table borders

"brucie" <shit (AT) usenetshit (DOT) info> wrote

In alt.html.critique Deryck said:

Sorry to have fuelled yet another CSS v Tables debate.

heres some background reading so you can keep up:

Snip useful links

Brucie! Some of those links were about validation. I'm deeply hurt that you
think that I dont know about the importance of validation. Sniff, all my
work validates. It's a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a decent
site.

Some of the other links look useful though.

Cheers

Deryck

Quoth the raven Deryck:

<snippage>

OK, I just ran them through the validators...maybe I chose bad
examples But my point still stands I think. These companies want
their sites to be read by the majority of people and their HTML,
although crap, will work on most browsers.

Sure, most browsers will display the sites more or less adequately
(for some value of adequate).

If they adopted a CSS layout would that be the case?

If the authors knew how to write ... well, here's an example of a
popular three-column no-tables site that works very well in all modern
browsers, and even in the ancient IE6. Check out a printed copy as well.

http://wired.com

On the main page, there is one error in the HTML, where it appears a
<div> was placed inside a <p>, and there are a couple of minor errors
in the CSS.

It would be interesting to know what the BBC & Amazon's policies
are on W3C validation, CSS, IT recruitment, etc...maybe I'll ask
and see what happens.

BBC: "What is W3C?" ;-)

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 11:36:39 +0100, Deryck <deryck (AT) REMOVElonghope (DOT) co.uk>
wrote:

amazon.com, bbc.co.uk, these are big companies with big budgets and who
can
afford the best designers/developers/implementers. Why do they continue
to
use tables for layout?

An old Lily Tomlin line: "We don't have to care. We're the phone company."

If you have content that people are going to use no matter what, you don't
need quality! You'll get the business regardless.

And consider one of the reasons table layout is not recommended: difficult
to change the layout in the future. Perhaps their table layout isn't
what's best, but they're stuck with it.

brucie wrote:

In alt.html.critique The Doormouse said:


Tables are FINE for layout.


several years go tables for layout were the only option but not anymore.
old crappy IE gives people some problems but there are workarounds or if
not you can present a different style for the problem part or even the
entire site if you want to.


I see no reason why gross layout cannot be done with tables if one is
not stupid with them.


people keep defending tables for layout because they just don't know how
to do it with css. for a start you need to know how to author html and
the overwhelming majority cant even do something simple like that.

if you love tables so much then why aren't you using css tables?


CSS is great for layout. Again, that is only if one is not stupid with it.


even if someone is "stupid" with it you can just turn it off and the
site still works. easy peasy.

Just because technology is there doesn't mean you have to use it. CSS
can be very complicated, and it is FAR MORE prone to falling to bits
because of some totally random browser incompatiblity. People should be
*encouraged* to use CSS for thousands of reasons, but that does NOT mean
you HAVE to use them. Tables are NOT just for tabular data.

--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

http://wired.com

On the main page, there is one error in the HTML, where it appears a
div> was placed inside a <p>, and there are a couple of minor errors in
the CSS.

Yes and thier nice 3 columns disappear if you turn off / dont have
support for CSS. If it were tables, the columns would still be there

--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #

Neal wrote:

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:20:48 GMT, The Doormouse <doormouse (AT) att (DOT) net> wrote:

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

And I disagree with disagreeing with brucie's disagreement.


Tables are FINE for layout.


Blockquotes are fine for indenting.

Heading markup is fine for boldfacing and enlarging text.

Form buttons are fine for hyperlinks.

Poodles are fine for doorstops.

I think you'd agree the above statements imply abuse.

No -

All of the above items impact usablity (and search SEO). The use of
tables does not.

--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 15:02:55 +0100, SpaceGirl
<NOtheSpaceGirlSPAM (AT) subhuman (DOT) net> wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

http://wired.com

On the main page, there is one error in the HTML, where it appears a
div> was placed inside a <p>, and there are a couple of minor errors
in the CSS.

Yes and thier nice 3 columns disappear if you turn off / dont have
support for CSS. If it were tables, the columns would still be there

The columns are just that - nice. Not necessary.

In small screens, there's one column. Is it easier or harder to get tables
to be rendered in one column on small screen? Table rendering in these UAs
is not terribly nice.

In message <2uhl21F2bhr8fU2 (AT) uni-berlin (DOT) de>, SpaceGirl
<NOtheSpaceGirlSPAM (AT) subhuman (DOT) net> writes

brucie wrote:

In alt.html.critique The Doormouse said:

Tables are FINE for layout.
several years go tables for layout were the only option but not
anymore.
old crappy IE gives people some problems but there are workarounds or if
not you can present a different style for the problem part or even the
entire site if you want to.

I see no reason why gross layout cannot be done with tables if one is
not stupid with them.
people keep defending tables for layout because they just don't
know how
to do it with css. for a start you need to know how to author html and
the overwhelming majority cant even do something simple like that.
if you love tables so much then why aren't you using css tables?

CSS is great for layout. Again, that is only if one is not stupid
with it.
even if someone is "stupid" with it you can just turn it off and
the
site still works. easy peasy.


Just because technology is there doesn't mean you have to use it. CSS
can be very complicated, and it is FAR MORE prone to falling to bits
because of some totally random browser incompatiblity. People should be
*encouraged* to use CSS for thousands of reasons, but that does NOT
mean you HAVE to use them. Tables are NOT just for tabular data.

Tables-for-layout are going to be a part of the UK's Local Government

for many years to come, due to the roll-out of the government-sponsored
APLAWS+ Open-Source content management system for Local Authorities.

The accessibility report that was produced as part of the project says
that the aim is to ensure that all pages on a site are at WAI-AA
standard, but that a table-based layout was adopted to ensure 'platform
stability and ease of adoption'.

However, a page under APLAWS+ is limited to 1 'simple' layout-table to
provide a basic layout structure.

http://www.aplaws.org.uk/project/doc...essibility.pdf

(1Mb)

regards.
--
Jake

"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.nony.mous (AT) example (DOT) invalid> wrote

Quoth the raven Deryck:

snippage

OK, I just ran them through the validators...maybe I chose bad examples
But my point still stands I think. These companies want
their sites to be read by the majority of people and their HTML,
although crap, will work on most browsers.

Sure, most browsers will display the sites more or less adequately (for
some value of adequate).

If they adopted a CSS layout would that be the case?

If the authors knew how to write ... well, here's an example of a popular
three-column no-tables site that works very well in all modern browsers,
and even in the ancient IE6. Check out a printed copy as well.

http://wired.com

On the main page, there is one error in the HTML, where it appears a <div
was placed inside a <p>, and there are a couple of minor errors in the
CSS.

Sure, its a good site. But Ive yet to see anything in the "amazon style"
done in CSS that works well in all browsers.
Here is the prototype for the project that we wanted to do in 100% CSS but
will have to go and use a table or 2 for:
http://dusrc.org/km/main/
This is the CSS version. I dont doubt that Brucie et al could write much
better CSS than me but would it work well on all browsers?
We wanted min-width to stop the pages wrapping below 768 pixels but didn't
want to use javascript, that alone pushed us back to tables.
Then there were all the other IE5/mac issues.

It would be interesting to know what the BBC & Amazon's policies are on
W3C validation, CSS, IT recruitment, etc...maybe I'll ask and see what
happens.

BBC: "What is W3C?" ;-)

) I pay my licence fee, Im entitled to a decent answer from them!

As an aside, this group and alt.html have a good philosophy regarding
accessibility but we dont seem so interested in making sites accessible for
older browsers. Older browsers imply older PCs and often users with less
cash for buying PCs. Are we going to discriminate against less wealthy
users? [OK, we can't be expected to support Really Old Browsers but where is
the cut-off?]

Deryck

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Quoth the raven Deryck:

It would be interesting to know what the BBC & Amazon's policies are
on W3C validation

BBC: "What is W3C?" ;-)

The BBC owns radiotimes.com and they've recently done a redesign. To
highligh but a few problems, it has poor validation, fixed-width layout,
low contrast text, and javascript links.

Unfortunately, this is typical of the efforts of big-brand companies.

--
Ben M.