Comments on: CSS vs. tables, again

By: diseño web

diseño web — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:45:43 +0000

The one that continues using tables is because it does not dominate or does not know CSS. To design in CSS is far better, by the subject of order, maintenance, accessibility, navigability and thousand reasons more.

By: debbie campbell

debbie campbell — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:47:35 +0000

Schmo, I agree that the lack of support for what should be a super-simple element is frustrating and ridiculous. But there are a number of ways around that issue, and since there are fewer users of older IE browsers every day, the problem will, hopefully, just fade away eventually. Roger Johannson had a nice post about dealing with the issue a while back.

By: Shmo

Shmo — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:01:40 +0000

One simple problem with CSS is the fundamental box model. After years of understanding padding and margin to be something inside and outside a defined box, what the hell were they thinking of when they decided that the overall dimensions of a box changes and increases as you add padding, and margin. I mean…it even goes against the idea of a box used in printing.

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:13:52 +0000

Interesting subject. I can not imagine why someone would not use CSS. You are almost always going to use some kind of table here and there because sometimes you have to. Also in a lot of redesign situations you might not have the billable hours to create css from tables but in the end you have to learn it. There was a redesign I did recently for a customer. The shop who originally did it for them and this was not an old site (9 months old) had EVERYTHING embedded in the HTML code. It blew my mind because any updates were a nightmare. A fellow designer told me some shops do that on purpose so they can charge billable hours when these guys need simple updates?? That sounds really lame.

Anyways good article and I honestly can not see how you would not use css?? Sounds like a designer to me.ha

By: Steve Kimpton

Steve Kimpton — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:45:36 +0000

You are absolutely right but CSS can’t really do decent layout if you don’t know the size of what in tables would be cells. In ideal design this is always the case because users may want to resize text.

I think the rectalinear layout that tables give you regardless of content and window size is a real advantage. I wonder why CSS hasn’t given us an equivalent grid structure? We could then write the content easily and fluently then define where the cells were in the grid rather than in absolute position.

By: Tom Straub

Tom Straub — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:18:26 +0000

Read your post in DesignNewz, and I have to agree with you about 90%. CSS in many ways the “better” solution.

But let’s talk about broken CSS support in Browsers…

While not exactly CSS’s fault, browsers are still having problems supporting simple floating sections. Padding and margin get messed up. One thing that is easy for tables (boxes that float to the left, and then down the row below) don’t work well with CSS – although they should! Why hasn’t CSS developed the concept of being able to float “relative” objects around “absolute” objects like HTML does with text flowing around images? I understand that “postition: absolute” is not in the document flow, but why isn’t there a “position: fixed” that acts like “postition: absolute” and interacts with the other “position: relative” or floating objects?

Then there’s the problem of UL and OL lists having problems finding their proper left margins when horizontally across from a “float: left” or sometimes “float: right” object.

I hate using tables generally for all the reasons you gave in your article. But they are mature, and mostly they work. I only wish I could say the same about CSS in most browsers today!

By: Leigh-Anne Tompkins

Leigh-Anne Tompkins — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:10:18 +0000

I agree 100%!