviously for a form. Their descriptions in the W3C documentation
reflect these roles.

Therefore, it's sensible to deduce that it "allows authors to arrange data
... into rows and columns of cells" only if it's a table. And so we must
look at what tables are in real life.

Most definitions I see describe a table as a "relational database system"
- which is to say, all the row items have something unique in common, and
all the columns have something - the same thing - in common with each row.
And, it implies that it's meant for providing a relationship to the viewer.

I agree with all of that, and it's fully applicable to the arrangement
of data labels and entry fields.

Now, is the form we've been discussing a table? Some have argued basically
that it's a chart of rows relating to specific input content, comparing
the author's queries and the user's responses. I guess I am seeing tables
as being meant to communicate this relationship to the user, not as merely
a relationship that develops through the user's interaction.

I see no need to add that requirement to the definition of a table.
We're talking about a set of ordered pairs, (label, entry field), and
if you don't want to think of the fields as data, then the information
that the user will enter into them *is* data. Why would table-ness
depend on *who* enters the data into each cell?

An HTML
table's purpose is to deliver information based in relations of data to a
curious user, not to simply act as an egg carton, holding whatever data
relationships we or a random user chooses to plug in.

Data is data, no matter who plugs it in.

The table element no
longer seems to have a semantic approach, but becomes simply a rendering
device to align stuff we have a hard time with otherwise - which is
exactly the slippery slope we all want to avoid!

I don't see this as a consequence of using tables to arrange a form as
we have been discussing..

Maybe my view is in error, I'll have to ponder it. Never really gave it
much thought before now. But then again, maybe it's not...

--
Harlan Messinger
Remove the first dot from my e-mail address.
Veuillez ôter le premier point de mon adresse de courriel.