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67 Comments
- lane.montgomery, on 10/12/2007, -2/+30People like to dig on yahoo a lot (even me sometimes) but they really are doing a lot to help out web designers and developers lately.
- strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -6/+29Dugg for actually linking to yahoo as opposed to some lame 1 sentence blog entry
- kaniz, on 10/12/2007, -11/+30Please leave this 'firstpost' ***** left to Slashdot, digg doesnt need it.
- Bogtha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17That's nonsense. Nobody should be developing for 800x600. Forget about any particular width, the web isn't paper, you don't need to constrain yourself to a particular width. Create fluid designs that flow into whatever width is available.
In any case, the width of your pages has nothing whatsoever to do with "standards". My designs could require a 9999x9999 resolution and they would be just as standards compliant as your 800x600 designs. - MissionSix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Its a good idea, in theory. Pages should be built for sematically correct markup first, with CSS styling the pages. Not build around pre-defined CSS styles with html markup that corresponds.
- bieber, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Umm, what the *****? Table based design is the most obfuscated ***** ever. I couldn't _possibly_ make a decent looking table based layout without the use of a WYSIWYG editor. Yet I can come up with a stylish, functional CSS layout in less than a class period, which is far more accesible, works almost perfectly cross browser, and so on. And don't even make me bring up maintenance...
- mck9235, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11This is awesome. I just wish they made color schemes, too, then I could actually make decent looking pages rather than relying on OSWD.
- toekneebullard, on 10/12/2007, -9/+17What's worse? Linking to a lame one sentence blog, or someone commenting on it even when it DOESN'T happen?
- mykoleary, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Try to move your content around in a table based layout to accommodate different screen sizes (e.g. PPC) by changing a few lines of CSS
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Tables are stricly for presenting tabular data or creating input forms.. using them to layout a site just wastes more time and client budget money, not to mention highly unprofessional.
- jesusphreak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9>>> "This all "how to make it act like a table without using tables" begins to piss me off. Tables are best option for laying out contents of a page. They give you so many options that those table-less designs try very hard to mimic. And they are pretty cross-browser. Table tag is one of the best implemented tags in all browsers. You just clearly mark tables used for layout and push as much code to css file as you can. If god intended html to be consisted only of div-s, he'd got rid of any other tags way before 4.01 strict."
I tend to agree with you. Although there are several reasons I continue to use divs:
* div-based pages are significantly lighter-weight than their table counterparts
* div-based html is a lot less complicated than table-based code
* table-based code is not accessible AT ALL for blind people using screenreaders and such
* tables suck with AJAX and don't seem to act like they should - jesusphreak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Oops. Why isn't there a delete comment option within the first few seconds of posting?
- david76, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Why do people insist on treating this is DIV vs TABLE? It's not. It's semantic markup vs non-semantic markup. Back in the day nested tables were used for every aspect of the layout. Now CSS and semantic markup can result in the same layouts with considerably less HTML, greater flexibility, and improved usability. DIVs do not need to be used in every case where a TABLE once was. There are many other block-level elements which can be used to affect the final layout without using DIVs everywhere.
Anyway, great set of tools from Yahoo. - webfiji, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Table layouts get complicated quickly. Once you add colors for certain cells, or borders around the table. The more things you do to that table the more complex the code becomes. The thing about CSS is lets say you designed a table free layout, and some time down the road you want to change your colors or layout. Doing so would be less complicated than having to manually edit all of the table code that you hacked togethor.
- rideagain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6are all the templates fixed width? Isn't that going to be a problem for people with small screens?
- linuxrebel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@toekneeebullard
Toeknee, Sorry but accessability is not what 1024 is for. once you get above 800x600 you start running into a lot of problems with low visual accuaty individuals such as those over 60 and those whith a wide variety of visual imparments. In the US (and I'm told Canada and the UK as well) the law requires certain minimal levels of accessability be afforded visually impaired users of the internet. Now if you are doing a home served page this won't affect you however , if you are coding large scale sites for businesses or other public organization, meeting these standards is a must.
I've over the years done a lot of work with Sr's (did you know that the age groups most likely to be on the net are over 55 and under 20? yep Granparents and Grandkids) Well the kids can handle pixel fonts at 1600x1200 but most Sr's can't.
BTW my #1 coder in my company is now running at 640x480 with his nose almost in the screen. He's also good for about 200-300 lines of debugged and working code on average a day. (Average goes down when he has to go to meetings, or there are soda can bridges to be built.) which is well above his peers. The probability is high that within the year he will be running at 320x240. Side note. If his arms where 15ft long he could see the screen clearly but at 15ft you can't read even an 800x600 screen *grin*
Also too. I am willing to bet you are a windows user. Why? Because I've noticed that people who use windows maximize every window and work out of a massive taskbar list. (Ok one running program 20 windows) I use 1280x1024 on my screen at home (I sit back and use 2 monitors) and usually by browser is somewhere between 800x600 and 1024x768 so I can monitor about 5 or 6 other windows and programs at the same time. Just a difference in usage that makes a difference My screen is large but the window is not. So if my screen gets detected at 1280x1024 it doesn't mean I'm surfing at that size. - oluckboy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7in theory.. but in practice.. bascially impossible. Even the zen-garden threw in extra elements for designing.
- whisperstorm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5note also that it's not just the CSS templates that updated, there are a slew of new DHTML and js additions!
- stevenp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Look at the Yahoo! YUI Grid Kit CSS. Isn't that why you clicked on this? It's not table-based. :P
- anorris, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6dig, as in to insult
- SirPhatteus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3In regard to this 800x600 vs. 1024x768 vs 99999x999999... Most studies show the majority of web surfers using 1024x768, but still a good 20-30% (and lessening) using 800x600. Fluid designs make a lot of sense in many scenarios, but there are definitely situations where resizable content galleys don't apply.
Just remember who your target audience is, and code for them.
If you're peddling Geritol, 800x600 might be the ticket :-) - danhugo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I really like this one
http://www.digg.com/design/Layout_Gala:_40_CSS_layouts_ready_for_download
it didn't get hyped quite as much, but it's nicely done. I've been using this as a starting point for some new page layouts and it seems pretty decent. This, the yahoo approach, and others along these lines are nothing but good and useful. - booberry, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ok sure floating divs sometimes need tweaking in FF.....Im sure its so much easier to split a stupid cell, but seriously is there anyone that can seriously say that using CSS has downgraded their work as opposed to table layout?
I hope not. Youll take Web -1.0 for the block. - rlorenzo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3well, I like the idea of this.. but it doesn't allow for a fluid design.. I am still sticking to the "Holy Grail" from ALA.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/holygrail - jesusphreak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5>>> Tables are stricly for presenting tabular data or creating input forms.. using them to layout a site just wastes more time and client budget money, not to mention highly unprofessional.
Its argueable whether they should even be used for forms.
I wrestled with it a bit, but you can create some nice div-based forms that work across all browsers. - MissionSix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4@oluckboy
Yes, It is true that you need extra 's <div>'s and what not to help design your page. However Yahoo is making it more of a CSS table type thing with extraneous elements.
Also css / xhtml is meant to be small, when you have extra <div>'s you are throwing in wasted bandwidth, along with all those CSS properties that are probably going to be unused.
These are probably good examples for beginner web designers, however i dont see them being any more than that. - lord2800, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"I agree that CSS has it's place... but for a simple page layout (like most of the examples in the yahoo ui), why not use a table?"
Because a table is for tabular data. That's like telling me to eat cereal with a knife. Use the right tool for the job. - saitou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2800x600 can actually look quite good with the right font sizes.
I'm posting from a dying 17" monitor, and had to drop from 1152x864, and I must admit, 800x600 has grown on me.
Sites "designed for X x Y" are a great indication of poor design/scalability, and are usually so devoid of content that they're not worth reading in the first place. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"Tables are stricly for presenting tabular data or creating input forms.. using them to layout a site just wastes more time and client budget money, not to mention highly unprofessional."
If you're laying out a website in 30 seconds with a table you are either:
1. Lying
2. Using FrontPage - toekneebullard, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8I think people need to move away from 800 width and move onto 1024. I mean come on, if you're still running your monitor at 800x600, you're probably not the type of person who even notices how well designed a site is.
- stretch611, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Has someone realized that the story is wrong. The file is 1.82Meg not 1.82k.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It's not nonsense, check your stats of the visitors using your website. People still use 800x600. If you develop for 1024, then those using 800x600 get scrollbars and can't see most of the site without going up or down or left or right. If you start from 800, it scales up.
As for mobile devices, thats why there are seperate css sheets.. - david76, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Sure tables make layout "easy" but that doesn't mean it's the best option. Semantic markup with DIVs as opposed to table cells to define regions results in a much more flexible layout usable on user interfaces other than standard web browsers on a PC. Nobody ever intended to have HTML consist of ONLY DIV tags. HTML should utilize whatever markup is semantically accurate. DIVs are used for DIVisions of a page not for every paragraph, heading, menu option, etc.
- Crazen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2When you know what you're talking about, come back. All the browser hacks are a headache
- c0uchm0nster, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4As the poster before me said you can have a 10,000x10,000 page that's standards compliant, unless you're talking about the "Must look good at 800x600 and possibly scale well at larger resolutions, but nothing smaller!" consortium's standard....
Now then, as for accessibility:
1. an 800x600 page isn't going to be very accessible on a cell phone or pda
2. you can make a page that looks great at 800x600 and yet the layout completely breaks if your user increases font size (but due to your interest in pixel dimensions I have a feeling you do all your font sizes in px instead of pt - so resizing fonts wouldn't be a problem you'd have to content with =P).
Oh, and by the way, your 800x600 designs look like ***** on my quad-monitor setup. I don't have all these screens so i can look at 6 tiny websites that scroll for ages at the same time. - freakystyley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In my experience, the whole fixed layout vs liquid layout depends greatly on the type of site being built. Fixed layout is fine when it comes to brochureware, corporate sites, etc, where there isn't an abundance of information -- that visitors actually care for -- being displayed.
But when it comes to building web apps with more data to convey to the user -- especially in table format -- it's best to use liquid layout to really take advantage of the available screen space.
As for the size of the fixed layout, unless someone comes up with a way to scale page designs based on screen resolution, we're really stuck with the lowest common denominator -- which is still 800x600, it seems. Come to think of it, if there's one thing Flash is good for, I guess it's this. But then again, Flash is 99% evil... if put in the wrong hands. - booberry, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is very true whether people like it or not, i work for a small web design firm and you would not believe the people that call our support with no computer knowledge and we find they use 800x600.
- Zhay, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Tables render less quickly... i.e. the entire table has to load before data is displayed.
- scotty79, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Heh, say a pragmatic thing against ideological herd and you get trashed. Many of you who trashed me have never seen good table layout. All you've seen is stupid sample where someone used nested tables to make a border, and uses 1px gif to do spacing.
I don't mean using tables everywhere you can cram it in. I mean just using it for laying out blocks on page. 3-column, 2-column, adjusting to width adjusting to height, with content aligned to bottom, or centered vertically.
I really am for CSS. It's great. But if you insist on avoiding tables then it's a struggle to achieve anything. You repeat one after another that tables is intended to be used for tabular data. And what do you think float: left; was intended for ? Your dirty tricks to make a table-like layout without using this dreaded tag? And what about all the hacks you have to use to avoid using well implemented standard table tag? Your pages are gonna break with new versions of browsers. And not only IE7. It happened already with firefox. You used text-indent: -1000px; to make image links that look in html just like text links. And guess what. New firefox displays ugly focus box around all the link content, even this indented so far to the left. Can you guess, what damage will you hacks cause in the future? Avoiding tables at all costs is completely misplaced developer effort.
HTML isn't only for semantic purposes. It's also for presentation purposes. You can try very hard, but you ain't gonna change that.
If you really want to be nice for readers use XHTML. It can be easily weeded of any unnecessary tags, with simple XSLT style-sheet so anyone can adjust it to their needs. Probably browsers for impaired people can do with it a lot of nice things to adjust it. And even if you choose to use HTML there is such thing as HTML Tidy that can be used by browser for impaired to automatically convert it to XHTML, and then apply XSLT. So basically you can use anything you like as long as it validates. No tag is forbidden, of course if you use it for purpose that can't be achieved simpler. And I think most of the things are easier to achieve with DIV+CSS. General layout of the page just isn't one of them.
And if you really want to waste your time to find hacks to get around bugs in one functionality instead using perfectly working and easy to use equivalent, then go ahead. I can't stop you. - liquidizer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The download is 1.8MB but that includes all the Yahoo UI stuff and documentation and examples. The minimised CSS file for the grids only is under 2K, which means this story is correct.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Back in the day nested tables were used for every aspect of the layout."
Because browsers barely supported CSS or HTML tags the way they should have.. thats why. - bugsy187, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3all i can say its WOOT!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+10You are not a designer/coder. Go away!
Table designed sites = for noobs. I use div'd layouts and everything we make is cross browser from IE 5.5+, Firefox, Opera and Safari. It ain't hard.
www.zeldman.com - andocom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0"Tables are stricly for presenting tabular data or creating input forms.. using them to layout a site just wastes more time and client budget money, not to mention highly unprofessional."
WTF??? You were right up to tabular data. What gives you the impression that tables are in anyway correct for forms.
Fieldset, label & legend should be used for form layout, not tables. Note: I don't really care in regards to table use anywhere, but if you are going to be a table nazi you can't start making exceptions because you find it hard to make you form look pretty. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1It's pronounced "Yahooey".
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2"Now you know."
"And knowing is half the battle!" - CaughtThinking, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5Tables for layout are unprofessional. Quick, someone tell Google and Yahoo.
- itsrainin, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6"This all "how to make it act like a table without using tables" begins to piss me off. Tables are best option for laying out contents of a page. They give you so many options that those table-less. . ."
We are all now dumber for having read your comment, you are awarded no points, and my God have mercy on your soul. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+8Should be developing for 800x600 resolution if you're truely doing standards development with accesibility.
- ArcusOfSV, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Wow this is very nice. Im waaaaaaaaaaay behind in web crap its unreal.
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