tablles vs css

[Tim]

apologies if this has been done to death already...

I have been a webdev for many years now, and I have mastered the art or
layout with tables. I now see many newcomers rubbishing table layout
techniques in favour of CSS layout techniques.

When DIVs and layers first became available they were poorly supported,
degraded badly and were treated with the same scepticism that frames
were treated with.

So the question is this...
Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
my layouts? I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
potentially help search engines, but is this enough to out-weigh the
problems? Are there in fact any problems?
I can't really believe that table layout is problematic as it has been
used extensively for many years.

Any educated thoughts on this would be great, particularly from those
who are in, or have been in my situation.

Cheers

[Chaddy2222]

Tim wrote:

apologies if this has been done to death already... To an extent, yes it has.
But I am sure some of us won't mind chating about again, it's an
interesting issue.

I have been a webdev for many years now, and I have mastered the art or
layout with tables. I now see many newcomers rubbishing table layout
techniques in favour of CSS layout techniques. Ha, funny you should think that, I have most noticed a lot of newbies
wanting to use FRAMES.
For some unknown reason.

When DIVs and layers first became available they were poorly supported,
degraded badly and were treated with the same scepticism that frames
were treated with. Still are mind you, frames are bad and should never be used for layout.
Although they can be, but it takes a lot more work to get it right.

So the question is this...
Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
my layouts? I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
potentially help search engines, but is this enough to out-weigh the
problems? Are there in fact any problems?
I can't really believe that table layout is problematic as it has been
used extensively for many years.

Any educated thoughts on this would be great, particularly from those
who are in, or have been in my situation.

Cheers

Well, here are two of my own examples, my old site,
http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc/design-tips.html
Made with Tables and some styleing here and their.
But, then we have my new site, http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc made with
div's and CSS, with no HTML styleing eg old layout tags in that new
site at all.
I hope that helps.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc

[Philip Semanchuk]

In article <11*********************@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups. com>,
"Tim" <Ci************@gmail.com> wrote:

apologies if this has been done to death already...

I have been a webdev for many years now, and I have mastered the art or
layout with tables. I now see many newcomers rubbishing table layout
techniques in favour of CSS layout techniques.

When DIVs and layers first became available they were poorly supported,
degraded badly and were treated with the same scepticism that frames
were treated with.

So the question is this...
Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
my layouts? I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
potentially help search engines, but is this enough to out-weigh the
problems? Are there in fact any problems?
I can't really believe that table layout is problematic as it has been
used extensively for many years.

Any educated thoughts on this would be great, particularly from those
who are in, or have been in my situation.
Hi Tim,
IMO you're laboring under a few misconceptions. Here's my take:
- It's not only newcomers who advocate CSS over table layout. A lot of
people have been advocating this for a long time. I have not used a
table-based layout in eight(?) years or so, and I wouldn't consider
myself bleeding edge.
- DIVs have had good support for years; the <layer> tag was and is a
proprietary Netscape extension.
- Yes, table layout has been used for years, but that doesn't mean it is
necessarily the best solution. Bleeding patients to remove "ill humours"
was used as a medical technique for a long time but I don't think any of
us would take that as a mark of quality today. =)

I think that using good CSS and valid HTML are a lot like using good
spelling and grammar in one's native tongue. Once you get used to it, it
flows easily and anything else seems strange. The reverse is also true
-- if you've learned bad habits (like table-based layout), those will
take a while to break and in the meantime CSS will seem like a problem
and you'll wish you could go back to what you're used to.

To answer your specific questions: Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
my layouts?
CSS and DIVs, yes. <layer>s, no. I would also add valid HTML 4.01 Strict
to the "yes" list.
I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
potentially help search engines, but is this enough to out-weigh the
problems? Are there in fact any problems?

IMHO, CSS is more elegant and powerful but also more abstract. It also
hasn't got complete support across even the modern browsers (IE6 being
the most glaring example). But given that CSS is far more sophisticated
than table-based layout, it's not a surprise that support for it is
imperfect as of yet. But for layout, comparing CSS to tables is like
comparing a craftman's toolset to a baseball bat. Even if a few tools
are missing, the former is still much more capable.

If you're not convinced, check out the CSS Zen Garden
(http://www.csszengarden.com/) for a demonstration of the power of CSS.
For a more practical example, you can have a look at my site (see my
sig). It's not got the whiz-bang beauty of the Zen Garden, but it does
use DIVs and CSS for layout. Bonus points if you can find the two
<table> tags on the site (hint: they're both used for tabular data).

HTH

--
Philip
http://NikitaTheSpider.com/
Bulk HTML validation, link checking and more

[Tim]

thanks guys...

I was worried I would get some 'CSS fanboy' replies, or some junk about
how I've violated usenet etiquette - so I'm pleased to see some useful
and well constructed replies.

cheers

Tim

[Sherm Pendley]

"Tim" <Ci************@gmail.com> writes:

So the question is this...
Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
my layouts?

That depends a great deal on *how* you intend to use them.

If you're going to use the "class" attribute to supply a more accurate desc-
ription of the text within a div, then yes, you should use divs. HTML is
all about semantic markup.

But, if you intend to introduce divs that are used purely for presentational
purposes and have no semantic meaning, then I'd say there's no point. Misused
divs are neither better nor worse than misused tables.

sherm--

--
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org

[Sherm Pendley]

Philip Semanchuk <Ni*************@gmail.com> writes:

I think that using good CSS and valid HTML are a lot like using good
spelling and grammar in one's native tongue. Once you get used to it, it
flows easily and anything else seems strange. The reverse is also true
-- if you've learned bad habits (like table-based layout), those will
take a while to break and in the meantime CSS will seem like a problem
and you'll wish you could go back to what you're used to.

You can take that analogy even further - people tend to use similar excuses
not to bother with either:

"Why bother with gramer and speling? U no what I ment."

"Why bother with good CSS and valid HTML? It works fine in IE."

sherm--

--
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org

[axlq]

In article <m2************@Sherm-Pendleys-Computer.local>,
Sherm Pendley <sh***@Sherm-Pendleys-Computer.local> wrote:

You can take that analogy even further - people tend to use similar excuses
not to bother with either:

"Why bother with gramer and speling? U no what I ment."

"Why bother with good CSS and valid HTML? It works fine in IE."

Or the Real Programmers attitude: Why bother with comments? The
code is obvious.

-A

[Jim Moe]

Tim wrote:

I have been a webdev for many years now, and I have mastered the art or
layout with tables. I now see many newcomers rubbishing table layout
techniques in favour of CSS layout techniques.

So the question is this...
Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
my layouts? I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
potentially help search engines, but is this enough to out-weigh the
problems? Are there in fact any problems?
I can't really believe that table layout is problematic as it has been
used extensively for many years.

The biggest hurdle to using HTML+CSS is understanding the difference
between content and presentation. Given your statements above it is clear
you do not know the difference.
HTML is a *markup* language: HyperText Markup Language. It is meant to
add semantic value to your content. <h1>: this is the main header. <h2>:
this is the second level header. <ul>: this is an unordered list. <p>:
this is a paragraph. <img>: this is an image. <table>: this is tabular data.
CSS applies presentation rules to selected elements. Change the
background color. Make the top margin this size. Make this text bold. Set
the font to Garamond.

It takes a while to think in two tracks like that. First create the
content, mark it up with HTML. Then start applying style with CSS to
achieve your layout goal.
Table layout ignores the intent of both HTML and CSS. "Slap the content
into a grid and start adding tags until it looks okay."
Ultimately the best reason to learning HTML+CSS is maintenance. It truly
is a lot easier to make even major changes in appearance when a site uses
HTML+CSS as they are intended.

--
jmm (hyphen) list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)

[Jack]

Jim Moe wrote:

Tim wrote:

I have been a webdev for many years now, and I have mastered the
art or layout with tables. I now see many newcomers rubbishing
table layout techniques in favour of CSS layout techniques.

So the question is this... Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and
layers instead of tables to do my layouts? I know that CSS makes
nicer to read code and this could potentially help search engines,
but is this enough to out-weigh the problems? Are there in fact any
problems? I can't really believe that table layout is problematic
as it has been used extensively for many years.

The biggest hurdle to using HTML+CSS is understanding the difference
between content and presentation. Given your statements above it is
clear you do not know the difference.

Nothing that the OP said implies anything of the sort.

What he said *does* suggest that he may not realise that separating
content and presentation is a benefit of using CSS; but that's no excuse
for being patronising.

--
Jack.

[Jim Moe]

Jack wrote:

I have been a webdev for many years now, and I have mastered the
art or layout with tables. I now see many newcomers rubbishing
table layout techniques in favour of CSS layout techniques.

So the question is this... Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and
layers instead of tables to do my layouts? I know that CSS makes
nicer to read code and this could potentially help search engines,
but is this enough to out-weigh the problems? Are there in fact any
problems? I can't really believe that table layout is problematic
as it has been used extensively for many years.

The biggest hurdle to using HTML+CSS is understanding the difference
between content and presentation. Given your statements above it is
clear you do not know the difference.

Nothing that the OP said implies anything of the sort.

Seemed obvious to me. He uses tables for layout. It is almost axiomatic
that style and content are not separated in any meaningful way. Attempts
to transition from table "tag soup" with CSS merely end up with
"style/class/id soup" with few of the benefits (personal experience).

--
jmm (hyphen) list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)

[mens libertina]

Tim wrote:

...
So the question is this...
Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
my layouts? I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
potentially help search engines, but is this enough to out-weigh the
problems? Are there in fact any problems?
I can't really believe that table layout is problematic as it has been
used extensively for many years.

Any educated thoughts on this would be great, particularly from those
who are in, or have been in my situation.

At the risk of repeating some of what others have said:

First, it is the langua franca, the current standard, these days. As a
web developer you should be able to do style sheets in addition to
whatever else you already know because it is what most(?) people are
doing these days.

Further, it is *the* accepted standard that is put forth by the
standards body for web development, the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C). As such, doing things in accordance to that standard marks you
as a professional. At the very least, knowing both approaches allows
you to make an informed decision on what approach to take and to know
when to break the rules.

Second, as others pointed it out, it really makes maintainence much
easier by focusing your design changes to one page (the style sheet)
rather than every single page when the boss wants you to change a color
or reposition an element, or <gasp!> a complete redesign of the look,
but not the information. This is why seperating style and content is
truly powerful, and why it came about in the first place (I'm
guessing). Thus, it became the new standard. See the CSS Zen Garden
(http://www.csszengarden.com/) for a dramatic illustration of this
point.

$.05

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On 2006-06-15, mens libertina wrote:

Tim wrote:

...
So the question is this...
Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
my layouts? I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
potentially help search engines, but is this enough to out-weigh the
problems? Are there in fact any problems?
I can't really believe that table layout is problematic as it has been
used extensively for many years.

Any educated thoughts on this would be great, particularly from those
who are in, or have been in my situation.

At the risk of repeating some of what others have said:

First, it is the langua franca, the current standard, these days. As a
web developer you should be able to do style sheets in addition to
whatever else you already know because it is what most(?) people are
doing these days.

"What most(?) people are doing these days" is not a good argument
for anything.
Further, it is *the* accepted standard that is put forth by the
standards body for web development, the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C). As such, doing things in accordance to that standard marks you
as a professional. At the very least, knowing both approaches allows
you to make an informed decision on what approach to take and to know
when to break the rules.
While it is the standard, it is not as complete as one would wish.
There are instances where tables are the better way to accomplish
one's design. They needn't be hard to maintain; server-side
includes are very useful for this:

<table><tr><td>
<!--#include file="abc.html">
</td>
<td>
<!--#include file="def.html">
</td>
</tr>
</table>

This would, of course, be supported by stylesheets. The ability of
tables to adapt themselves to whatever width is required makes them
often indispensible.

Many CSS hacks make the "umaintainable" tables look like child's
play.
Second, as others pointed it out, it really makes maintainence much
easier by focusing your design changes to one page (the style sheet)
rather than every single page when the boss wants you to change a color
or reposition an element, or <gasp!> a complete redesign of the look,
but not the information. This is why seperating style and content is
truly powerful, and why it came about in the first place (I'm
guessing). Thus, it became the new standard. See the CSS Zen Garden
(http://www.csszengarden.com/) for a dramatic illustration of this
point.

There are more borken websites in the wild, because of improper use
of stylesheets, than ever before. There are dramatic illustrations
of it even in www.csszengarden.com; see how one of those pages
appears in my browser, for example:
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/2006_06_14-23_34_44.jpg>.

Stylesheets are not the be all and end all of web design, much as
some would have us believe. I am in the process of converting most
of the pages I maintain over to stylesheets, but I would be very
surprised if there are not some that are just not suited to
stylesheets.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence

[Richard Gration]

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 14:19:12 -0700, Michael Vilain wrote:

You're kidding, right? This is a newsgroup on the Internet. Netiquette
rules vary from group to group. This one's rather relaxed. If you want
patronizing and arrogant, go to the Perl groups.

Hahahaha. Uh ... HAHAHAHAHAHA. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA <wipes tear> Oh
boy, thanks for that, it's so true it hurts!! I'll be chuckling at that
all day :-)

Rich

[Andy Dingley]

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

There are more borken websites in the wild, because of improper use
of stylesheets, than ever before. There are dramatic illustrations
of it even in www.csszengarden.com; see how one of those pages
appears in my browser, for example:
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/2006_06_14-23_34_44.jpg>.

The CSS in your example screenshot is being served from somewhere
other than the Zen garden site.
(at webtech.tstc.edu)
You can hardly blame Mezzoblue for someone else's bad CSS !

[Matt Silberstein]

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 14:19:12 -0700, in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html , Michael Vilain
<vi****@spamcop.net> in
<vi**************************@comcast.dca.giganews .com> wrote:

[snip]

You're kidding, right? This is a newsgroup on the Internet. Netiquette
rules vary from group to group. This one's rather relaxed. If you want
patronizing and arrogant, go to the Perl groups.

I was looking for rude responses jerk. Oh, wait, that's two doors
down. Sorry about that.

[snip]
--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On 2006-06-15, Andy Dingley <di*****@codesmiths.com> wrote:

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

There are more borken websites in the wild, because of improper use
of stylesheets, than ever before. There are dramatic illustrations
of it even in www.csszengarden.com; see how one of those pages
appears in my browser, for example:
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/2006_06_14-23_34_44.jpg>.

The CSS in your example screenshot is being served from somewhere
other than the Zen garden site.
(at webtech.tstc.edu)
You can hardly blame Mezzoblue for someone else's bad CSS !

The links are posted there as (presumably) examples of how to use
CSS; there are others linked from there that have similar problems.
This is not an isolated case.
--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence

[mens libertina]

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

First, it is the langua franca, the current standard, these days. As a
web developer you should be able to do style sheets in addition to
whatever else you already know because it is what most(?) people are
doing these days.

"What most(?) people are doing these days" is not a good argument
for anything.

Except in the case of my point: that you should know what is currently
popular if you want to be accepted as a knowledgeable person,
especially in IT. You don't have to follow the trends, but you must
know what they are, their merits, and their weaknesses. To ignore the
elephant in the room is ridiculous.

[Alan Silver]

In article <11*********************@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups. com>, Tim
<Ci************@gmail.com> writes

apologies if this has been done to death already...
It has, but it's often instructive and useful to do it to death some
more<g>

I was in exactly the same position as you some months ago, and came here
with the same question. I did battle with CSS and came out slightly
victorious. I'm no expert, but can now (with the help of the good folk
here) create a web site with pure CSS layout. I feel qualified to add a
few comments to your questions...
I have been a webdev for many years now, and I have mastered the art or
layout with tables. I now see many newcomers rubbishing table layout
techniques in favour of CSS layout techniques.
Forget what the newcomers say, read what the experts say. CSS layout is
the way to go.
When DIVs and layers first became available they were poorly supported,
degraded badly and were treated with the same scepticism that frames
were treated with.

So the question is this...
Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
my layouts? I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
potentially help search engines,
No "potentially," this is an observable and measurable phenomenon.
Search engines have to make sense of the HTML they are sent. If that is
tag soup, they'll have a hard time making sense of it. If it's pure
semantic markup, without any presentational elements, they'll have a
much better time understanding it. That leads to better ratings.
but is this enough to out-weigh the
problems?
For a commercial site? Unquestionably. Even ignoring the other (quite
significant) benefits of a CSS-based layout, this point alone makes it
worth all the effort involved.
Are there in fact any problems?
Sure, like trying to learn how to do it, and how to cope with browser
issues (read "IE bugs"). It's much harder to learn than table-based
design, but the maintenance is way easier.
I can't really believe that table layout is problematic as it has been
used extensively for many years.
Depends what you mean by "problematic." It is fairly easy to do, but
leads to tag soup that is harder to maintain. It was used extensively as
it was, at one time, the only reasonable way to get layout. People got
into the habit of using tables for layout, and then never took the time
to learn how to do it in CSS when the technology matured. That's where I
was, and I suspect that's where you are now.

Once you get into doing CSS layout, you'll realise that tables have
their problems too!!
Any educated thoughts on this would be great, particularly from those
who are in, or have been in my situation.

Well, that's my 2c. I was in exactly your position, and can say
definitely that you have a tough road ahead of you, but one that is
worth the effort. It will be frustrating at first, mainly 'cos you'll
spend hours trying to achieve something that you could have done in two
minutes with a table.

Having said that, when you finish your first CSS-based site, and you
look at in Firefox (say) and switch off styles, you'll beam with pride
that a plain HTML document like that can look so good when you switch
them back on.

Stick with it, read up loads and don't be afraid to come back here and
ask when you have problems. People are very helpful as long as you make
the effort.

Ta ra

--
Alan Silver
(anything added below this line is nothing to do with me)

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, Alan Silver wrote:

[of CSS layout:]

Are there in fact any problems?

Sure, like trying to learn how to do it, and how to cope with
browser issues (read "IE bugs"). It's much harder to learn than
table-based design, but the maintenance is way easier.

Couple of points:

* IMO a lot of people make learning CSS layout harder because they
insist on looking for direct equivalents to the misguided table
layouts that they were using. If they would just put that aside for a
while, and learn what CSS can (and cannot) do as a technique in its
own right, they could make faster progress.

* Table layout has years of use and abuse behind it: for many of its
propensities there are workarounds that have become so natural that
nobody thinks about them any more, but just applies them without
comment. CSS layout is newer, and its early applications have been
bedevilled with workarounds for the misbehaviour of web browsers and,
more particularly, of a browser-like operating system component.

But some shortcomings of table layout are inherent and cannot be
worked-around, at least not without browser heuristics which aim to
spot which parts are genuinely tabular data and which are mere layout,
and ignore the latter when push comes to shove. That way lies madness
IMNSHO.

CSS layout isn't inherently harder than table layout as you appear to
be suggesting. If it had been implemented first, then I don't think
the question would have arisen in this form. But, whether we like it
or not, we have to start from where we are, not from where we would
like to have been.

The great thing about CSS layout is that when the going gets too rough
i.e the display situation is too far from what the author has
envisaged, the content can be genuinely refactored, whereas table
layout, no matter how flexibly interpreted, if it's implemented at all
then it imposes a certain physical relationship no matter how relevant
it may be for each and every presentation situation.

cheers

[Wÿrm]

"Alan Silver" <al*********@nospam.thanx.invalid> wrote in message
news:wz**************@nospamthankyou.spam...
<snip>

It's much harder to learn than table-based
design

Not really true. Learning to do things CSS way is not any harder. Problem is
that people insist in the beginning trying to use CSS in same way they make
things with tables. To unlearn that and to realize many things are much
easier if they do not try to complicate things, now THAT is hard. Learn bad
habit and it's hard to get rid of it.

<snip>

[Alan Silver]

In article <Pi*******************************@ppepc87.ph.gla. ac.uk>,
Alan J. Flavell <fl*****@physics.gla.ac.uk> writes

On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, Alan Silver wrote:

[of CSS layout:]

> Are there in fact any problems?

Sure, like trying to learn how to do it, and how to cope with
browser issues (read "IE bugs"). It's much harder to learn than
table-based design, but the maintenance is way easier.

Couple of points:

* IMO a lot of people make learning CSS layout harder because they
insist on looking for direct equivalents to the misguided table
layouts that they were using. If they would just put that aside for a
while, and learn what CSS can (and cannot) do as a technique in its
own right, they could make faster progress.

<snip>

An excellent point, and I freely admit to having been guilty of this.

However, I would still say that CSS-based layout is harder than basic
(note that word) table layout, simply because tables are more
predictable, less subject to browser bugs and less subject to browser
interpretation. I can knock up a table-based layout far quicker than a
CSS-based one, mainly due to the lack of thinking and less typing
required. I know the CSS experts will say the opposite, but I'm not an
expert, I'm speaking from a position a few months ahead of where the OP
is now. Maybe in a few years I will feel differently.

Note that my post was not in any way a recommendation to use tables, I
was merely warning the OP that the road ahead is rocky. Sure, if he can
get his head around starting again from scratch, and if he can find any
decent books or tutorials that teach the basic principles properly (I
never did and still haven't), then it may not be as hard as I, and
others found it.

Ta ra

--
Alan Silver
(anything added below this line is nothing to do with me)

[Neredbojias]

To further the education of mankind, "Wÿrm"
<no*************@north.invalid> vouchsafed:

"Alan Silver" <al*********@nospam.thanx.invalid> wrote in message
news:wz**************@nospamthankyou.spam...
<snip>

It's much harder to learn than table-based
design

Not really true. Learning to do things CSS way is not any harder.
Problem is that people insist in the beginning trying to use CSS in
same way they make things with tables. To unlearn that and to realize
many things are much easier if they do not try to complicate things,
now THAT is hard. Learn bad habit and it's hard to get rid of it.

Of course it's true! Css is at least 50 times more comprehensive than
tables and that makes it true. Don't parrot the dogma - 'Arrrwooooooo!'

--
Neredbojias
Infinity has its limits.

[David C. Stone]

Alan Silver wrote:

In article <11*********************@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups. com>, Tim
<Ci************@gmail.com> writes

apologies if this has been done to death already... [snip]So the question is this...
Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
my layouts? I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
potentially help search engines,

No "potentially," this is an observable and measurable phenomenon.
Search engines have to make sense of the HTML they are sent. If that is
tag soup, they'll have a hard time making sense of it. If it's pure
semantic markup, without any presentational elements, they'll have a
much better time understanding it. That leads to better ratings.

The one thing response I haven't seen yet concerns accessibility.
I've seen numerous posts elsewhere from people involved in this
issue to the effect that using tables for layout and navigation makes
it a lot harder for those using text readers to make sense of the page.

As someone who has recently made the switch from tables to htm/css,
I can say that the transition wasn't too bad, and that I find the
individual
html pages much easier to navigate/edit from a maintenance perspective.
Since the latter is of much greater concern to me, I'm quite happy with
the results of leaving tables for tabluar data only!

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On 2006-06-21, David C. Stone wrote:

Alan Silver wrote:

In article <11*********************@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups. com>, Tim
<Ci************@gmail.com> writes

>apologies if this has been done to death already... [snip] >So the question is this...
>Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
>my layouts? I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
>potentially help search engines,
No "potentially," this is an observable and measurable phenomenon.
Search engines have to make sense of the HTML they are sent. If that is
tag soup, they'll have a hard time making sense of it. If it's pure
semantic markup, without any presentational elements, they'll have a
much better time understanding it. That leads to better ratings.

The one thing response I haven't seen yet concerns accessibility.
I've seen numerous posts elsewhere from people involved in this
issue to the effect that using tables for layout and navigation makes
it a lot harder for those using text readers to make sense of the page.

That depends on how the tables are used. So long as the text
appears in the HTML file in the order it should be read (or heard,
or ...) there should be no problem.
As someone who has recently made the switch from tables to htm/css,
I can say that the transition wasn't too bad, and that I find the
individual html pages much easier to navigate/edit from a
maintenance perspective. Since the latter is of much greater concern
to me, I'm quite happy with the results of leaving tables for
tabluar data only!

Generally, I find CSS much better, but there are times when a table
can make the layout much simpler and more fluid.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence

[Tim]

thanks again guys (and gals) for all your input

Tim
Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

On 2006-06-21, David C. Stone wrote:

Alan Silver wrote:

In article <11*********************@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups. com>, Tim
<Ci************@gmail.com> writes
>apologies if this has been done to death already...

[snip]

>So the question is this...
>Should I now be using CSS and DIVS and layers instead of tables to do
>my layouts? I know that CSS makes nicer to read code and this could
>potentially help search engines,

No "potentially," this is an observable and measurable phenomenon.
Search engines have to make sense of the HTML they are sent. If that is
tag soup, they'll have a hard time making sense of it. If it's pure
semantic markup, without any presentational elements, they'll have a
much better time understanding it. That leads to better ratings.

The one thing response I haven't seen yet concerns accessibility.
I've seen numerous posts elsewhere from people involved in this
issue to the effect that using tables for layout and navigation makes
it a lot harder for those using text readers to make sense of the page.

That depends on how the tables are used. So long as the text
appears in the HTML file in the order it should be read (or heard,
or ...) there should be no problem.

As someone who has recently made the switch from tables to htm/css,
I can say that the transition wasn't too bad, and that I find the
individual html pages much easier to navigate/edit from a
maintenance perspective. Since the latter is of much greater concern
to me, I'm quite happy with the results of leaving tables for
tabluar data only!

Generally, I find CSS much better, but there are times when a table
can make the layout much simpler and more fluid.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence