should I go back to tables in HTML instead of CSS?

[phil-news-nospam]

In followups by Brian O'Connor (ironcorona) to other posts, he repeats
the idea that using tables in CSS is not something that should be done
because IE doesn't support it. Of course I'm not happy about the fact
that IE doesn't support CSS tables. But what can one do about that?
And tables of one type or the other are needed in some cases (regardless
of whether some people feel it is appropriate or not). So the issue I
and considering right now is to back up one step and stay with tables in
HTML (e.g. TABLE/TR/TD/etc elements) for now, until either Microsoft gets
its act together better, or Firefox makes more inroads on Windows users.

If no one can give a good reason not to, I'll make that change back.

Note, this is not applicable to things that someone can prove do not need
tables.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Neredbojias]

To further the education of mankind, ni*************@seies.de vouchsafed:

|> Show me some. But not simplistic blog pages. Show me one that looks
|> like CraigsList.Org but uses no tables ... and works in IE, too.
When I started learning English I didn't start with Shakespeare. It
took me 5 years to be able to fully understand Frankenstein. ;-)

Frankenstein was, er, mad.

Absolutely positioned? That's liable to break pretty badly. Sure, you
can make it track font size with emed-width (and perhaps height, too).
But how well will the layout hold with window sizes?

A bastard of an absolute positioned layout:

http://www.aigelsalvador.com/index.php

(but please don't repeat that anyway)

Nope, that isn't it. The divs should be sized in ems, and that page's
center box doesn't change size at all and breaks beyond the first text
resize.

TABLES for me because ... THEY WORK.

Never believe that a compromise is OPTIMAL.

Me neither.
Ciao
Niels

--
Neredbojias
Infinity has its limits.

[phil-news-nospam]

On Mon, 15 May 2006 13:18:22 GMT Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
| Neredbojias wrote:
|
|> I use a table in many of my headers because I want the align-right
|> right side delimited by and stopping at the align-left left side, not
|> overlapping it or dropping below it. This may not be absolutely
|> impossible in css, but it's improbable. As I said, "...any kind of
|> box but the one you want."
|
| Something like this? No tables.
| http://k75s.home.att.net/banner.html

That doesn't come out the way I would want. Close, but not exactly.
Why not ALSO put a tables version in for comparison on the same page?

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[phil-news-nospam]

On Mon, 15 May 2006 14:29:32 GMT Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
| Matt Kruse wrote:
|
|> Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
| [>> Neredbojias wrote:]
|>>> I use a table in many of my headers because I want the align-right
|>>> right side delimited by and stopping at the align-left left side,
|>>> not overlapping it or dropping below it.
|>> Something like this? No tables.
|>> http://k75s.home.att.net/banner.html
|>
|> When the browser window is narrowed, content wraps and does so in an
|> incorrect order. (IE6, Win)
|
| So how narrow was your window? Be realistic. The third one works fine
| down to about a 350px wide browser window.
|
| It was posted as a sample. Feel free to make adjustments.

Just how wide it will fail depends on the total width of objects inside.
Don't assume everyone has little tiny stuff.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[phil-news-nospam]

On 15 May 2006 07:48:48 -0700 ni*************@seies.de wrote:

|> Absolutely positioned? That's liable to break pretty badly. Sure, you
|> can make it track font size with emed-width (and perhaps height, too).
|> But how well will the layout hold with window sizes?
|
| A bastard of an absolute positioned layout:
|
| http://www.aigelsalvador.com/index.php
|
| (but please don't repeat that anyway)

Another webmaster for the firing squad.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

ph**************@ipal.net wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
| Neredbojias wrote:
|
|> I use a table in many of my headers because I want the align-right
|> right side delimited by and stopping at the align-left left side, not
|> overlapping it or dropping below it. This may not be absolutely
|> impossible in css, but it's improbable. As I said, "...any kind of
|> box but the one you want."
|
| Something like this? No tables.
| http://k75s.home.att.net/banner.html

That doesn't come out the way I would want. Close, but not exactly.
Why not ALSO put a tables version in for comparison on the same page?

Okay. There is now a fourth (<table>) version of the banner. Seems to
work just about the same as the third version, but uses more code.

--
-bts
-Warning: I brake for lawn deer

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

ph**************@ipal.net wrote:

On Mon, 15 May 2006 14:29:32 GMT Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
| It was posted as a sample. Feel free to make adjustments.

Just how wide it will fail depends on the total width of objects
inside. Don't assume everyone has little tiny stuff.

Everyone *should* have little tiny stuff! ;-)

Again, it was just an exercise - that did happen to work perfectly for
the person who asked the original question a couple years ago. He had
two side graphics of maybe a hundred px wide, with the site name in the
middle, in a large decorative font.

--
-bts
-Warning: I brake for lawn deer

[phil-news-nospam]

On Mon, 15 May 2006 19:03:54 GMT Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
| ph**************@ipal.net wrote:
|
|> On Mon, 15 May 2006 14:29:32 GMT Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
|>| It was posted as a sample. Feel free to make adjustments.
|>
|> Just how wide it will fail depends on the total width of objects
|> inside. Don't assume everyone has little tiny stuff.
|
| Everyone *should* have little tiny stuff! ;-)
|
| Again, it was just an exercise - that did happen to work perfectly for
| the person who asked the original question a couple years ago. He had
| two side graphics of maybe a hundred px wide, with the site name in the
| middle, in a large decorative font.

That's not a general solution. I just happens to work with some sites with
browser window sizes at least as large as most people use. The few cases
where people run browsers in tiny windows isn't the issue (though it
certainly raises the issue of how to display things on tiny devices like cell
phones). The issue is when you have larger objects to fit in. Take a look
at this first phase of my redesign of http://linuxhomepage.com/ where I have
used floating boxes for the top row. It doesn't take too much shrinkage for
that top row to split into two rows. Because the banner is first, floated
right, it will stay at the top. The box with the site name text, floated
left, will come down to the next row. I can use the floating box model here
because that doesn't impact things (much). But the main body of the site is
3 major columns of text, with vertical flow within each column. Shrink the
window horizontally and you still have 3 columns staying side by side. The
intent is for the columns to stay side by side. If there was a means to make
it dynamically change to 2 columns, that might work (but at issue will be how
to order the boxes within each column when the boxes in column 3 now have to
be placed in columns 1 and 2).

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[phil-news-nospam]

On Mon, 15 May 2006 18:59:15 GMT Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
| ph**************@ipal.net wrote:
|
|> Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
|>| Neredbojias wrote:
|>|
|>|> I use a table in many of my headers because I want the align-right
|>|> right side delimited by and stopping at the align-left left side, not
|>|> overlapping it or dropping below it. This may not be absolutely
|>|> impossible in css, but it's improbable. As I said, "...any kind of
|>|> box but the one you want."
|>|
|>| Something like this? No tables.
|>| http://k75s.home.att.net/banner.html
|>
|> That doesn't come out the way I would want. Close, but not exactly.
|> Why not ALSO put a tables version in for comparison on the same page?
|
| Okay. There is now a fourth (<table>) version of the banner. Seems to
| work just about the same as the third version, but uses more code.

It shrinks better than with floats. But I had to shrink it quite a lot
since the objects are small. Use larger objects, which some sites do have,
and lets see how that goes.

Here's my capture of this under the excessive shrinkage:

http://phil.ipal.org/usenet/ciwas/2006-05-15/k75s-1.png

Next, show this with a full width, or two half width, ad banners. Then the
advantage of tables will show up with not nearly as much window size shrink.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

ph**************@ipal.net wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
| Again, it was just an exercise - that did happen to work perfectly
| for the person who asked the original question a couple years ago.
| He had two side graphics of maybe a hundred px wide, with the site
| name in the middle, in a large decorative font.

That's not a general solution. I just happens to work with some
sites with browser window sizes at least as large as most people use.
The few cases where people run browsers in tiny windows isn't the
issue (though it certainly raises the issue of how to display things
on tiny devices like cell phones). The issue is when you have larger
objects to fit in. Take a look at this first phase of my redesign of
http://linuxhomepage.com/ where I have used floating boxes for the
top row.

I don't see anything on your page that resembles my sample. It starts
with an outer div, then goes right to tables for layout. The only thing
that (sort of) looks like a banner is the following text:

Linux
Home
Page .com

...at the left margin.

font-size:75%; ?
--
-bts
-Warning: I brake for lawn deer

[phil-news-nospam]

On Tue, 16 May 2006 03:57:58 GMT Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
| ph**************@ipal.net wrote:
|
|> Beauregard T. Shagnasty <a.*********@example.invalid> wrote:
|>| Again, it was just an exercise - that did happen to work perfectly
|>| for the person who asked the original question a couple years ago.
|>| He had two side graphics of maybe a hundred px wide, with the site
|>| name in the middle, in a large decorative font.
|>
|> That's not a general solution. I just happens to work with some
|> sites with browser window sizes at least as large as most people use.
|> The few cases where people run browsers in tiny windows isn't the
|> issue (though it certainly raises the issue of how to display things
|> on tiny devices like cell phones). The issue is when you have larger
|> objects to fit in. Take a look at this first phase of my redesign of
|> http://linuxhomepage.com/ where I have used floating boxes for the
|> top row.
|
| I don't see anything on your page that resembles my sample. It starts
| with an outer div, then goes right to tables for layout. The only thing
| that (sort of) looks like a banner is the following text:
|
| Linux
| Home
| Page .com
|
| ..at the left margin.
|
| font-size:75%; ?

There is an ad banner there, unless you block Google ads.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------