table borders

hi,

i switched on my table borders to see where my tables where and then started
to wonder should i leave them on.

can you give me your opionion please, on or off?

constructive criticism on appreciated too on the site in general.

(ps. it is only the 2nd site i have ever made that I am not completely
embarrassed about - I am a bricklayer by trade)

http://cardiff64.no-ip.com/cits

"cits" <cits (AT) cits (DOT) com> wrote in
news:sVvgd.3115$vm3.2306 (AT) newsfe5-win (DOT) ntli.net:

hi,

i switched on my table borders to see where my tables where and then
started to wonder should i leave them on.

No - for the reason, read further....

http://cardiff64.no-ip.com/cits

Currently responds with a page whose sole content
is "Counter Query Failed".

In the quick glimpse I got before that, it seems
you are using tables for layout. Google for all
the reasons why that is a bad thing. Remove the
tables(thus the question about the table borders
is moot) and use CSS for layout.

--
Dave Patton
Canadian Coordinator, Degree Confluence Project
http://www.confluence.org/
My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/

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

you shouldn't be using tables for layout at all.

I disagree.

The Doormouse

--
The Doormouse cannot be reached by e-mail without her permission.

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 09:56:50 +1000, brucie <shit (AT) usenetshit (DOT) info> wrote:

In alt.html.critique The Doormouse said:

you shouldn't be using tables for layout at all.

I disagree.

i disagree with your disagreement

And I disagree with disagreeing with brucie's disagreement.

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

And I disagree with disagreeing with brucie's disagreement.

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

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

The Doormouse

--
The Doormouse cannot be reached by e-mail without her permission.

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.

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

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

I do! I gets the best of both.

The Doormouse

--
The Doormouse cannot be reached by e-mail without her permission.

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

Poodles are fine for doorstops.

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

Not at all. I loathe poodles. ;P

The Doormouse

--
The Doormouse cannot be reached by e-mail without her permission.

----- Original Message -----

In alt.html.critique The Doormouse said:

Tables are FINE for layout.

Subject to obvious caveats I have come to agree with that statement.

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.

The problem is -in my limited knowledge- that all browsers support HTML
tables well but not all browsers support all aspects of CSS well.
The main offender is also currently the most popular browser

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.

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?

I freely admit that I have still a lot to learn with CSS and yet for a
recent project (not yet finished) we had to decide to step back from a 100%
CSS layout and use at least 1 table for layout.
Why? The CSS just didnt look right on all browsers particularly IE5 on Mac.
Guess what the client's internal people use? Macs.

Sorry to have fuelled yet another CSS v Tables debate.

Deryck

Quoth the raven Deryck:

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?

Because they hire cheap labour? Who hasn't read about any modern
design techniques? Who don't know about these newsgroups?

One of my ISPs here in the US is AT&T. They can probably afford the
"best designers/developers/implementers" too, but they don't hire
them. Their web pages are crap, because their designers don't know any
better. In our internal newsgroups (help, suggestions, etc) we
constantly point out mistakes on the pages. Are they ever fixed? Very
rarely. Their servers are constantly in trouble as well.

Every time I access my webmail Mozilla tells me:
Warning: The stylesheet <link to css file> was loaded as CSS even
though its MIME type, "application/x-pointplus", is not "text/css".

For three years, I have been pointing this one out to them.

Ok, rant over.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.