Nested Tables, defeating inheritance

[Roedy Green]

I generate code to refer people to bookstores that generates a table
without internal borders. You can see an example on
http://mindprod.com/environment/kyoto.html

I can use this element nested in a table without borders just fine.
However if I use it in a bordered table as on
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/who.html

It becomes a mess. Every cell gets a border, overriding the normal
borderless styles.

So my question. How do I get the inner style to take precedence over
the outer style? Are they always both applied?

Is there some way to build a firewall around an element so that it
always renders the same no matter what the context?

In other words is there a way to turn off the cascading in cascading
style sheets?

I looked around on the web, and people seem to handle the problem by
abandoning tables altogether. This struck me as strange since the
markup was more verbose and more brittle. I'd only see you doing it
to create arbitrary forms, not simple grids.

--
Bush crime family lost/embezzled $3 trillion from Pentagon.
Complicit Bush-friendly media keeps mum. Rumsfeld confesses on video.
http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/...s_rumsfeld.htm

Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
See http://mindprod.com/iraq.html photos of Bush's war crimes

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Roedy Green <lo*****@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote:

How do I get the inner style to take precedence over
the outer style? Are they always both applied?
The question is vaguely formulated - concepts like "inner style" are
not CSS concepts.

What you _can_ do is to formulate your CSS rules so that they apply to
the desired elements only. For example, to make some rule apply only to
td elements in a table that is nested inside another table, you can
write
table table td { ... }

You _cannot_ formulate CSS rules so that they apply only to, say, cells
of a table that is _not_ nested inside another table. But you can
specify a rule that applies to all cells, and then _override_ it with a
rule that applies to some cells only. For example:
td { border: solid red thin; }
table table td { border: none; }
Is there some way to build a firewall around an element so that it
always renders the same no matter what the context?
No.
In other words is there a way to turn off the cascading in cascading
style sheets?

No.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Roedy Green]

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 05:09:54 +0000 (UTC), "Jukka K. Korpela"
<jk******@cs.tut.fi> wrote or quoted :

What you _can_ do is to formulate your CSS rules so that they apply to
the desired elements only. For example, to make some rule apply only to
td elements in a table that is nested inside another table, you can
write
table table td { ... }

This is terrible. This means If I want my table to render a certain
way in all contexts I have to define a style for every possible
context to avoid the outer tables styles overriding mine. Ouch.
--
Bush crime family lost/embezzled $3 trillion from Pentagon.
Complicit Bush-friendly media keeps mum. Rumsfeld confesses on video.
http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/...s_rumsfeld.htm

Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
See http://mindprod.com/iraq.html photos of Bush's war crimes

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Roedy Green <lo*****@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote:

This is terrible. This means If I want my table to render a certain
way in all contexts I have to define a style for every possible
context to avoid the outer tables styles overriding mine. Ouch.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Cascading Style Sheets! They cascade
all over us.

You cannot even know _which_ style sheets will be applied to your
document. They could include a user style sheet with
td { border: solid red thin !important; }
and you have no weapon against that. Then again, if you can't help it,
you cannot be regarded as responsible for it.

To avoid unnecessary confusion: _inheritance_ (which you mention on the
Subject like) is something completely different.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Tim]

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 06:00:54 GMT,
Roedy Green <lo*****@mindprod.com.invalid> posted:

This is terrible. This means If I want my table to render a certain
way in all contexts I have to define a style for every possible
context to avoid the outer tables styles overriding mine. Ouch.

How's that worse than messing with tables within tables trying to achieve
some particular affect? By the sound of things, you're making things hard
for yourself.

--
If you insist on e-mailing me, use the reply-to address (it's real but
temporary). But please reply to the group, like you're supposed to.

This message was sent without a virus, please delete some files yourself.

[Roedy Green]

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 06:27:06 +0000 (UTC), "Jukka K. Korpela"
<jk******@cs.tut.fi> wrote or quoted :

Welcome to the wonderful world of Cascading Style Sheets! They cascade
all over us.

You cannot even know _which_ style sheets will be applied to your
document. They could include a user style sheet with
td { border: solid red thin !important; }
and you have no weapon against that. Then again, if you can't help it,
you cannot be regarded as responsible for it.

Thanks for explaining the facts of life. I now have it working.

I explained my discoveries at http://mindprod.com/jgloss/css.html
--
Bush crime family lost/embezzled $3 trillion from Pentagon.
Complicit Bush-friendly media keeps mum. Rumsfeld confesses on video.
http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/...s_rumsfeld.htm

Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
See http://mindprod.com/iraq.html photos of Bush's war crimes