Table/CSS Idea

[dancedevils]

I am not sure weather you will like this or not but this is an example of what people who want to convert their site from a table design to a CSS/layer design could do.

tr_1 bascially means table row 1
were as td_21 means table row 2 column 1

<ul>[*][url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dancedevils/"]the page[/url:836xyrqbom][*][url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dancedevils/css/style.css"]the CSS file[/url:836xyrqbom][/list]
Bon Bon

[Mark]

First of all, you don't convert a table based layout site to a CSS based layout. Second, are you crazy?

As I said, doing a CSS based layout isn't about mimicking the table layout. You take a completely different approach to create your website.

If I may critisize the semantics of your example, the id's and classes tell me the divs are supposed to act like a table. Why then isn't it a table? You are emulating the deprecated strike tag to tell people a link is gone, instead, put del tags around it. It's been deleted, right?

* Hmm, this might sound a bit harsh.. *

- [url="http://neo.dzygn.com/"]Mark[/url:kw20k9mgam]

[Chris]

no, i would agree with mark also. a 'css/layer design' doesn't really require css. the only concept here is that the need for proper structure and semantics are pushed all the way; it just happens that the most people style their well-formed html document is through css (due to its high compatability, for the most part). mark is correct in that it is not a simple conversion, its getting the idea of a whole new concept. you should think of your site as separate parts of a whole thing, like pieces of a jigsaw. thats where the divs come in, as thats the correct structural tag to acheive the result you want. if you want a link with strike-through formatting, then use the existing structural tag del to do it. no need to create a whole new strike class for your links. this then brings me onto your naming of the ID attributes in your markup. don't give them names related to what you see on the styled page, give them names that relate to what they are from a structural point of view. using the example of your strike class, a class name of deletedLinks (here using a javascript naming convention just because i like it) would be better as it tells you what it is, and not what it will look like.

on a plus note, your use of the header tags (h1, h2 etc.) is good.

[url="http://chrispoole.com"]Chris[/urlcsk69q99k]

[dancedevils]

First of all, thanks, I never knew what the <del> tag was used for and now I do. I have never used it before and have changed it now.

Also thanks for the feedback from both of you, I am going to convert a forum from a tabled design into a CSS/layer design and this is why I posted that. I was thinking maybe I could have done it by the way I shown in this example.

I do understand that CSS/layers should not be used to simulate tables, as if we needed tables we would just use them. I also understand that web pages are what I would call a series of building blocks. I thought about this idea to maybe help teach people how to get into the CSS/layer design as they could see similarities between a tabled structure to a CSS/layer structure. Because when you think about it, you can do everything tables do and more with layers and good CSS.

Thanks for the comments and I did not see them as harsh but comments made from a critics point of view. After all, without the tr and td classes or the table id you would not really think of it as an emulated table.

Bon Bon

[Mark]

<blockquote id="quote"><span class="smalltext" id="quote">quote:<hr id="quote">After all, without the tr and td classes or the table id you would not really think of it as an emulated table.<hr id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></span id="quote">
True, but then your code would have be redundant for the most part.

<blockquote id="quote"><span class="smalltext" id="quote">quote:<hr id="quote">Because when you think about it, you can do everything tables do and more with layers and good CSS.<hr id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></span id="quote">
Actually, no. Current CSS support has a lot of trouble with multi-column layouts, for example. Tables give you a bit more control over the page, but this doesn't weigh up to the pro's you get using a CSS based layout.

<blockquote id="quote"><span class="smalltext" id="quote">quote:<hr id="quote">I thought about this idea to maybe help teach people how to get into the CSS/layer design as they could see similarities between a tabled structure to a CSS/layer structure<hr id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></span id="quote">
Tables act completely different. The only similarities between a table based layout and a CSS based layout can be seen in the way the page finaly looks.

- [url="http://neo.dzygn.com/"]Mark[/url:rgdsqx2cec]

[Megaaudio630]

Don't look at tables as bad, look at inline structure as bad.

What CSS allows you to do is to eliminate most of the HTML and Scripting Gibbrish from your page, making it more like a DOCUMENT, and less like tag soup.

a table to div converter is just stupid.

-Rob
http://www.abstractia.com

[Chris]

couldn't agree more Rob. the aesthetics of your code is important. Personally i choose to stick to the 'css type' design as it allows for greater abstraction of the different layers of the site (this is of couse linked to your comment on inline structure being bad).

[url="http://chrispoole.com"]Chris[/url:zxomy38p74]

[dancedevils]

Rob I totally agree with you myself. Okay it was a kind of stupid idea but still worth it to me. I am not going to change that page because I simply cannot be bothered to. It works so I will just leave it and I will update that CV link when I make a CV and put it online.

For the record, that page is a waste of my bandwidth too in which Eddie proved. So I also do not recommend you do it but you can have fun doing so.

I just do not get how inline is bad, afterall without inline, how would put tabular data online? Using inline for design maybe but inline itself is not bad.

Bon Bon

[Mark]

Inline structure: the actual structure of your document. The design is layered on top of this structure.

- [url="http://neo.dzygn.com/"]Mark[/url:4lzsdnnd3q]

[Megaaudio630]

tables are fine... FOR TABULAR DATA

not for layout/structure. using tables for tabular data is not inline stylization.

inline stylization is where you define elements like font, backgrounds, etc within the html document itself. It has nothing to do with tables aside from the fact that hacked tables are the usual suspect.

-Rob
http://www.abstractia.com