Re: [WSG] Divs for tabular data
David, I'm not sure about DOM issues but in my opinion, use of tables is consistent with accessibility and semantic requirements if an external style sheet is used to style the tabular data. Usually, some use of divs is required if you want to present the tabular data in a particular way. Regards, Grant Bailey On 5/12/2011 6:22 PM, David McKinnon wrote: OK, so I'm working on a project in which the developers are laying out tabular data using divs. The site is using the 960 CSS grid system so making the 'tables' work just means applying the appropriate class to align each div/table cell to the grid. They say this is good because: 1. It's fast 2. They can manipulate the resulting DOM much more easily than they could with a table 3. Developers find it easier to, say, add or remove columns from the tables, without having to edit the code all the way down the table (no wysiwyg editors here!) To me this doesn't seem very good because: 1. It's not very semantic (although they've used micro data in the class names for some divs) 2. It doesn't seem very accessible -- I might be wrong about this, but to me good semantics is foundational to accessibility 3. There's a lot of markup -- I know tables aren't exactly light on code, but they seem quite light and efficient in comparison 4. It doesn't seem to me like the code will be very easy to maintain for anyone but the developers. The lead developers assure me that this is good practice for speed and efficiency, but I'm not convinced. Nevertheless, I don't want to be advocating tables as best practice if they aren't. What do you think? Are tables too hard for the real world in large sites or web apps where large amounts of DOM manipulation is required? Or have these guys taken the 'Tables are bad' thing a bit too far? Kind regards, David *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Divs for tabular data
Tabular data should be marked up as actual tables. Anything else is a perversion of standards. Screenreaders, to take the technical extreme of the spectrum, have special controls and functionalities for users to navigate tables (moving between rows/columns directly, getting info on associated headers, getting a count of rows/cells and where the current focus is) that are impossible to replicate with anything other than table markup. So, as much as I sympathise with the developers' it's easier take, it won't cut it I'm afraid. P -- Patrick H. Lauke On 5 Dec 2011, at 07:22, David McKinnon david...@mac.com wrote: OK, so I'm working on a project in which the developers are laying out tabular data using divs. The site is using the 960 CSS grid system so making the 'tables' work just means applying the appropriate class to align each div/table cell to the grid. They say this is good because: It's fast They can manipulate the resulting DOM much more easily than they could with a table Developers find it easier to, say, add or remove columns from the tables, without having to edit the code all the way down the table (no wysiwyg editors here!) To me this doesn't seem very good because: It's not very semantic (although they've used micro data in the class names for some divs) It doesn't seem very accessible -- I might be wrong about this, but to me good semantics is foundational to accessibility There's a lot of markup -- I know tables aren't exactly light on code, but they seem quite light and efficient in comparison It doesn't seem to me like the code will be very easy to maintain for anyone but the developers. The lead developers assure me that this is good practice for speed and efficiency, but I'm not convinced. Nevertheless, I don't want to be advocating tables as best practice if they aren't. What do you think? Are tables too hard for the real world in large sites or web apps where large amounts of DOM manipulation is required? Or have these guys taken the 'Tables are bad' thing a bit too far? Kind regards, David *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Divs for tabular data
On 12/4/11 11:22 PM, David McKinnon wrote: OK, so I'm working on a project in which the developers are laying out tabular data using divs. They say this is good because: 1. It's fast Compared to what? 2. They can manipulate the resulting DOM much more easily than they could with a table Would love to see examples. 3. Developers find it easier to, say, add or remove columns from the tables, without having to edit the code all the way down the table (no wysiwyg editors here!) ?all the way down the table? So, a hard-coded data table, rather than a set of rows populated by looping through a data source? That's just sad. Perhaps you can gently hint that it's now the 21st Century. And these people call themselves developers? What do you think? Are tables too hard for the real world ... Stop! My sides!! :-) FWIW, -- Hassan Schroeder - has...@webtuitive.com webtuitive design === (+1) 408-621-3445 === http://webtuitive.com http://about.me/hassanschroeder twitter: @hassan dream. code. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Divs for tabular data
I remember seeing this for the first time. I was asked by a backend engineer to help them fix a layout issue in a data table. When I looked at the source code, the page was a jumble of absolutely positioned cells to look like a data table. I shook my head and said he was on his own. I wasn't about to wade into that mess. Positioned divs would be completely inaccessible. It would be a string of numbers with no context to what they mean. YUI makes a great data table module. http://yuilibrary.com/yui/docs/datatable/ You can easily make your data table sortable, generate charts, make it super accessible and more. You can't do the same with positioned divs. ted On 12/5/11 8:44 AM, Hassan Schroeder has...@webtuitive.com wrote: On 12/4/11 11:22 PM, David McKinnon wrote: OK, so I'm working on a project in which the developers are laying out tabular data using divs. They say this is good because: 1. It's fast Compared to what? 2. They can manipulate the resulting DOM much more easily than they could with a table Would love to see examples. 3. Developers find it easier to, say, add or remove columns from the tables, without having to edit the code all the way down the table (no wysiwyg editors here!) ?all the way down the table? So, a hard-coded data table, rather than a set of rows populated by looping through a data source? That's just sad. Perhaps you can gently hint that it's now the 21st Century. And these people call themselves developers? What do you think? Are tables too hard for the real world ... Stop! My sides!! :-) FWIW, *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Divs for tabular data
Thanks for the sanity check everyone :) I was worried that I'd missed something. I'd seen the YUI table module, thanks Ted, and I know of at least two jQuery plugins that do the same thing so yeah, I'm not sure why they wouldn't use one of those. They're saying it's faster to use divs compared to just tables, Hassan, but with the amount of extra code required it seems counter-productive. I'll see if I can get you an example. The grid is mostly hard-coded, but each row/cell is created dynamically so i'm not sure what the advantage is -- more investigation required! And no laughing please, this is serious giggle / On 06/12/2011, at 4:14 AM, Ted Drake wrote: I remember seeing this for the first time. I was asked by a backend engineer to help them fix a layout issue in a data table. When I looked at the source code, the page was a jumble of absolutely positioned cells to look like a data table. I shook my head and said he was on his own. I wasn't about to wade into that mess. Positioned divs would be completely inaccessible. It would be a string of numbers with no context to what they mean. YUI makes a great data table module. http://yuilibrary.com/yui/docs/datatable/ You can easily make your data table sortable, generate charts, make it super accessible and more. You can't do the same with positioned divs. ted On 12/5/11 8:44 AM, Hassan Schroeder has...@webtuitive.com wrote: On 12/4/11 11:22 PM, David McKinnon wrote: OK, so I'm working on a project in which the developers are laying out tabular data using divs. They say this is good because: 1. It's fast Compared to what? 2. They can manipulate the resulting DOM much more easily than they could with a table Would love to see examples. 3. Developers find it easier to, say, add or remove columns from the tables, without having to edit the code all the way down the table (no wysiwyg editors here!) ?all the way down the table? So, a hard-coded data table, rather than a set of rows populated by looping through a data source? That's just sad. Perhaps you can gently hint that it's now the 21st Century. And these people call themselves developers? What do you think? Are tables too hard for the real world ... Stop! My sides!! :-) FWIW, *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] Divs for tabular data
OK, so I'm working on a project in which the developers are laying out tabular data using divs. The site is using the 960 CSS grid system so making the 'tables' work just means applying the appropriate class to align each div/table cell to the grid. They say this is good because: It's fast They can manipulate the resulting DOM much more easily than they could with a table Developers find it easier to, say, add or remove columns from the tables, without having to edit the code all the way down the table (no wysiwyg editors here!) To me this doesn't seem very good because: It's not very semantic (although they've used micro data in the class names for some divs) It doesn't seem very accessible -- I might be wrong about this, but to me good semantics is foundational to accessibility There's a lot of markup -- I know tables aren't exactly light on code, but they seem quite light and efficient in comparison It doesn't seem to me like the code will be very easy to maintain for anyone but the developers. The lead developers assure me that this is good practice for speed and efficiency, but I'm not convinced. Nevertheless, I don't want to be advocating tables as best practice if they aren't. What do you think? Are tables too hard for the real world in large sites or web apps where large amounts of DOM manipulation is required? Or have these guys taken the 'Tables are bad' thing a bit too far? Kind regards, David *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
