On 2/22/07, Designer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
So, my (genuine) question is, is this really so wrong? So long as it's kept really simple, which way is easier to read in a screen reader? (Include the floated and hacked to death standards version as a third alternative too). It seems to me that pragmatism can sometimes outbenefit the religion of standards - and I'd really like some real world feedback on when such a table approach causes real problems. (Yes, I know it's not truly semantic, and I agree that it's a problem because of that).
The one killer thing that CSS allows you to do, but layout tables don't (and I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it yet) is that you can rewrite your CSS to display the contents of the page in a completely different place without touching the underlying markup - and this is NOT possible when using a table. So, for example, you have used a single layout table to create a 3-column layout, and built your 10,000 page site using that method. The day before launch, the CEO decides that the left and right sidebars should be swapped over; even with a CMS, you probably have dozens of template files to edit and re-arrange - at worst, you have to edit 10,000 individual files! If you'd used a pure CSS solution, the only change you have to make is in your layout.css file. This is the key benefit of the separation of presentation and content, and why you should avoid using tables for layout. It is also relevant when you consider using alternative stylesheets, zoom layouts, user-defined settings, etc. Look at www.adactio.com/journal and try out the alternative styles - it would have been impossible to do this if he was using a table (even a simple one) for layout. Matthew. ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
