Kind of ironic. plays an important role, by using CSS you simply got to specify a repeated style for element once & use it I agree with what you are saying, however I think with the advancement of HTML 5, tables will start to disappear. In its simplest form were comparing: Even in the simplest case above you can see tables are already a more complex structure than divs. I dont use DreamWeaver and you dont need to add fixed dimensions everywhere to make divs work. Funny. The conclusion isnt that it takes a long time to communicate in Spanish. A list? With a div-based layout you could make this change in your stylesheet alone. Suppose you have a typical two column layout (content and sidebar) and you wanted to reverse the order. Thanks for this. My money will be on the person using divs. As far as other people having the same issues with css, I do agree that happens. CSS is very useful for styles regardless of how you do the layout. This forces me to go and adjust the width and height and modify margins and padding in EACH div. The reason people are still defending table based layouts is because tables are the correct SHAPE for most client specifications, not independent blocks floated to the left, or independent blocks with absolute positioning or independent blocks using any other trick to make them seem like they cooperate. I need to write special code for IE? I show this above in the post. Tables are not effective by themselves anymore I agree, it takes a lot of time updating thing manually, so CSS is a BIG help. It looks promising and hopefully will be the way forward from now on, getting rid of both the ugly table and div mess once and for all Id be interested to know what you think of it. Maybe its not feasible in your case, but it might be worth looking into. 3)Stop using Dreamweaver to code websites for Gods sake.Give .NET websites (Aspx) a try,you will be amazed.And,for what you want to be shown in all,you just do a master page.Plus,divs are NOT cross-resolution.You have to add fixed dimensions everywhere,and positions screw up in mobile resolutions. If you were to point one out to me Id either fix it or explain why it might not be working for you and probably even help you make it work. Saying things like, all people who use tables are quite frankly is absurd. What Im trying to figure out is the benefits in using CSS for LAYOUT. Good Article and a lot of gold in these comments. I feel the same about maintain tables-based sites. Some times you just need to get it done and move on. You pointed out that table cells dont work independently. Not all browsers (especially older versions) render tables the same. The advantages with using divs are essentially counter to the problems with tables described above. Feel free to email me if you want. Take the time to learn how to use it. The posts arent just about the code, but I do provide the basic html and css I use now for a 3 column layout. I hardly ever have to write more than a few lines of code specific to IE. CSS instructs the display of the HTML on how the web site will display at the users end. Using CSS, you will control the color of the text, the design of fonts, the spacing between paragraphs, how columns are sized and laid out, etc. Maybe Ill have to write a post on styling tables. Fixed positions make things more flexible? WYSIWYG editors seem a lot better to me today than they were 10 years ago. CSS, CSS 2, CSS 3 are often quite confusing. What Im saying is the entirety of your layout shouldnt be one table inside another inside another. The comics are great. It doesnt lead to the need for more tags and it doesnt require workarounds. It sounds like youre using tables the same way Im suggesting is fine. As far as the speed issues, Google didnt really talk about load times affecting ranking until after I wrote this post. I know there are workarounds. Laying out a site with divs has a learning curve. I learned by reading the book Eric Meyer on CSS. This site is simple and fantastic, thanks for making it easy to read your content. I could create tables just as fast as anyone with css, if youre not using some noob program like dream weaver. Web designers needs to use few lines of programming for every page improving site speed. Now lets get to some of the myths on both sides that keep this debate going. I didnt create the overall frame to the conversation. If you click through on some of the links in the post or just do a search for css vs tables youll come across a lot of the reasoning why some prefer tables. This guide helps you choose the right option for optimal performance and data safety. Other people would find it just as easy to code the same layout with css. You can use css with a table-based layout. I am about to take on a new website project, first one in 8 years. Im thinking something in the way the code was set up is preventing that from happening. I think many people who spent the time learning how hold on to that knowledge instead of trying to learn the css way and in holding on to the known create arguments to defend their use of tables. This is one of the reasons why there are people who prefer tables instead of using this kind of trickery and black magic to fake the appearance of what tables can do without all the extreme measures. The argument isnt what a div can do vs what a table can do. The language allows web developers to regulate various style elements and functionalities, like layout, color, fonts, and therefore the formatting and display of HTML documents. If youre not creating HTML e-mails, or unless you have some overriding need to have part of your page scale because of the amount of content on other parts of your page, theres no reason to use tables for layout. If I misinterpreted that I apologize. Even thought theres more potential for errors, it doesnt mean there will be errors. Theres no need for a Nice post. Your logo image can either be a background image on the header div thats not repeated or a regular image inside the div. I had not heard about this controversy, being a WYSIWYG kind of guy. I think there are appropriate uses for tables, but I dont think the overall layout of a page is one of those appropriate uses. Again DreamWeaver is taking care of this for you. I think it makes them easier to move them around on a single page. I dont agree with their reasoning, but it is there. I also kept all my university textbooks just in case I would need them guess what? That is true, but you can have all your presentation in a separate css file while having a table-based structure to your html. However, the industry moved on from them a long time ago. WebW3Schools offers free online tutorials, references and exercises in all the major languages of the web. But using tables and styling them completely with CSS is just as effective as CSS alone. The load time though, is now reason enough to recommend css over tables for seo. Here are my questions. So does laying out a site with tables. Both were done with tables. Thanks Rami and interesting analogy. I did say calling this css vs tables isnt really correct and that its really about tables and divs. They arent called floating blockists. Tables should only be used to display tabular data but what is tabular data is debatable. However, I dont think thats the main reason to choose a css layout over a table-based layout. Tables can be part of your layout, but they shouldnt make up the entire layout. Tutorials, references, and examples are constantly reviewed to avoid errors, but we cannot warrant full correctness of all content. One thing Ive noticed in your tutorials is that your not very accurate with alignment. Its easier because youre more familiar with using tables. The argument is about how to structure a web page. Now that they have indicated that load times will be a ranking factor I would agree that divs make more sense. Having used both its very obvious to me that the div based approach is the much better way to go. To suggest that the purpose of divs is to use block rendering contradicts the argument that tags should have semantic meaning and not display meaning. search engines are more friendly. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. I do think there is an advantage for div based techniques for high traffic sites and I will continue to expand my knowledge of div based layouts for this reason. Again I do agree that grid shape is a good one. You can do that regardless of how you structure your layout. No technique is designed to be used in isolation. Your probably right about round pegs and square holes, and I am sorry if you took offence, but the fact that countless people have these issues with css must indicate a lack of continuety with css. The conclusion is I dont know the language well enough to communicate in it. So what difference does it make? When you create a table structure in html it displays a table and your content is wholly dependent on the source order of the code. Out of curiosity can you offer an advantage of table-based layout over divs and css? Create a CSS Fireflies background using HTML/CSS, CSS pseudo elements every CSS developer should know. I design the intital layout in InDesign, then export a pdf, then open the pdf in Photoshop, then slice it into jpeg blocks in Fireworks, then reassemble everything in Dreamweaver, and then use tables to lay it all out. Id have to see the css youre using to understand why youre having problems. How to align a logo image to center of navigation bar using HTML and CSS ? Then, I can see how they styled it in the source code. Maybe Ill apply changes to my test pages as my home page changes and track the time involved. 5) Greater Consistency If you use template files and CSS, where is there inconsistency? But I guess when all you have lying around is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail. With people employing a batch of various range of smart devices to access websites over the web, theres a requirement for responsive web design. My primary UI guy is a CSS ideologue and spends half his time fighting with stylesheets to make it work in every browser. CSS is not hard to learn.The argument is made by people comparing learning something new to learning something they already know well. Early on you had to use tables to layout a site well. Is there a way I can pay someone to turn this same homepage design into a total CSS design? My biggest concern is if I can design the following website designs in CSS. On the other hand, judicious use of semantically meaningful HTML combined with CSS might confine such changes to the CSS and the pictures used. You cant break out of the rigid grid easily. Some might argue that the content search engines see on the page is more important and through divs its easier to present a different order of content to visitors and search engine spiders. I have used table-based layouts for a few years and have started using css to mainly style text. Sometimes they want the elements in the list to cooperate to fill the container while sometimes they want the width of each element to be dependent on the content of those individual elements. They make a lot of sense for displaying things like data. The fact that order matters even with divs invalidates a lot of the arguments table haters constantly throw out, but considering were trying to layout documents in the first place, it makes sense that order matters, otherwise the whole semantics argument would be totally out the window too! The separation of content and style makes it easier to adjust pages and styles. http://www.taylor-graphics.net/eye_clinic/. The programing language world is complicated for non-developers and beginners. I never said I prefur tables. Im not suggesting you should never use an html table anywhere. The whole semantics argument is nonsense. I understand people have old code and sometimes they just need to fix it. Load time is always going to be an issue. 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