Stylesheets - Should tables be completely elimanated?

Author

Should tables be completely elimanated?

David Dimmer

2004-06-21, 12:15 pm

So I'm trying to play w/ CSS on various sites and let me tell you the
browser compatibility is getting ridiculous.

Check out this in a Mozilla browser and then in IE; its night and DAY!
Should I be using tables for the menu?
http://www.moxiessupperclub.com (Basic Supper Club)

Fields I'm formatting are MenuItem, Description, QTY and Price. If
this were a table I would be done already, but I'm trying to pull it
off in CSS! Any tips?

Any idea, its valid xHTML and CSS.

Thank you in advance,
David Dimmer

President of Fyin Inc.
B: 414.298.3009
W: http://www.fyin.com

Neal

2004-06-21, 12:15 pm

On 21 Jun 2004 06:23:56 -0700, David Dimmer <david@fyin.com> wrote:

> So I'm trying to play w/ CSS on various sites and let me tell you the
> browser compatibility is getting ridiculous.
>
> Check out this in a Mozilla browser and then in IE; its night and DAY!
> Should I be using tables for the menu?
> http://www.moxiessupperclub.com (Basic Supper Club)
>
> Fields I'm formatting are MenuItem, Description, QTY and Price. If
> this were a table I would be done already, but I'm trying to pull it
> off in CSS! Any tips?
>
> Any idea, its valid xHTML and CSS.

I think a table is semantically correct here. My personal test is whether
there's something in common with items in every row, and something in
common with items in every column. A menu with prices sure fits the bill.
"Seafood", "Friday", these can even be captions.

What may be causing the problem - and I can't spend much time on it now,
so this is a guess - is that you're floating spans within list items. I
think this is wreaking havoc on the UAs. IE is the only one which is
displaying it properly - which is a hint that there's something wrong!

But in this case, a table is fine and probably the best markup.

Steve Pugh

2004-06-21, 12:15 pm

david@fyin.com (David Dimmer) wrote:

>So I'm trying to play w/ CSS on various sites and let me tell you the
>browser compatibility is getting ridiculous.
>
>Check out this in a Mozilla browser and then in IE; its night and DAY!
> Should I be using tables for the menu?
>http://www.moxiessupperclub.com (Basic Supper Club)

Yes, IE gets it all wrong but just happens to look better.

>Fields I'm formatting are MenuItem, Description, QTY and Price. If
>this were a table I would be done already, but I'm trying to pull it
>off in CSS! Any tips?

It's logically a table so use a <table>.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net> <http://steve.pugh.net/>

Christoph Paeper

2004-06-21, 7:16 pm

*Steve Pugh* <steve@pugh.net>:
> david@fyin.com (David Dimmer) wrote:
>
>
> It's logically a table so use a <table>.

ACK.
Every other day this topic comes up in ciwas---where do all these people get
the idea from that *all* tables had to be avoided? Is there some very
popular misguiding book or website out there?

--
"The scientific name for an animal that doesn't
either run from or fight its enemies is lunch."
Michael Friedman

David Dimmer

2004-06-21, 7:16 pm

Thank you everyone for you help. I am planning to convert it to a
table, and place a css style on the td tag to describe how to display
the data.

Sincerely,
David Dimmer

President of Fyin Inc.
B: 414.298.3009
W: http://www.fyin.com

..:: Developing highly visible and creatively branded websites since
1998 ::.

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net> wrote in message news:<2erdd0tp1jg0jngii8i0i51ube9epqpqfd@4ax.com>...
> david@fyin.com (David Dimmer) wrote:
>
>
> Yes, IE gets it all wrong but just happens to look better.
>
>
> It's logically a table so use a <table>.
>
> Steve

Jon Trelfa

2004-06-21, 7:16 pm

Christoph Paeper wrote:

> ACK.
> Every other day this topic comes up in ciwas---where do all these people get
> the idea from that *all* tables had to be avoided? Is there some very
> popular misguiding book or website out there?
>

If you read through many of the responses to such questions, you'll find
that there are MANY folks that post to this NG that seem to abhor the
use of tables for anything other than tabular data. There have even
been some flame wars over it.

Jon

Steve Pugh

2004-06-21, 7:16 pm

Jon Trelfa <treefrog@comcast.net> wrote:
>Christoph Paeper wrote:
>
>
>If you read through many of the responses to such questions, you'll find
>that there are MANY folks that post to this NG that seem to abhor the
>use of tables for anything other than tabular data. There have even
>been some flame wars over it.

Yes. However. The OP's example clearly was tabular data. Hence it's a
fair question to ask where people are getting the idea that _all_
tables, even ones used for tabular data, should be avoided.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net> <http://steve.pugh.net/>

Jon Trelfa

2004-06-21, 11:15 pm

Steve Pugh wrote:

>
>
> Yes. However. The OP's example clearly was tabular data. Hence it's a
> fair question to ask where people are getting the idea that _all_
> tables, even ones used for tabular data, should be avoided.
>
> Steve
>

I agree...but...
If you lurk here for only a short while, it would seem that some
discussions seem to say *all tables must be avoided*. If you read a bit
longer, it becomes clearer as to the purpose of tables. I got the
impression the way the question was asked that the person hasn't been
lurking very long and may have only caught a few threads regarding tables.

Good NG, BTW...very good source of help :)

Jon