Re: Nested tables

by 2Nerotik <2nerotik(at)nisa.net>

 Date:  Mon, 06 Dec 1999 09:47:52 -0800
 To:  hwg-graphics(at)hwg.org
 In-Reply-To:  hotmail
  todo: View Thread, Original
At 06:41 AM 12/6/99 -0800, Cassie Smit wrote:
>I'm not sure if I'm posting to the right list or not...

Techniques list would probably have been better... but what they heck

>I need some opinions on nested tables.
>Do you use them??
>Do you have any problems? I 'thought' I had heard using them
>was not 'proper' coding [I may have heard this wrong], although it seems 
>they are used quite frequently.

I use them quite a bit. No problems... unless you forget a closing tag, 
nested tables can act up quite a bit if you do that. Yes it is proper to 
nest tables.

>What do you find to be the case and is there a limit to how many tables 
>can be nested.

Generally my rule of thumb is not to go more than 2 levels below the main 
table... ie. main table, nested table, nested table within nested table.

>Do they help things in place better?

yes, Sometimes you want one large table filling the whole page and sections 
of that table have parts that you may want to keep together such as a side 
menu or a graphic with text below/beside it, but for some reason or another 
do to the design/layout of the main table it's not possible to get the 
graphic and text lined up just right so then a nested table comes in handy.

>I had to edit a page with tons of nested tables and also many small two 
>row one column tables stacked to make a side border...

BAD... very bad. This is where you need to look into the COLSPAN & ROWSPAN 
tags.
Tables should NEVER be used this way, bad coding practice or bad HTML editor.

How browsers render tables:
IE renders a table as it sees it, in other words it doesn't wait until it 
reaches the end of the table before rendering it. Netscape on the other 
hand will wait until it reaches the last closing TABLE tag before rendering 
a table. At least that's what I understand they do.

This is what causes the pages to slow down.  Tables are great and 
wonderful... MANY nested tables are not and are a HUGE headache to keep 
track of/debug as well,


.oOo.
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