...the use of tables in sites. I've seen your reaction to some people using tables to structure the whole site. I'll be honest - I was about to!

 

So if you could answer the following I would be very grateful:

 

Why not use tables?

 

What is the best alternative?

 

How does this alternative differ to the use of tables?

 

Any links to tutorials or articles on this aternative for me to learn about them?

 

Obviously, google would've answered these questions over a load of searches - but I've heard different opinions, and this forum seems to be full of people who know what they're talking about (seems I said).

 

Thanks,

 

Dan

Tables are fine to use if you are showing a table, or some form of tabular data, but for a layout of a site they are not great because: They are not that great for accessibility or usability, they are clunky and you need a lot of code for just one thing, they are awkward to design with, they are really awkward to edit should you need to. Also when you design with tables and you need to edit part of a layout then you will have to do that on every single page of the site, so its very time consuming even after the site is built. Here are a couple of articles that might be useful 7 reasons to go table free and why tables for layout is stupid

CSS is the best alternative as it takes away all design parts of the site and places them into a different file so that the html code itself is clean and can be more accessible to people who are not using regular means to view sites. It is also a lot easier to edit during and after the site has been designed making it a lot more productive to create a site using css.

 

I think I have given you a good enough answer to your third in the first and second answers

 

http://www.htmldog.com/ is a great site as is http://www.w3schools.com/

Thanks a lot Dizi, I appreciate the quick response. Some interesting points there that I obviously need to look into. Thanks again

One more quetsion on top of that: one reason for me previously using tables was because I was familiar with it. But the biggest reason for me personally was that I could design a site using a graphical user interface rather than coding from scratch. All the CSS tutorials (especially those regarding achieving a 'tabular' layout) all show examples of code and no way of designing the layout with a more graphical interface. This is not me being lazy, I will learn CSS code but is there a frontpage/dreamweaver feature that will allow me to do this?

id tap that.

 

CSS is pretty simple, although if you are currently using dreamweaver or whatever having to code seems pretty daunting. Stick with it and you will understand all of the basics within 2 hours

You'd tap that????

 

Yer I should pick it up fine anyway tbh Andy with me being used to learning coding in uni. Tbh, I've got a deadline to meet, and although this sounds highly unprofessional - I might just have to temporarily revert back to using tables to meet it. Not a paying customer - just a favour for someone but they need it to be uploaded mid week. Without a doubt though, I will be learning CSS over the next few hours/days. Thanks Andy

One more quetsion on top of that: one reason for me previously using tables was because I was familiar with it. But the biggest reason for me personally was that I could design a site using a graphical user interface rather than coding from scratch. All the CSS tutorials (especially those regarding achieving a 'tabular' layout) all show examples of code and no way of designing the layout with a more graphical interface. This is not me being lazy, I will learn CSS code but is there a frontpage/dreamweaver feature that will allow me to do this?

 

 

 

Think of it this way, a website is made up of code, so if you are interested in web design why would you not want to learn how to make a website? I have never understood this lazy attitude...even if you say it isn't, it is very lazy. I guess its because I have a real passion for web design that I don't understand it, it was a hobby for me at first and because of this, like with any hobby I wanted to be able to do it...I wanted to be able to create a website. With dreamweaver you cannot create a website you press a few buttons and it creates a website, it makes the code (and for the most part does a crap job of it) which in essence is the website, and you have no control over that.

 

 

So my question to you is, if you have an interest in web design why do you not want to make a web site?

Dreamweaver CS3, or whatever the hell its called supports CSS, it has a little droppy down thing on the top right hand side marked CSS, right click and i think you attach a style sheet or something and if you can edit it! do you have a mock up of how you want the site to look or can you explain it? and if this is for a uni project wont you be getting marked on it and wont the marks be higher if you do it properly and dont you want that?

 

I like dreamweaver, i think its pretty good for coding and FTP, i also enjoy the droplet thingy that tells me what colours are called.

Dizi I couldn't disagree with you more!!

 

You are completely wrong in calling me lazy over this one. I was simply looking for a more efficient way with providing the same solution without a compromise in standard. Now if dreamweaver or a similar package does compromise the standard fair enough - but that's why I asked the question!

You told me tables are not as efficient as a site built in CSS and ultimately costs the client more money (with extra costs for changing the layout and extra bandwidth required). Well that's what I was trying to work towards, saving the client even more money (and me more time) by learning to use a package that will give me the same end result with less time spent.

Personally, I enjoy coding - and coding in CSS is not something I plan to avoid. I have learnt many different languages during my degree in software engineering and pick it up very well.

This reminds me very much of a situation back in uni. My friend decided he wanted to code a graphic interface for a project we had using the C++ language. I decided that the C# framework was most suitable. It was quicker and a lot of the code was built for you, but my time was spent more efficiently and it never cut any corners - C# is an industry standard language. Needless to say I had more time to spend on the write up and documentation for the coursework while he was working on hardcoding the interface.

Not only that but it is more efficient for the designer and also helps towards meeting the web standards and disability acts...which I am sure you would agree is an very important thing to do.

 

I just think relying on software to gerenrate the code for you is lazy, and it just seemed from your responses that really you were doiing that, sorry if I was wrong...and if you can code in html (which is a very simple language to pick up) and you can code in loads of others too, CSS will seriously be a walk in the park for you

I should've really explained that I'm not trying to cut corners earlier on - I don't wanna give the wrong impression to a forum I'm new at and needing help from. Thanks either way for your responses though Dizi, you've helped me a lot today mate with that accordion menu and CSS advice