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49 Comments
- friedcalamari, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18The good thing about standards is there are a lot to choose from.
- Coestar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Actually, it's still a quite common problem. Many designers/developers have yet to make the switch.
- bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11But you're missing the main point, which is that markup should contain structure and content, not presentation. That's what CSS is for.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9back in 2000 I tried to force myself to make the switch to CSS had such bad experiences because of standards issues that I gave up on it and handled it the tried and true way I had did for the 5 years before that. Over the last year I have been forcing myself to get back into CSS and glad to see most of the problems I had before are gone. minus image positioning. (because of the nature of the clients I had their concerns where to make sure 98% of people viewing their site would see it correctly)
- mtoigo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Sigh...
Why is the right move never the easy one. - jasper976, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10why learn it when I can just copy it from everyone else?
- coolspray, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10I had a rather basic knowledge of HTML and no knowledge of how to use tables when I decided to learn CSS. I got one of the lynda.com tutorials on it, and within 12 hours and a little extra research I could make a css layout quickly and easily. Good ones, at that.
It really worked for me. - vicaya, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Anyone care to list some good interactive sites that are pure css (resizable, with semantic/structural only markups)? Thanks!
Personally, I think using many nested divs with no obvious semantic/structural reasons just to make it render properly is just as "bad" as using tables for layout purpose.
Until css2/3 are implemented in browsers for %95+ users, separating content structure and presentation will need some javascript hack for non-trivial sites, which is another can of worm due to browser incompatibilities. - bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5In my mind #2 is the most important thing to remember -
"Lesson No. 2: It’s not going to look exactly the same everywhere unless you’re willing to face some grief… and possibly not even then"
Too many people treat web pages as if they were magazines. - trylleklovn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Once learned, it is the easier choice...
You have way more freedom with CSS... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5it's a great point, you can find nearly any CSS that has the same layout as what you want, and then just modify it into what you want without knowing css at all.
i mean, sure its not the most ethical of practices, but i know im not the only one who does it - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Tell your client that.
- dtfinch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4People seem to miss the point that CSS and tables are not mutually exclusive. I use the right tools for the job, and sometimes a table is the right tool.
- ampledismantle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The problem isn't the CSS standard... the problem is no browsers can agree on how to display it. That and the mainstream browser(s) think they know better, so they add their own "features".
- dtfinch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6People make it sound like tables are the evil spawn of Satan, and that it's better to try and kludge a table together with a bunch of css hacks, even when a table would get the job done more cleanly with less work and better compatibility.
Tables aren't evil. They're robust, flexible, and simple. With tables you can create flexible layouts that you could only dream of in CSS. All the anti-table CSS sites I see have fixed layouts. Fixed layouts should be a thing of the 90's. They've sacrificed good design just because some designer told them tables are outdated. A good site should look good no matter what the screen resolution. - berwiki, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5ethics? who is that?
- Frankie4Fingers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I still think the easiest and best overall layouts are made using Tables. They are larger but most people's connections are at least DSL these days, so for most markets the page size is not an issue.
When CSS ever becomes fully supported, it will be worth building really complex CSS sites. - coolbru, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5OK, now make me (with a table) a nice image gallery layout that has the right number of fixed size cells to fit across my browser window's width, and have it vary dynamically.
- coolbru, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Well, it's more like nearly all browsers agree how it should look, except for IE.
- ClassicJBC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Actually, it's still a quite common problem. Many designers/developers have yet to make the switch."
With browser compatibility still an issue, some are holding back by choice. Others still don't see benefits great enough to outweigh the time investment. While I can see the benefits, I know that the vast majority of smalltime designers will have no need for those benefits, nor will their clients.
I mean, scalability? For most relatively static sites, there's no need to separate content from design. In fact, I've created problems for myself by building scalable sites, as the clients never make any use of the technology and only get confused in the process. - 0siris, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I occationally use tables, but i cleverly discuise them to look like divs.
Some IE/Firefox issues are resolved with tables (nameley making divs the same height as the div next to it). Otherwise im all css... very "classy" - TheOddMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They should send this article to the creators of MySpace.
- greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2dugg for ALA.
- Bloodwine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The funny thing about anti-table zealots is that many are prone to use a crapton of nested div's. Seriously, how is nested div's any better than tables?
I've seen some nice, clean, and slick CSS designs out there, but most are hacks that are no better than tables in terms of separating content from presentation. The only difference is that the nested div goofballs have deluded themselves.
Visitors don't care if a site is old-school HTML or new-age CSS, they just want the content ... and pictures of naked people. - phatvolvo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@greyfade:
that's pretty ugly, dude... and hacky, too. - phatvolvo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1#kingkool68 .e-penis{
width:100px;
height:1000px;
display:block;
background-color:#ff0000;
} - kingkool68, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Kevin Cornell does the gnarliest illustrations. I'm an intern at A List Apart and helped produce the article :-)
- Dracos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This is the best text about CSS usage I've ever read that isn't a chapter in an Eric Meyer book. This article *begs* to be expanded upon.
I wish I could digg this once for every site that got launched with a table layout since 1998. - coolbru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1More like when you actually have content that's interesting enough (i.e. not your average corporate site) to warrant semantic markup, you won't have any choice but to use CSS. You're also missing the point: CSS sites are typically simpler and easier to maintain for the same content with identical appearance, though bear in mind that CSS sites represent a superset of 'table' sites as of course tables are perfectly legitimate markup.
- Imprint, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1for the whole CSS v Tables debate, the answer is simple.
If its tabular data, use a table, if its not, then don't.
@Bloodwine, nested divs, are the only solution to hack free cross browser CSS layouts, regardless of CSS or tables, the box model is still different for browsers other than IE - hubick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1While I agree with everything that was said in respect to the HTML side of things, this article advocates the use of CSS hacks and fixed sized layouts. This will result in fragile sites which won't necessarily scale well for alternate screen sizes.
I would advocate that designers examine if such a complex layout is really necessary for the most effective dissemination of whatever experience/information a site is trying to provide. No, I'm not saying sites should be ugly (!), more that the true art of web design is achieving good aesthetics without requiring such complexity. And if you have good content, users will come. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -9/+9damnit again... DIGG NEEDS A DELETE BUTTON IN THE EDIT FIELD!@!@#!#
- dafragsta, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This is a great article written by somenoe who actually uses CSS a lot, obviously. I work for a company that is pushing CSS pretty heavily for anything that's not an HTML email. I was very hesitant a while back to take up CSS in a tableless form (I've used CSS for a lot of other things before then, but the tableless layout is still fairly new to me) but now I'm a pretty big proponent of CSS design. That is not to say I still see the odd case for tables over divs + CSS, but in those cases, I try not to apply any attributes I don't have to within the table tags. This applies especially to borders. For those, I force the widths and heights with CSS and set the background images (even for corner pieces) with CSS. This does wonders for making your site look readable even with all CSS on a site completely disabled. That means you can read any site you make with minimal layout code in done in HTML on a cell phone with far less effort.
- artman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I was an "old school" web designer (html) and have tended to have stopped working in the field just for this reason.
The use of CSS and DHTML has been a problem for me because I guess that I am less left brained and more right brained. I have been an artist/designer all my life where I tend to see things as a whole instead of parts of a whole.
The coding stifles and confuses me and the debugging and standards frustrate me too. So lately I have had a fear of delving into building my web site or anyone else's for that matter. Don't even ask about how it has hurt my career oportunities.
On one hand I see the simplicity's of CSS but the implimentation of it boggles my mind. I have the books and I have the tools, but I haven't motivated myself to get on with it. Like Dr. Mccoy would say, "I'm a artist Jim, not a programmer!" - greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1have you seen the garden?
http://csszengarden.com/ - xyxep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0actually, web-designer should be a somewhat programmer [nowadays?]. we live in web2.0 Epoch..
When you understand the concept, you see that CSS is great idea. Really.
P.S. These lessons is sux. - skidooer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3CSS has display: table/table-row/table-cell if you really need something that works like a table but is not tabular data. If it is tabular data, then you should indeed use a table. That's what they are meant for.
The fixed-width page is not a symptom of CSS. CSS is quite good at dynamic layouts, if not better than tables. They are usually fixed width because bitmap images cannot be realistically scaled, forcing the page to be the width of the image where the design dictates. Table-based layouts do not solve this problem either, unfortunately. - MScrip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Actually, it's still a quite common problem. Many designers/developers have yet to make the switch."
Good point.
So, why are so many people still using tables for layout? Answer: They always have. If they have to "switch" to CSS, it proves that they used tables before. It's not that big a deal, though.
I used tables to lay out websites for years. I never knew I was doing anything "wrong" until a few years ago. Today, I love CSS. So simple. Clean. Effective. In a modern browser...
Stop the "tables are only for tabular data" crap. Tables worked then. They still do today.
I learned a lot of cool table layout ideas over the years from Amazon, Yahoo, etc. Now I'm learning cool CSS layout tricks from the most popular websites today.
However... Oprah.com still uses tables for layout. She's got more money than anyone! Can't she hire better web designers? Or does it really matter? - revthwack, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Anyone who doesn't know how to make a fluid layout using css that renders properly across different browsers just needs to spend more time learning. There is nothing I've come across that you can pull off using tables that I can't do easier, with less markup, and also while using tags the way they were intended. Face it, using tables for site layout was never anything more than a hack and an abuse of the tag. Sure, for the longest time there wasn't any other option, but with CSS1 and a good chunk of CSS2 being supported in IE, not to mention that there are several perfectly good browsers that just about fully support CSS2, tables are out the door.
and these days are just the last bastion of piss poor web coders who can't learn better. - greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2@dtfinch said: "Tables aren't evil. They're robust, flexible, and simple. With tables you can create flexible layouts that you could only dream of in CSS."
humbuggery.
CSS does layouts that tables are simply incapable of. my own site (which i need to update. blah.): http://greyfade.org i CHALLENGE you to duplicate the layout and behavior with tables. that design took me maybe 1-2 hours to throw together. (the rest of the 3 days was spent trying to pick suitable colors. i'm horrible with colors.) i can't imagine trying to do that with a table. (especially with the header - it's position:fixed;)
tables are intended for tabular data. tables aren't evil, true. but they're not meant for layout. they're meant for lists of organized datasets. screenreaders and semantic processors (like search engines!) treat tables vastly differently from divs. oh, yeah, everyone and their dog uses tables. it's just not a good thing on any level. - greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1indeed. IE is the only browser that differs in the box model and interpretation of some properties. Gecko, KHTML, Opera, WebKit, and several others agree on their CSS implementations.
(i neglect to mention QNX Voyager, BeOS NetPositive, lynx and links derivates, and Amiga's AWeb iBrowse, and Voyager deliberately. they suck. "CSS? what's that?") - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5Coolspray you are a genius! It took the author of the article 2 years to get how to properly design a layout using pure CSS.. and you managed to pull it off in 12 hours.
WOWOWOWO - etokle, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2"With tables you can create flexible layouts that you could only dream of in CSS."
You have got to be kidding me. Any web developer worthy of being considered professional will laugh at this comment. Simply put, if you are still using tables to design the majority of your layout your skills are not up-to-date and you should go hit the books. Tables aren't more flexible, they are just the lazy coder's way out of a problem that has a much better solution. Well-written and well-conceived CSS is far more flexible, scalable, and reusable than any table-based layout could ever be. And as to the idea that CSS layout are somehow more complex -- if they are you aren't doing it right.
I often say to my fellow webdev guys that CSS has changed my life. Open your heart and let the CSS in -- then maybe you'll still be employable next year. - bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2Get a smarter client.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Tables with includes still works very well for me.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1freedom isn't free.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1I got a poster once, so I could use it to trace paint ontop of it. However the heat and the light faded the paint over time. I really wish I could have left the poster alone.
- adverpart, on 11/28/2007, -14/+1Yeah, what is this article doing here? Is there ANYONE (especially on a site like this) still using tables?
- Scarblac, on 10/12/2007, -16/+3This is 2006. Either you know CSS by now, or you're new to HTML. Right?
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