How do I keep apparent table width independent of window size?

On 2008-04-01, dorayme <doraymeRidThis (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:

In article <slrnfv5906.lu.spamspam (AT) bowser (DOT) marioworld>,
Ben C <spamspam (AT) spam (DOT) eggs> wrote:

On 2008-04-01, dorayme <doraymeRidThis (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:
In article <slrnfv2jve.hn7.spamspam (AT) bowser (DOT) marioworld>,
Ben C <spamspam (AT) spam (DOT) eggs> wrote:

On 2008-03-31, dorayme <doraymeRidThis (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:
...
td {border: 1px solid; min-width: 20em;}

Width on table cells kind of means minimum width anyway.

[...]

Safari 2 is different to Firefox in the effects.

A table with td {border: 1px solid; width: 200px;} behaves differently
in different browsers to td {border: 1px solid; min-width: 200px;}

Yes, width and min-width are different.

Firefox seems to think that min-width doesn't apply to table cells at
all from what I can see.

True, with FF, one can save one's breath for all the notice it takes of
this in a table.

Min-width on table-cells does fall through the cracks a bit. The spec
doesn't say it doesn't apply to them, but in the bit that tells you what
to do with min-width (10.4), it refers you back to "Calculating widths
and Margins 10.3" which explains everything except tables and table
cells.

And you obviously can't just blindly apply the rules in 10.4 to table
cells since all cells in a column have to have the same width.

In article <slrnfv6c3a.8gh.spamspam (AT) bowser (DOT) marioworld>,
Ben C <spamspam (AT) spam (DOT) eggs> wrote:

On 2008-04-01, dorayme <doraymeRidThis (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:
In article <slrnfv5906.lu.spamspam (AT) bowser (DOT) marioworld>,
Ben C <spamspam (AT) spam (DOT) eggs> wrote:

On 2008-04-01, dorayme <doraymeRidThis (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:
In article <slrnfv2jve.hn7.spamspam (AT) bowser (DOT) marioworld>,
Ben C <spamspam (AT) spam (DOT) eggs> wrote:

On 2008-03-31, dorayme <doraymeRidThis (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:
...
td {border: 1px solid; min-width: 20em;}

Width on table cells kind of means minimum width anyway.

[...]

Safari 2 is different to Firefox in the effects.

A table with td {border: 1px solid; width: 200px;} behaves differently
in different browsers to td {border: 1px solid; min-width: 200px;}

Yes, width and min-width are different.

Firefox seems to think that min-width doesn't apply to table cells at
all from what I can see.

True, with FF, one can save one's breath for all the notice it takes of
this in a table.

Min-width on table-cells does fall through the cracks a bit. The spec
doesn't say it doesn't apply to them, but in the bit that tells you what
to do with min-width (10.4), it refers you back to "Calculating widths
and Margins 10.3" which explains everything except tables and table
cells.

And you obviously can't just blindly apply the rules in 10.4 to table
cells since all cells in a column have to have the same width.

That's probably why FF doesn't implement it - it's similar to the fact
that not all CSS properties are applied to cells in columns in a
colgroup, even though the CSS specs say they should (try the example
in the CSS spec describing vertical alignment of decimals to see this.)

According to the long-winded arguments on Bugzilla, the problem is that
cells are processed by row (as determined by the html spec and document
hierarchy), not column. The argument against fixing the inheritance
bug and making FF work according to the CSS specs, is that it would
require much additional processing, increase the memory footprint of
the browser, and no-one seems sure how to actually do it. Hence the
sarcastic comment about "this is the bug that must never be fixed".

Never mind the fact that a certain other browser which is generally
considered to ignore standards, actually does what you might expect
based on the CSS specs...

In article <no.email-865A14.08192602042008 (AT) news1 (DOT) chem.utoronto.ca>,
David Stone <no.email (AT) domain (DOT) invalid> wrote:

In article <slrnfv6c3a.8gh.spamspam (AT) bowser (DOT) marioworld>,
Ben C <spamspam (AT) spam (DOT) eggs> wrote:

On 2008-04-01, dorayme <doraymeRidThis (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:
In article <slrnfv5906.lu.spamspam (AT) bowser (DOT) marioworld>,
Ben C <spamspam (AT) spam (DOT) eggs> wrote:

On 2008-04-01, dorayme <doraymeRidThis (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:
In article <slrnfv2jve.hn7.spamspam (AT) bowser (DOT) marioworld>,
Ben C <spamspam (AT) spam (DOT) eggs> wrote:

On 2008-03-31, dorayme <doraymeRidThis (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:
...
td {border: 1px solid; min-width: 20em;}

Width on table cells kind of means minimum width anyway.

[...]

Safari 2 is different to Firefox in the effects.

A table with td {border: 1px solid; width: 200px;} behaves differently
in different browsers to td {border: 1px solid; min-width: 200px;}

Yes, width and min-width are different.

Firefox seems to think that min-width doesn't apply to table cells at
all from what I can see.

True, with FF, one can save one's breath for all the notice it takes of
this in a table.

Min-width on table-cells does fall through the cracks a bit. The spec
doesn't say it doesn't apply to them, but in the bit that tells you what
to do with min-width (10.4), it refers you back to "Calculating widths
and Margins 10.3" which explains everything except tables and table
cells.

And you obviously can't just blindly apply the rules in 10.4 to table
cells since all cells in a column have to have the same width.

That's probably why FF doesn't implement it - it's similar to the fact
that not all CSS properties are applied to cells in columns in a
colgroup, even though the CSS specs say they should (try the example
in the CSS spec describing vertical alignment of decimals to see this.)

According to the long-winded arguments on Bugzilla, the problem is that
cells are processed by row (as determined by the html spec and document
hierarchy), not column. The argument against fixing the inheritance
bug and making FF work according to the CSS specs, is that it would
require much additional processing, increase the memory footprint of
the browser, and no-one seems sure how to actually do it. Hence the
sarcastic comment about "this is the bug that must never be fixed".

Never mind the fact that a certain other browser which is generally
considered to ignore standards, actually does what you might expect
based on the CSS specs...

And never mind that Safari 2, which is much more highly regarded,
standards-wise, also has no problems.

--
dorayme

Scripsit ilya2 (AT) rcn (DOT) com:

I do not expect it to fit on a 400 to 500 pixels wide window.

Or in any reasonable width, for that matter.

http://users.rcn.com/ilya187/TimeGraph.html

It barely fits in my browser in fullscreen mode, which I use rarely, and
it is not even barely legible (and I just got new eyeglasses). If you
stop making the text illegibly small, it becomes evident that the
approach simply won't work on the WWW (and hardly elsewhere too - it's
simply too large a table to be useful).

I have no idea of what the table is supposed to tell. If you just want
to tell "how the flotilla of Earth's emissaries throughout the solar
system has grown and shrunk with time - but mostly grown", then a
_simple_ diagram, a quantitative histogram, would do. You could make the
histogram an image or spend some time in finding a way to do it in HTML
and CSS. (Hint: you could use floated boxes or positioned boxes.)

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

I have no idea of what the table is supposed to tell. If you just want
to tell "how the flotilla of Earth's emissaries throughout the solar
system has grown and shrunk with time - but mostly grown", then a
_simple_ diagram, a quantitative histogram, would do.

Yes, just that -- with hyperlinks to each individual space probe.

You could make the
histogram an image or spend some time in finding a way to do it in HTML
and CSS. (Hint: you could use floated boxes or positioned boxes.)

I will consider it, but you are the first person who claims it is
unreadably small. All other responses I got so far were positive.

In article
<34fa97fb-cea2-4791-b99c-36d664acf8f3 (AT) 59g2000hsb (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
ilya2 (AT) rcn (DOT) com wrote:

I have no idea of what the table is supposed to tell. If you just want
to tell "how the flotilla of Earth's emissaries throughout the solar
system has grown and shrunk with time - but mostly grown", then a
_simple_ diagram, a quantitative histogram, would do.

Yes, just that -- with hyperlinks to each individual space probe.

You could make the
histogram an image or spend some time in finding a way to do it in HTML
and CSS. (Hint: you could use floated boxes or positioned boxes.)

I will consider it, but you are the first person who claims it is
unreadably small. All other responses I got so far were positive.

I found that, even with my browser window maximised, if the text
was large enough to read comfortably, I had to keep scrolling
from side-to-side to see what was happening towards the more
recent (i.e. bottom) part of the table.

I single graphic image - possibly as an image map - which would
fit within a reasonable size window would be better to convey the
overall growth in missions. Then find another way to present
individual details to anyone who is interested (e.g. via image map
links).

Re: http://users.rcn.com/ilya187/TimeGraph.html
"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela (AT) cs (DOT) tut.fi> wrote:

You could make the
histogram an image or spend some time in finding a way to do it in HTML
and CSS. (Hint: you could use floated boxes or positioned boxes.)

<ilya2 (AT) rcn (DOT) com> wrote:

I will consider it, but you are the first person who claims it is
unreadably small. All other responses I got so far were positive.

Did you expect <font size=1> to be easy to read? And the names must be
read, because a given name appears in different columns in different rows.

With my minimum font size enabled, it isn't bad. But the table forces
horizontal scrolling in my default browser window, and leaves lots of blank
space in my maximized browser window. And still, I end up seeing

Venera
5
Mariner
6

rather than

Venera 5
Mariner 6

This seems like a good place to use a non-breaking space.

But the information still wouldn't be easy to follow in this format.
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew (AT) stanfordalumni (DOT) org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin (AT) htmlhelp (DOT) com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

politician n. one who double-crosses a bridge when he comes to it

I found that, even with my browser window maximised, if the text
was large enough to read comfortably, I had to keep scrolling
from side-to-side to see what was happening towards the more
recent (i.e. bottom) part of the table.

That's pretty much a given.

I single graphic image - possibly as an image map - which would
fit within a reasonable size window would be better to convey the
overall growth in missions. *Then find another way to present
individual details to anyone who is interested (e.g. via image map
links).

I will try to come up with something like that.