On 12 Feb 2004, at 13:46, Michael Kear wrote:

> If you design with standards-compliance, then you know
> that when a users browser can't interpret the CSS
> correctly, that it'll degrade gracefully. You know that
> they'll see an acceptable presentation of the content in a
> logical manner.

That's true. And if you've gone table-less, old browsers 
that don't support CSS do NOT degrade gracefully.

> Also you know that sight-impaired people who use screen
> readers are going to be able to travel your content
> successfully.

That can be done with tables, too.

> I am in the middle of loading up a site, and I've loaded
> it up without the CSS in a temporary place where I can
> leave it until Monday so you can see what users see when
> they have poor browsers.  And you can also see the content
> - how it's organised.  Have a look at
> http://64.191.54.240/metacousticinf/  and you'll see what
> a user with a Netscape2 or IE3 browser would see.

Yep, and if you'd put it in a simple table, it would look 
even better.

> The CSS version is still being styled at
> http://64.191.54.240/metacoustics/. 
> 
> There is nothing inherently evil with tables.  But they
> are not flexible enough.

Depends on what you're trying to do with them. 
Amazon.com uses tables for their page layout, as does 
yahoo.com - they work there.

> I used to think the same way you do but once I learned
> more about layout using CSS, I could see that its far
> more flexible.  Just a glance at the CSSzengarden
> project will tell you that there is little need for
> tables if you know CSS well.  And then all your layout
> is separated from content - you can easily change the
> whole look of a site without much fuss. And there's a
> tendency to nest tables within tables so when the time
> comes to tinker with a bit of code it can take longer
> to find the code than to change it. 

I agree, but I don't do complex nested tables. In fact, I 
generally don't do complex layouts. (When I was doing 
desktop publishing work and graphic design, I didn't do 
complex layouts, either.) Complex leads to 
compatibility problems. Simple is preferable. I use other 
methods to separate formatting from content.

> Real world example:   I am consultant to a very large
> subscription site, several thousand pages of content, over
> a hundred thousand subscribers.  A few years ago the site
> was looking dated, we decided to re-skin it to update it. 
>  We still wanted the content of course - we're not about
> to rewrite all that stuff just to freshen the look.  
> Sadly the content was laid out with tables and it took us
> months to do.  We had temporary staff in and we cleared
> out tables and tidied up all the html.  At the same time,
> we decided we didn't want this mess again and as far as we
> could at the time, we separated the display/design
> elements from the content.    Last February when we needed
> to re-skin again, we took a day or so to test and tweak
> the new design on our dev server and the actual reskinning
> of the site took 3 hours, including the checking for
> errors, checking all the different sections of the site
> worked ok. 

With something that size, your content should be 
coming out of a database backend, anyway, with pages 
generated on the fly using a basic set of a few 
templates. Then updating the look/layout involves 
changing your templates.

> Believe me David, I scoffed at this standards stuff for
> ages.  Now I've actually taken some time to learn it, I'm
> totally sold. My sites are not cleaner, lighter, faster to
> load, easier to write, easier to maintain, and I know that
> I have accessibility licked with absolutely no effort
> spent on it.

My friend, I don't scoff at standards. I just don't agree 
that tables must be done away with. In the ideal world, 
someday, perhaps, all browsing devices will support all 
elements of CSS identically, and the W3C's weird idea 
that tables must only be used for display of tabular data 
will finally be viable. In the meantime, here I get to deal 
with a mix of IE4 and 5 on PCs, Safari and IE5 on Mac, 
and NS4 and Mozilla on both. Just the differences in 
CSS support between IE5 on PC and Mac make using 
anything more than basic CSS non-viable.

> I would suggest to you that it's using a more traditional
> tables-based layout that locks people out, not the
> standards-compliant method.  If you've ever used a screen
> reader you'll know what a nightmare most sites are to use.
> If you haven't ever seen a screen reader in use, I think
> it should be compulsory viewing for all web developers.

No - "hearing" a screen reader should be compulsory.

> Navigating nested tables with a screen reader or a PDA or
> an internet fridge for that matter is no joke.  If a
> browsing device doesn't render CSS reliable you'll see
> what it does display when you have a look at that page I
> put there specially for you.

See above about nesting tables.

David
dvjones(at)ksbe.edu

> Cheers
> Mike Kear
> Windsor, NSW, Australia
> AFP Webworks
> http://afpwebworks.com
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org
> [mailto:owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org] On Subject: Re:
> Standards, compliance and accessibility- its here! : (Was:
> Just tell me why?)
> 
> Hmmm, I for one like standards-compliant coding, but I
> disagree with the philosophy that tables are evil and must
> only be used for displaying tabular data. They are still
> the only way to get many functional layouts in browsers
> that are *not* compliant with current standards. And the
> WWW is about information sharing, not locking someone out
> because they don't (or can't) use what you might consider
> a "standards-compliant" browser.
> 
> David
> dvjones(at)ksbe.edu
> 
> 


 

• Web Designer Courses
• Off the Shelf Training Courses

HWG hwg-techniques mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA