CSS Tables not practical?

[Mason A. Clark]

CSS Experts:

OK, I'm a stupid newby. Now, here's the question:

Can CSS replace slightly complicated Tables and work in three
browsers (e.g. MSIE 6.0, Net 7.1, Op 7.03) ?

After countless attempts I've concluded "no".

Thank you,

Mason C

( not pertinent; for identification only: http://masonc.home.netcom.com )

[Neal]

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:30:56 GMT, Mason A. Clark
<ma*******@THIS ix.netcom.comQ> wrote:

Can CSS replace slightly complicated Tables and work in three
browsers (e.g. MSIE 6.0, Net 7.1, Op 7.03) ?

After countless attempts I've concluded "no".

If it's a true table, with tabular data, use the table.

Depends on how you define "slightly complicated". Care to offer a URL to a
table design you would like to convert?

And BTW, it's a little like asking where you can find legal adult workers
who will give you comparable production as cheaply as you can employ child
slave labor. Obviously there are going to be layouts possible through the
misuse of table markup which aren't going to be easily replicated using
CSS. As CSS develops, I think you'll see more and more possible.

[Spartanicus]

Mason A. Clark <ma*******@THIS ix.netcom.comQ> wrote:

CSS Experts:

OK, I'm a stupid newby. Now, here's the question:

Can CSS replace slightly complicated Tables and work in three
browsers (e.g. MSIE 6.0, Net 7.1, Op 7.03) ?

After countless attempts I've concluded "no".

IE does not support CSS tables. Note that CSS tables are to be used for
layout, not to replace regular tables.

--
Spartanicus

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Mason A. Clark wrote:

Can CSS replace slightly complicated Tables and work in three
browsers (e.g. MSIE 6.0, Net 7.1, Op 7.03) ?
Unclear. If I'm feeling generous, I think you're asking "can CSS be
used to do page layout, instead of (mis)using tables?", to which I
would answer "yes" with reasonable confidence. But, taking into
account the browsers that are out there, you have to be flexible and
pragmatic, and occasionally make significant compromises.

If I'm not so generous, then I worry that you have some misguided
notion of replacing tabular data by some kind of CSS positioning, to
which I would reply "don't do that".
After countless attempts I've concluded "no".
We also probably need to understand how you interpret the term
"works". For me, a web page "works" when it adapts calmly and without
fuss to a wide range of presentation situations; it should also,
naturally, be visually attractive in at least the mainstream browsing
situation, but no end-users are going to award points for pixel-exact
identity of the presentation in different browsers - that
interpretation of "works" is quite likely to be counterproducti ve in
my opinion.

It's my impression that you get much better results if you learn the
various aspects of stylesheet design from the ground up, so that you
can work with them confidently in their own terms, without any
reference to previous HTML3.2-ish techniques.

Once you've made the mistake of setting yourself the explicit target
of "replacing" some deprecated thing by some new replacement, you've
made the problem extra difficult by introducing unnecessary
constraints and compromises. After gaining a confident working
knowledge of the available features, it then becomes easier to solve
such an artificial task; but at the beginning it's better to work with
CSS page designs in their own right, rather than as some kind of
substitute for something that was inferior in the fundamental sense.
At any rate, that's my advice - worth at least what you paid for it
;-)

Until then, just toss out all the old layout markup, keep the content
and any structurally-significant markup that it may have, and start
designing from first principles of separating content from
presentation.
( not pertinent; for identification only: http://masonc.home.netcom.com )

You might get better advice from the participants on this group if you
were willing to actually post an example, though.

good luck

[Mason A. Clark]

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:47:50 -0500, Neal <ne*****@spamrc n.com> wrote:

Depends on how you define "slightly complicated". Care to offer a URL to a
table design you would like to convert?

http://home.earthlink.net/~frontal-l...ntentscss.html

is a simple *exercise*. Ignore the content and links.

<table<tr><td > etc works fine for this. But this CSS version does not.
These five boxes do not position in Netscape or Opera. I've tried countless
combinations of margins, width, etc. (again: this is only an exercise)

My project is a Javascript Dhtml "quiz" of considerable complexity and
working very well. I'd like to use styles for its layout. I won't post it
because its other complexities would obscure my question.

I looked at www.w3c.org uses CSS. If I hit the refresh button, F5, the
layout breaks up. (It's ok to hit Enter.) I conclude from this and
other observations that CSS pages have less stability (re different
browsers, key thumping) than table layouts.

Hey, thanks for the quick responses.

Mason C

[Neal]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:58:58 GMT, Mason A. Clark
<ma*******@THIS ix.netcom.comQ> wrote:

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:47:50 -0500, Neal <ne*****@spamrc n.com> wrote:

Depends on how you define "slightly complicated". Care to offer a URL
to a
table design you would like to convert?

http://home.earthlink.net/~frontal-l...ntentscss.html

is a simple *exercise*. Ignore the content and links.

<table<tr><td > etc works fine for this. But this CSS version does not.
These five boxes do not position in Netscape or Opera.

Ok. Right off the top.

#upLeft { display: block; border: 2px solid red; width="48%"; height=330;
margin-top=12; margin-left=5%; padding=11px; background-color=#FFFFDD; }

You're mixing up HTML and CSS. No = signs. No quotes. No numbers without a
measurement unless they're 0. Check out the correct CSS.

#upLeft { display: block; border: 2px solid red; width:48%; height:330px;
margin-top:12px; margin-left:5%; padding:11px; background-color:#FFFFDD; }

IE will fix a lot of errors that Opera and Mozilla/Netscape won't. Fix all
your styles to be correct CSS, and try it then.

[Berislav Lopac]

Neal wrote:

IE will fix a lot of errors that Opera and Mozilla/Netscape won't.
Fix all your styles to be correct CSS, and try it then.

Just a clarification on the above: IE will *ignore*, not fix errors,
displaying them as it "thinks" they should look.

Also, keep in mind that IE is extremely buggy when it comes to CSS and has
very lacking support of CSS2. When you design for Gecko (Mozilla, Netscape),
you can basically use straightforward CSS2; to emulate the same layout for
IE, in many cases you will need to use hacks. And not to mention the
terrible problem concerning widths in IE5 and IE6 (see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...ancements.asp).

Berislav

[Anne van Kesteren]

Spartanicus wrote:

IE does not support CSS tables. Note that CSS tables are to be used for
layout, not to replace regular tables.

In HTML (and still, browsers are using it: "table{display: table;}").

--
Anne van Kesteren
<http://www.annevankest eren.nl/>

[Spartanicus]

Anne van Kesteren <ma**@annevanke steren.nl> wrote:

IE does not support CSS tables. Note that CSS tables are to be used for
layout, not to replace regular tables.

In HTML (and still, browsers are using it: "table{display: table;}").

What are you talking about?

--
Spartanicus

[Eric Cartman]

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote in message news:<Pi******* *************** *********@ppepc 56.ph.gla.ac.uk >...

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Mason A. Clark wrote:

( not pertinent; for identification only: http://masonc.home.netcom.com )

You might get better advice from the participants on this group if you
were willing to actually post an example, though.

Which he did.

http://home.earthlink.net/~frontal-l...ntentscss.html

EC
..