Topic: Tables suck!

When I create a table in Dreamweaver it will allways look f****d up in netscape.
At least this seems to be the case in 99% of the times. The thing is that if I create a
table with cells that should be completly held together Netscape almost never manage to do that. *sigh*

Is there a solution or is this an eternal problem?

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

flyer: I think you'll find that NS4.x's implementation of tables is pretty appaling (esp. if you want to use it to hold together different slices of an image) and that there is usually nothing you can do to fix it.

Emps


You're my wife now Dave

i do believe that the correct answer is that WYSIWYG's are crap. never rely on a machine to do a humans job.

emps, do you actually know what youre talking about, or do you just listen to all newbs who believe that a particular browser sucks and cant be bothered to learn otherwise? or maybe youre just spoiled because ie lets you get away with sloppy coding? do you see any of *my* tables falling apart in netscape? so apparently there is something you can do to fix it.

netscape *can* behave. but in order to do so, you have to actually *understand* html, and especially tables.

other than that, theres not a lot of help here unless you post a link.

------
this rose has a thorn...

[This message has been edited by la'dsasha (edited 10-15-2001).]

What's this? A WYSIWYG is making pages that don't work in all browsers 100% of the time? Wow! How strange.

If coded correctly, tables can work fine in Netscape, too... For example, my web site (MAX's World) is a fine example of liquid table layout that works in all major web browsers (IE, Mozilla/NN6, NN4, Opera5)...




[This message has been edited by mr.maX (edited 10-15-2001).]

la'dsasha: Do I know what I'm talking about? Sometimes. Sometimes I don't explain myself properly and sometimes I overstate the situation. Sometimes I also talk rubbish and as you and others (mr.maX) have pointed out it is usually possible to make NS4.x behave with tables (although often not without unpleasant hacks like single transparent gifs, etc). We have just moved over to IE from NS4.x here (and quite a few people still use it as their default browser) so I am still a little sensitive about it - which is why I often overreact in its presence.

I just hope I can keep my rubbish:useful ratio down to acceptable levels (thinking before hitting submit would be handy - but is often a luxury esp. on days like today).

Emps


You're my wife now Dave

Thanks for all comments. The reason I haven't given you guys a link is that I'm making this
page for a company who is very restrictive with safety and is yet under construction.
But anyway, now I got a glimpse of hope back of actually putting together a working table in Netscape.

Unfortunately I sometimes must wonder if there isn't a bug in dreamweaver or what I might do wrong,
because when I build a table I check it now and then in Netscape and at first it seems to run smotthly but
then later on in the table-building-process.. suddenly.. the table is cracked apart in NS. *sigh*

Is there special tags to include to ensure that table doesn't do this? Or is there some "rules" of how you can
design a table without getting this problem in NS? I often seem to get it however.. :/

flyer: It depends on what you are trying to do but there are a couple of things you can do to try and get control of your tables in NS4.x (which as others have said WYSIWYG HTML editors don't usually give you the control required to properly fix things). Try:

1. Specifying the exact height and widths of your table.

2. Set you cellpadding and cellspacing to 0 (if they aren't set they tend to default to 2).

3. Tightly pack your cell tags - NS4.x can be v. picky about this and if there is a new line in your code between your opening and closing table cell tags then this can add space to your cells (this in particular is an odd thing).

4. Set border to 0.

There are a number of resources out there on this (I can dig out more URLs if need be) but one of the old faithful is the Yale Style Manual:
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/pages/advanced_tables.html

Emps


You're my wife now Dave

la'dsasha ~ You know I appreciate your candor and your wit and your intelligence and your experiences with cross-browser problems and solutions.

However, pull the broomstick out of your ass, please. I'm pretty certain you didn't write any browser that you've mentioned, so there is no reason for you to take it so personally when someone attacks it's absolute ineptitude at displaying web layout.

If you want to go on a jihad, do it on your time, not ours. It's no fun reading personal attacks in a browser compatibility forum. Look, please, before you leap next time.


s t e p h e n

*ducks the flying fists*

sounds like, using the limited info provided, that you may be experiencing the age old 'space' problem...

try:

<td><img src="image.gif"></td>

as opposed to:

<td>
<img src="image.gif">
</td>

The hard returns or tabs or spaces can cause browsers to render spaces between images you're trying to hold together. Also NS hates cells with nothing in them so try a non-breaking space (&nbsp or break (<br> ) tag or image spcer (<img src="spacer.gif" width="spec" height="spec"> ) to hold a cell open.

Emps, please forgive my lack of ALT tag in my examples

l'adsasha, please forgive my lack of height and width attributes im my sample IMG tags

Jason

!@#$ slimies, disabling the buggahs



[This message has been edited by JKMabry (edited 10-17-2001).]

personally I HATE to use dreamweaver. You're right about never sending a machine to do a human's job. heh. the code generated is so inefficient, plus it does code in xhtml. there's tons of redundant codes like <b></b>, and some more it's deprecated already!

that's why i use notepad. heh. just my 2cents!

evo.lanche - evolve. the only constant in life.

*cou - HTMLBeauty - gh*