Topic: Design

Hi, guys. I have been reading web design book. I want to ask you about your way to create web site.

Well, which do you use to design web site, table or CSS? The book said "The point is CSS is not supported by all the browsers, right? Even sometimes CSS causes problem. " So many people still cannot use only CSS to do exact page layout.

I wonder if you use table , CSS or both.
Any advices highly appreciated.
Thanks.

Hiroki Kozai

CSS, definitely.

Tables are still useful in some situations. And they're certainly easier. But CSS offers so much more flexibility that it's completely worth it. At this point, all major browsers support CSS very well, with only minor bugs. I suspect your book is maybe a year or two out of date.

It does take a *lot* of practice (and research!) to be able to use CSS to make a complex page layout thta works in all major browsers. But it's worth it. Table designs are slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past.

There are arguments supporting table-based design, also. The methods involved shouldn't be forgotten. But a beginning web designer these days should only think of them as "the way people used to have to do things."

Thanks a lot, Slime. That's right. My book is writted a or two years ago.

By the way, I wonder if you like Dragon Quest.

Again, thank you very much.

Cheers.

Hiroki Kozai

Hiroki: The answer is it depends. It depends on:

1. Your brief

2. Your audience

3. Your skill with CSS

If you go through briggl's 2 CSS tutorials and Phil/Scansped's Box model tutorial at the GN (when you can get there) and have a good bit of practice then you should at least have 3 sorted out.

[edit: Started an FAQ here:

:FAQ:

and threw a few extra thoughts in]

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Whenever possible, CSS.

Tables simply aren't meant for layout, and more and more CSS support is showing in browsers.

If at all possible, usee CSS fir your layouts.

If you *have* to - meaning if you have to design pixel-precise sites for old browsers - then use tables. But only if you have to.

Hi, Emperor! Hi, DL! Thaks a lot for your advices.

Well, these days browser support CSS very well, right? I haven't study CSS much yet. I am going to do so.
But I suspect there are a lot of Internet user, who still be on the old browser. right?
My book always say to me, "Don't ignore those people. Make website available as much as possible. "
I agree wtih this opinion.
Guys, do you create web site using table or whatever but not CSS to care for those old age people?



Hiroki Kozai

Hiroki:

quote:

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Guys, do you create web site using table or whatever but not CSS to care for those old age people?

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If you meant for people with old browsers then you have to take into account the criteria I mentioned. Know your audience.

If you mean desgning for the elderly then CSS-only would seem a better bet. They might have problems with their site (cataracts, glupcoma [sp?], etc.) which means they have to use browsers for the visually impaired. You should also think about other accessibility features (like using JavaScript to create 'hotkeys') as I've taught a number of elderly people to use computers and I know that those with more arthritic hands prefer keyboard shortcuts (although that is just my experience of course - not very scientific).

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

I agree that old browsers are important. However, what the author of your book isn't mentioning is that a CSS-based page, if it is *well made* (meaning that there is no style mixed in with the HTML markup), it will "degrade gracefully" in older browsers. That means that it won't appear exactly as you intended it to; the browser may ignore some of the CSS. But it will still be fully readable, and all of the content will be accessable to the user.

Let me use my own page as an example. If you go to http://www.slimeland.com/ with a recent browser (which is what you probably have), you'll probably see a sidebar on the left with a lot of text on the right, and an image in the upper left.

Now, if you go to the same page in an older browser, for instance, Netscape Navigator 4.x, it will look similar but not exactly the same. The sidebar will still be on the left, but it will have borders where it shouldn't. The headings in the text won't look quite the same. But all the text will be there for you to read; while the CSS isn't working 100%, no information is being blocked out.

Finally, if you go to the same page in a really old text browser, like Lynx, you'll see the following:

quote:

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Slime Update

Crackers and Cheese
After working halfway through Gannon?s tower in A Link to the Past and making significant progress on my latest JavaScript....

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At the bottom of the page will be the sidebar, formatted as a list of hyperlinks. Since its a text browser, no images will be shown and the layout of the page will be very linear (top to bottom). If the page were based on tables, the order might be strange, and things such as headings wouldn't appear as headings.

That's why it's important to use good markup (for instance, the <h1> tag for your main heading, instead of <font size="7"> or something like that). *That's* what makes older browsers render a page well.