I have some servlet-generated tabular data that I need to present, so I'm
using an HTML Table. In some cases, it can be quite large. I'm flushing
the servlet output every N lines to push the data to the browser as it
generates, and I've used "table-layout: fixed" for the table's CSS class.
It works pretty well in Netscape (7.1 and higher) - the table is drawn
pretty much as the rows are received by the browser. However, Internet
Explorer 6.0 seems to draw the table at whim rather than as the rows are
received. Since there may be significant chunks of time between whims (or
worse, before the first draw), it looks like my app isn't responding even
though it's really IE that's the holdup.
My understanding of fixed table-layout is that it permits the browser to
draw the rows as they're received, where auto table-layout requires all rows
to have been received to allow column calculations. So I'm expecting to see
the Netscape-style behavior I described above. I've defined a width for the
table and for each column, so I'm pretty sure fixed layout isn't being
short-circuited down to auto. I've also seen that in a large table, I
*will* get chunks at a time, which implies IE isn't doing "auto" behavior.
So my assumption is that the IE code is doing a fixed layout but is
buffering for some reason, but that's just a guess.
I've distilled the situation down so that I can demonstrate it with a small
(2-row) table:
http://home.comcast.net/~rob.freundl...ixedTable.html
I've injected (for debugging only - not for the final app) a javascript
alert() between the two rows to put a pause into the rendering so that I can
see when things are being drawn. In Netscape, when the alert pops up, row 1
has been drawn and is visible to the user. In IE, when the alert pops up,
neither row has been drawn.
Can anyone offer advice? I'll take CSS hacks, IE-specific JavaScript that
will force the draw, or even sacrificial rituals (yes, I'm willing to dance
widdershins around Redmond in the light of the full moon if that's what it
takes!), as long as I can fix the problem for IE6.0.
Rob Freundlich
"Males ae biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes." - Newt Gingrich
"Some folks you don't have to satirize, you just quote 'em." - Tom Paxton