Everything else is really irrelevant. As you can see I still strongly favor css layouts, but I think many of the arguments on either side of the debate get a little silly at times. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): CSS is defined as a method sheet language that provides web designers control over how an internet site communicates with web browsers including the formatting and display of their HTML documents. It could mean one less page they get to crawl on your site. If you get where Im coming from, please help me understand using logic. Divs are more flexible. I never said I prefur tables. True. I learned through them. Which CSS framework is better Tailwind CSS or Bootstrap ? I wrote a 2 part tutorial on turning design image into a css layout for another site. Im thinking something in the way the code was set up is preventing that from happening. Divs dont require complicated css. (Yes, I like clean code too.) A paragraph? Outlook 2007 has a brain-dead rendering engine, so if youre producing HTML e-mails, you need to use tables. I feel the same about maintain tables-based sites. Tables are simply not faster to create. 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. If you originally decide all your h1 tags should be blue and later want them to be red its certainly easier to have your h1 style sitting in a single css file. I guarantee I can develop a page with divs quicker than you can develop it with tables. CSS based design is unquestionably superior to table layout, but due to sheer laziness the practice of table design has held on. I really like using CSS for formatting text, lists, positioning, etc. 1. There are many databases with different data formats to choose for an application. The main advantage of CSS is that style is applied consistently across variety of sites. It doesnt lead to the need for more tags and it doesnt require workarounds. 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. The only time I get nosy is if someone did something mind blowing that I want to learn how to do also. If youre constantly having to fix old code though, I would recommend looking into the feasibility of redeveloping the site. IE gets some things wrong, but it gets a lot more things right. Generally you wouldnt be setting heights on most divs allowing them to expand and contract based on the text. To design in CSS is far better, by the subject of order, maintenance, accessibility, navigability and thousand reasons more. You said I made overhyped performance claims, which I didnt. Im not disagreeing with anything you say. The only time I ever use tables anymore is to quickly horizontally and -vertically- oppose an image or something else on a temporary coming soon type page. My question to you is Why frame this debate in terms Im not suggesting you should never use an html table anywhere. Its true that less code means less potential for show stopping errors, but those show stoppers can exist regardless of your sites structure. Ive never read about this debate until now, however in the back of my mind I always knew someone(s) was debating it. My point is that there are other ways to achieve this benefit. For Row height is select Exactly from the dropdown. It is in lists of links in one column and descriptions in another column, with more data in a third or forth column. Graphics are easier in CSS3, thus making it easy to make the site appealing. Hopefully people will start accepting table-cell or something similar. Web designers needs to use few lines of programming for every page improving site speed. Im amazed that in 2013 people are still defending table-based layouts, but whatever. If you ever visited a page that showed nothing for a few seconds before everything suddenly appeared, that time was likely your browser making its first pass over the table structure behind the page. Consistency. Divs cant do what tables can as simple as that. And if I gave offense at all as well I also apologize. Use table-layout: fixed to create a When I first learned how to develop a website I learned to build them with tables like so many others. The main goal (as a method sheet language) was to separate document content from document presentation, which incorporates style elements, like color, layout, and fonts. Replacing one with the other will lead to unnecessary complication. Time is money. Most of the sites I create are for small businesses averaging around 10 60 pages. Sorry I didnt reply sooner John. I am trying very hard to see the div method for table data as advantageous and not combursome since I about about to refactor a massive project soon. Thanks Kevin. My money will be on the person using divs. I have used table-based layouts for a few years and have started using css to mainly style text. Maybe you want to move the sidebar from the left to the right of the content. The problem is people looked at divs and just mimicked what you could do with a table cell. That leads to easier maintenance, more freedom in design, and quicker load times. This is rubbish. Ive been a designer for over 20 years and been using tables for layout for 13 years. I will use them to learn more about CSS. Even a simple html site can utilize include files for repeating blocks of markup. Each technique has its uses, advantages, and disadvantages, and no technique is designed to be used in isolation. I agree with you about seo. I dont think the choice is about shape though. Most of the time when I develop a site its at most a few lines of IE specific css thats needed. Whats wrong with using css to make divs or other tags act like tables for layout if you want your layout to LOOK like a table (again, the holy grail look that most clients love). That should tell you something. If you need a table that should span the entire screen (full-width), add width: 100% to the My guess as to why they didnt learn it as well as you is because its actually not intuitive as you say, especially when trying to implement a grid shape with 3 independent blocks. 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. Years ago it moved away from tables and towards divs and css for layout. Ive been doing web design since the beginning of the internet as a hobby and now professionally and I like a combination of both worlds. The one that continues using tables is because it does not dominate or does not know CSS. I thought my question BTW why css layout over table layout' was clear from the context but apparently not. If I throw out a website which has no padding or un symetrial or miss-aligned text I would be asked to start over. Then I had to make changes to one site and thought there had to be a better way. Its usually one or two things that may cause a problem and those problems are easily fixed. How is that more maintainable? Even thought theres more potential for errors, it doesnt mean there will be errors. I think not. Now that they have indicated that load times will be a ranking factor I would agree that divs make more sense. Thats always going to be better done using css. And heres what Im referring to you saying in your post: The problem most people have when learning to use divs is trying to force them to act like tables instead of allowing them to be what they are.. With Googles latest algorithm update (Caffeine) emphasising page load times as a SE ranking factor it is now more important than ever from an SEO stand point to reduce the amount of code on a webpage. No matter how many times I see this question or people making an argument on behalf of their opinion, the technical answer remains the same. Of course that depends on the developer more than the code itself. That extra pass at the code makes table-based layouts take longer to display. Thats actually where the hype is. Im not suggesting its trivial to learn css, but its also not accurate to say the language itself is causing your specific layout issues. Ive linked to this article in a post as part of a project Im doing on web design styles. No one is saying that a div can do more than a table. The limiting factor isnt the language itself, its your current skill with the language. I code both a little differently now, but the posts might still help. (i know theres gotta be one but thats almost another argument for CSS over tables multiple ways you can go about it even). I find it hard to believe that anyone who honestly knows how to develop a site well with both tables and divs would ever choose to use tables. How to Play and Pause CSS Animations using CSS Custom Properties ? Maybe the differences in load times arent as noticeable as they once were and with most people having high seed connections it might not seem like a big deal. With the 4 methods if its important to a site to support older versions of IE then sure dont choose the method which might not work with those versions. I dont use DreamWeaver and you dont need to add fixed dimensions everywhere to make divs work. Sure if in some Mexican sweat shop, 5 year olds were parsing pages for Google that may be true, but parsing text is as basic as programming gets other than typing hello world on the screenI really doubt thats an issue for Google, or Yahoo spider programmers. I speak English fluently. CSS works differently on different browsers. Thats it. WebW3Schools offers free online tutorials, references and exercises in all the major languages of the web. bootstrap requires a container, row, and something equal to a td but I cant recall which. In the best case scenario youd be adding at least another table cell to get another block of information compared to adding another div for another block of information, which would grow our code equally. A few years ago I wrote a post on how to create a 2 column layout with css. divs vs tables RIGHT! Im not trying to be political, but when Obama kept repeating change a hundred times a day during his campaign I questioned it because change is not the same as progress. Ill reserve judgment on maintenance but I have a hunch Ill be able to go in and make the same changes equally as quickly whether I start with the div or table test pages. However my make them spend more time parsing if you dont have. Home. Like others have pointed out, fixing display bugs related to just about any css based layout often takes entire release cycles, just to get ruined even more by some other dopy designer. I really resented (and it sounds like many of you do too) all the time I had to spend to get a site to look as it was intended for ALL users. Your 2-column layout example could easily be accomplished with a .Net master page. Another example of hype at its finest. What Im trying to figure out is the benefits in using CSS for LAYOUT. Its been years since I wrote more than a few lines of code specifically for any one browser and none of that code is a hack. Both my table and div layouts use css equally. In modern times, people usually wait for just a couple of seconds for a website to load. I really like your saying Not doing something because it takes time to learn is laziness. Different browsers rendered the design differently. Whatever works to get the job done you know? Its less-influenced by personal biases and emotions. Laying out a site with divs has a learning curve. Im not trying to say that tables are better, but this whole css and divs are better is wrong imo, its about using the right tool for the right job, divs are good for block layout designs its what they do best, whereas tables are better for column type layouts. By using our site, you I think, though I havent used them in years, that tables are far superior for site maintenance in that you do not have to adjust sizes, just add or take away a table cell. As you mentioned, pages built in tables have to load twice (something I didnt know until reading this post) add to this that the example you showed: clearly illustrates how much extra code is required for tables. Theres no need for a Tables and grids are not the same thing in web development. Youll have more control over how your page displays with divs that can aid in how a screenreader sees your content, but again you can create equally accessible pages using either approach. In this case, it is almost impossible to get CSS only to render this as desired, either the width or the height of the side banner will be wrong, or the background image will appear to disappear or not be long enough, or be too long, or the content will bleed over into the side banner if you change the width of the browser. The algorithms used for ranking most often are content and inbound links. I too started out doing HTML with tables, and as soon as I saw the CSS light, Ive never been able to see it any other way. It only suggests that the difference in load time isnt a lot per page. Its pretty common to do when first learning css. Much of using css for layout is realizing that you dont need to do as much as you think. Thats easy. You are here: One thing Ive noticed in your tutorials is that your not very accurate with alignment. Advantages of Inline CSS: Inline takes precedence over all other styles. You can create the same shape in a number of ways. I typed along with all the code samples and it helped me a lot. I agree with you about css3-grids. Each technique has its uses, advantages, and disadvantages. divs are also a pain, ooh tables are so complex, check out the css for that div when its all done. I hope that helps answer some of the questions. With many sites (big, e commerce sites for example) having many different sections of text and images and other media throughout a page the code just grows and grows, taking browsers longer to load page content. It sounds like youre using tables the same way Im suggesting is fine. Again though you may notice in the post I dont use seo as a reason to use css. The complicated css wasnt a requirement. There are many databases with different data formats to choose for an application. As for your disadvantage I have to disagree. After a week of wandering around the interwebs I still cant figure out, nor have I found any tutorials, on how to create a header like the one I have, one where there are three colums where the middle expands to fit a wider browser. Calling this debate css vs tables is actually inaccurate. It would be very helpful to have someone redesign this entirely in CSS so the source code is more lean. However, laying out an entire web page in css is what I want to learn (using divs) and I cant seem to find an online tutorial specifically for that. Many of these include the ubiquitous explanation of browser two pass rendering of tables. There is nothing wrong using CSS and Tables. search engines are more friendly. Conclusion. Hopefully they can point you in the right direction with your own designs. I dont offer any advantage per se, on tables over divs. One issue is that different browsers have different deffinitions of the padding and the margin variables. OK,this is total madness.I have 3 reasons,ready reasons,as to why tables are better than divs.And more,but not on the top of my head. For some reason this is frowned upon as well. When you say things like hand coding is a pain it suggests you havent taken the time to learn css well. Research For No technique is designed to be used in isolation. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. Now I barely have to test my layouts in multiple browsers because Ive learned how to keep them consistent across browsers. 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. 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. Thats why so many people say its more intuitive and why css has a steeper learning curve. Which is why Im not one to generally make that argument. I think it gets an unfair rap sometimes. As far as other people having the same issues with css, I do agree that happens. One of the debates that never seems to go away in the web development community is that of css vs tables and which is better to use for the layout of your site. Right now its easier for you to code certain layouts with tables. Global changes are easier: If youre using external styles, you make a change in one place and its automatically propagated to all the pages in the system. It sounds like Im being lumped in with other people who are making grand claims. 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Time parsing if you get where Im coming from, please help me understand using logic is!
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