Whats the difference? It sounds like Im being lumped in with other people who are making grand claims. I wont restate all the reasons why since I said them in the post already. If you want to report an error, or if you want to make a suggestion, do not hesitate to send us an e-mail: W3Schools is optimized for learning and training. The only time I get nosy is if someone did something mind blowing that I want to learn how to do also. Where did I say you shouldnt try to make tables with divs? The conclusion is I dont know the language well enough to communicate in it. Dont blame the language. Luckily, modern sites have actually become pretty basic. In my opinion, combining table layout with CSS works great. I typed along with all the code samples and it helped me a lot. Table layout; Multiple-column layout; Each technique has its uses, advantages, and disadvantages. The whole display gets shuffled. Ive read the debates. As I learned more I stopped having those problems. I code both a little differently now, but the posts might still help. Believe me, Im not making the argument for convoluted nested tables with colspan settings, etc, nor am I arguing against semantically correct documents. 2. WebSome of the advantages and disadvantages of database forms are as follows: Advantages Data entry is less error-prone A number of predefined formats are available for use Usually, all the data fields for a single record appears in one screen Forms are customizable (compared to data sheet views) Forms can include instructions for data entry Wow. So does laying out a site with tables. If you were to point one out to me Id either fix it or explain why it might not be working for you and probably even help you make it work. Eric Meyers books are good. Very amusing. When I first started learning css I did run into problems making things work cross browser. The fact that order matters even with divs invalidates a lot of the arguments table haters constantly throw out, but considering were trying to layout documents in the first place, it makes sense that order matters, otherwise the whole semantics argument would be totally out the window too! Like I said the debate the wont die. If you develop to standards at most youll need to tweak a few things for Internet Explorer and usually only older versions of IE. There are multiple levels which creates confusion for non-developers and beginners. Tables are like having the blocks bolted together and needing all blocks to be bolted before the structure itself holds together. If you arent its not because of the language. You make the assumption that because it takes you 5 hours to develop a layout in css that its the same for other people. The flexibility is in your html structure. and on. Search engines are interested in your content, not your code.. You also keep pointing out how everyone who disagrees needs to keep learning, but if youve ever been in a large production environment, youd realize that this is a complete load of bullshit. Im glad your process works for you, but that doesnt change my opinion. If you read the post youll see I never once said you couldnt use tables. Im not sure who angered you so much, but please dont take it out on me. When using CSS for layout, browsers can cache That extra pass at the code makes table-based layouts take longer to display. Ive been coding on and off since the mid 90s and have been hearing about tables are only for tabular data blah blah blah for years. That is true, but you can have all your presentation in a separate css file while having a table-based structure to your html. I have an unorthodox, perhaps unstandardized approach to web design. CSS (divs) is hard to learn Simply not true. As far as other people having the same issues with css, I do agree that happens. What Im saying though is the problem isnt css itself. With tables you know exactly where you are placing your content, exactly!!! Divs dont require complicated css. My div test page was only 2285 bytes smaller then my table page which would save me 1.74 MB/month of data transfer. Choosing the right storage format is crucial as it affects your disks But using tables and styling them completely with CSS is just as effective as CSS alone. Examples might be simplified to improve reading and learning. I cant and wont tell you that you have to abandon tables. Heavy image use and Flash still seem to be the biggest factors in speed. . May be my knowledge, however tables work great! 2. I REALLY dont have any desire to fight that battle again. I still dont see where Im hyping anything. Even though I think css is the better way, Ive seen some very poor and slow loading css driven sites and some pretty well coded and quick table driven sites. Take the time to learn how to use it. Assuming no major errors I think the search spiders will get through your code fine whether its css or tables. Now, select the Table tab > click the Options button > uncheck the Automatically Resize to Fit Contents check box. After-all the 3 column layout with equal height is referred to as the holy-grail in css, enough said! Its is also much quicker to use tables, and hey, yeah, once in a while it is nice to be able to glance at your code in a wysywig and actually see what it looks like. Maybe Ill apply changes to my test pages as my home page changes and track the time involved. Again all I said was faster in this post and 10ms is still faster. The fact that different browsers and different versions of browsers look at these and other variables differently is a really pain. Everything else is really irrelevant. If you look at the source code of most sites (especially the ones you like) youll discover that most and nearly all use css for page layout. Tables also have distinct dis advantages on mobile devices: You can only squeeze in a small number of columns before the table width causes horizontal scrolling on smaller screens. Sure you can move stuff around easier with divs just in case you need to in the future, but nobody ever does. A div is its own entity. Hi Jennifer. Ive offered tutorials on the basic layout and Ive offered tutorials on things that can go inside that layout, but never all the code for an entire site. CSS or cascading sheet may be a text-based coding language that specifies the website formats and the way a site communicates with web browsers. You can do that regardless of how you structure your layout. You can create the same shape in a number of ways. One example, is to have a banner across the top, a side banner down the left, with a background image that must align with the top banner in the corner, and then content within the area below the top banner and to the right of the side banner. The limiting factors isnt the language, its my ability to use the language. I think many people who spent the time learning how hold on to that knowledge instead of trying to learn the css way and in holding on to the known create arguments to defend their use of tables. Then you can use divs inside your table. If table tags were called tags, nobody would be complaining, and there would be no ongoing debate. It wont take long to set up for you, though I naturally have to charge for the work. I had not heard about this controversy, being a WYSIWYG kind of guy. I use Dreamweaver template files. There is no format to follow for teaching the aesthetics of style most people, though, can- recognise something that follows a classical design. The places where this occurs has problems with that flow. If there is a specific tutorial that isnt working for you just let me know which one and Ill be happy to take a look to see if there are any errors. I also dont have an issue if you want to use them to display a list of links in a menu. Tables will self adjust to keep the lines aligned. Note: There are times when a row can have less or more cells than Im still a little inexperienced to style the whole design in CSS, though. Its really about 5 -10 minutes work to set up. it is a pain, but theres an easy solution, which is simply to declare the padding or margin, etc. In this case, it is almost impossible to get CSS only to render this as desired, either the width or the height of the side banner will be wrong, or the background image will appear to disappear or not be long enough, or be too long, or the content will bleed over into the side banner if you change the width of the browser. This site uses css and works in IE for example as do many, many others. CSS based design is unquestionably superior to table layout, but due to sheer laziness the practice of table design has held on. I agree that CSS is much better in theory, but as long as people use IE and Microsoft refuses to be standards compliant, I dont think CSS for structure is the greatest idea. Odds are though they would look at every data point they could so I would think a slower server would mean potentially worse ranking. Even that doesnt work when they are not all exactly the same font size with no flow. Lets see if we can dispel a few myths from each side. I am in the middle of a major project that we tried to code with proper CSS, but its incredibly frustrating and time consuming. With many sites (big, e commerce sites for example) having many different sections of text and images and other media throughout a page the code just grows and grows, taking browsers longer to load page content. As far as it being easier for you to code it with a table now, thats probably true. An example of this lie is what proponents of divs like to show off by only having a few divs compared to a table structure, but in order to get even close to having the same properties as table we have to use something like the last example in http://www.vanseodesign.com/css/equal-height-columns/ as the others are just faking the appearance with a background image. How is that more maintainable? I think it makes them easier to move them around on a single page. On one hand you say you can create 3 columns of equal heights with divs, but in your blog post, you mentioned that people shouldnt try to make tables with divs. It still ends up being less code than you would use for a similar table based design. I thought my question BTW why css layout over table layout' was clear from the context but apparently not. Your text should reflow with changes. As I see it, table layouts have precisely two advantages: 1. Advantages of Inline CSS: Inline takes precedence over all other styles. It sounds like youre good about keeping your code clean, but more code means more chances for error. @Dave I think were getting squished with the replies to each other so Im starting a new comment. Ive linked to this article in a post as part of a project Im doing on web design styles. Could you send me a link to the page? I dont, however agree that the only way to make things work for IE is tables or even that its easier. CSS works differently on different browsers. As far as I know Ive never provided 100% of the code to any of the sites youve developed, which would mean the issue isnt necessarily my code. As networks improve the speed advantage becomes less meaningful and for a small site its not going to be a big deal either. I agree with what you are saying, however I think with the advancement of HTML 5, tables will start to disappear. Let us have a glance on the benefits and drawbacks of CSS. Im still using the spacer.gif to tweak spacing. How to identify unused CSS definitions from multiple CSS files in a project ? Its more in how you code it where I dont think html tables are the right approach. Any styles defined in the internal and external style sheets are overridden by inline styles. Otherwise, I just appreciate when someone makes the website function well enough for me to get to the content Im looking for. Your layout is really one thats pretty easy to code. Its true that the easiest way may not be the best way, but I dont yet see that the benefits of CSS outweigh the much greater learning curve with regards to these more complex layouts. He takes a layout done in tables and works to change it to divs and css. Divs can work independently from each other. I use it and love it. Anyway, the real reason I wanted to comment here is because I think it is hilarious that Ive been reading people bashing table layouts and saying they cant stand any website that uses tables, then I view the source code and they are commenting on a page that uses tables! However there are other methods to abstract changes that need to be applied to more then one file into a single file. 8.1 Introduction to Style Sheets . Youre mainly proving my point that those who argue in favor of tables usually havent spent the time to learn to use block level elements like divs and css well. With a simple table structure the extra time might not be noticeable, but as the structure becomes more complex with more and more tables nested inside each other it is noticeable. Im not questioning the benefits of CSS in general. (10-20 is most common.) Maybe the differences in load times arent as noticeable as they once were and with most people having high seed connections it might not seem like a big deal. Q&A for work. Wish me luck. They arent called floating blockists. Use table-layout: fixed to create a I will use them to learn more about CSS. WebDisadvantages of Sketch Maps (3) easily exaggerated and distorted, one view at one point in time, not an accurate representation of an area. I agree with you about seo. I think you hit the nail right on the head with this comment. I really resented (and it sounds like many of you do too) all the time I had to spend to get a site to look as it was intended for ALL users. As a web designer I spend the vast majority of my css time finding work around for IE and sometimes other browsers. Much of using css for layout is realizing that you dont need to do as much as you think. Hopefully I can clear up a few things in this post and let you make your own decision. If youre having to spend the vast majority of your time finding workarounds for IE then youve probably been doing something wrong. Cmon man! Covering popular subjects like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, SQL, Java, and many, many more. The phone number and search can either be wrapped together in another div thats floated to the right or they could each be floated to the right independently. any pretty crap i use css on those parts alone. The best practices standard for doing web design is to use DIVs for page structure and tables for tabular data only. Most of the time though, that relationship wont be 1:1. There are many more people who dont have those problems. If you need to create a modern site that supports an older browser, CSS imposes huge costs. Web designers needs to use few lines of programming for every page improving site speed. Youre welcome to use them to layout sites if you want. Perhaps its a matter of experience, but if you know what youre doing you never need to use any kind of hack. As we add more to the pages design the table complexity continues to increase compared to divs. As far as the speed issues, Google didnt really talk about load times affecting ranking until after I wrote this post. Its less-influenced by personal biases and emotions. While using W3Schools, you agree to have read and accepted our. I make a change to the template file and boom, it changes on all pages. I will need to learn more about how to use cssdiv to do a page layout. Maybe you want to move the sidebar from the left to the right of the content. Really? No one is going to stop you. In addition there are the little seemingly obscure css properties that need to be inserted to make certain things function properly in general, or with older browsers. I learned by reading the book Eric Meyer on CSS. And if I gave offense at all as well I also apologize. Very informative article and I hope that it gains some traction so people will stop using so many tables for layout. For instance, if you want colmns with different colour backgrounds to be the same length, use a simple table and style it with css. If tables confuse you, I think you are a lost soul. he argument is made by people comparing learning something new to learning something they already know well.. They use less code. Each technique has its uses, advantages, and disadvantages, and no technique is designed to be used in isolation. Feel free to email me and if you dont mind waiting a bit Ill be happy to help. Just change the template file. My point is that there are other ways to achieve this benefit. But now not only is the solution more convoluted with containers i.e the complexity in code grows proportionally with the amount of columns compared to a simple table but we still dont really have equal length columns as its only the containers that are equal length and not the content/sidebar divs themselves. A div-based layout is: That might not seem like a lot, but just those three things are enough to make a div based approach better to a table based approach. I dont agree with their reasoning, but it is there. It will usually involve adding more tags on the table side as compared to the div side. Web3. Not doing something because it takes time to learn is laziness.. It could mean one less page they get to crawl on your site. The limit isnt the language, its your current skill level in using the language. As you can see I still strongly favor css layouts, but I think many of the arguments on either side of the debate get a little silly at times. I cant tell any discernable speed difference between a table layout and a CSS layouts load time. I certainly havent seen anything to support the validity of these remarks. Your probably right about round pegs and square holes, and I am sorry if you took offence, but the fact that countless people have these issues with css must indicate a lack of continuety with css. Tutorials, references, and examples are constantly reviewed to avoid errors, but we cannot warrant full correctness of all content. It can be used in a wide range of applications. To do this, add the following CSS to your style.css file: A table-layout value of fixed is generally a good idea to set on your table, as it makes the table behave a bit more predictably by default. CSS is a standard across the board. I dont want to use tables but Im finding it harder and harder to justify not using them. When people are having trouble getting a css layout to look the same across browsers its usually more to do with the skills of the designer than with css itself. My point about flexibility isnt simply flipping columns. WebMoreover, an externally linked CSS file, once loaded the first time, does not have to be reloaded and re-read on every page. With a div-based layout you could make this change in your stylesheet alone. Thats crazy. WebW3Schools offers free online tutorials, references and exercises in all the major languages of the web. A horizontal list can go either way depending on what the client wants. Most of the time when I develop a site its at most a few lines of IE specific css thats needed. I didnt say things like css is much faster or place any other qualifier on it. By Even though I like tables I appreciate it when someone with a different opinion can use humble language to support his case. 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