Re: tables

In my view, whether you express table sizes in pixels or percentages, or in
a combination of the two, depends almost entirely on the type of layout
you're creating, and whether the images used absolutely have to fit
together seamlessly or not.

Ideally, on the grounds that users should be able to resize their viewing
window to suit their personal tastes, eyesight capabilities, and the size
or definition of their screen, table widths should be expressed in
percentages only.

But if you have to apply a graphics-heavy design which aims to impose a
particular "look", you may be condemned to using pixels.

You may even be obliged to try and force absolute font sizes, as far too
many sites do. This can remove or limit the user's freedom to set the size
of text to suit his or her tastes, but many site designers don't seem to
care about that.

In that case, you have to make difficult choices as to the default screen
definition. It is true that more and more users have their screen
definitions set to at least 800x600, but a very significant proportion are
still stuck at 640x480.

On the Agence France-Presse site <http://www.afp.com/>, for which I was
asked to accommodate a very precise set of graphics elements for the
left-hand menu column and the page header, I decided to stick with a
600-pixel-wide table for the overall page.

This at least ensures that the site can be displayed on all screens, even
though on a large high definition screen it tends to look like a postage
stamp.

It is however possible to express the overall size of a table, say, in
percentages but still keep some columns expressed in pixels. As far as I
know, that works with most browsers.

Hope this helps,





--
David Sharp, journaliste, France <http://www.vavi.com/>
Tel (home) 331 42 64 35 94  - (office) 331 40 41 47 92
 E-mail <dsharp(at)vavi.com>	ICQ: 16881741

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