Rob Marscher wrote:
I think the "proper" use of HTML tables is to display a list of things
ordered into rows and columns. As Chris Snyder pointed out in a
previous post in this thread, you can use it for a form of labels and
inputs, or for thumbnails and descriptions, as well as traditional
tabular data, and I'm sure there's other good uses as well.
Personally, I've been able to get away without using tables for forms
by using other html elements like fieldsets and labels and some divs
or spans. For thumbnails and descriptions, I use the definition list
html elements (dl, dt, dd) where the thumbnail is contained in the
<dt> and the description is in the <dd>. That could be overkill
though... Some places where I've used actual tables are lists of
search results where you have a column for each field in the result
and inboxes for messaging where you have rows for each piece of mail.
Basically, my rule of thumb is to see what the html looks like with
all the styles turned off (can do this by hitting ctrl-shift-s if you
have that Web Developer Firefox plugin I recommended) and if it still
makes sense, then things are good.
If your trying to avoid tables for layout, it seems the main place to
question yourself is when you find yourself nesting tables inside
other tables or you have a table with one row or one cell.
Rob, thanks for a clear explanation of the thinking underneath the word
"proper" for use of tables. In particular, the point about nested
tables or a table with one row or one cell hits home.
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