Shoutbox

ATM, my new site uses tables, but I may try a CSS-based layout, and see what I can do with it. Then I'll come back and say which is easier/better/smaller/sleeker etc.

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Originally posted by Chris Boulton
Here are some interesting reads:
http://phrogz.net/CSS/HowToDevelopWithCSS.html

Why tables are bad for layout: http://phrogz.net/CSS/WhyTablesAreBadForLayout.html

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read it, interesting find... In fact I agree with all the things said there. However my strong wordings in this thread are to componsate the things most people think about tables...

I never said tables are ideal for designing a whole site or a whole layout, of course they're not. The trick is indeed to know when to use them. But most people intend to simply think tables are only good for the scrapyard and for display 10 numbers over 5 rows and two columns and thus haven't much experience with them and thus tend to say things which are said by many people...

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Originally posted by saralk
Another advantage is that with DIVs/CSS it is easier to change the layourt of the whole site, just by editing a css file.

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This is NOT an advantage of div's!

This is exactly my point in what I say that most people have a big misconception about tables. Indeed, most people say things like this and then conclude that using tables is bad and shouldn't be done and div's should be use. This is not true...

You can use CSS just as well in tables as you can everywhere else, in fact it works just the same. Thus, sorry but this is by no mean a valid argument to use div's over tables.

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Originally posted by saralk
On these forums, all the lists (forums, posts, members, search etc...) use tables in the right way, and so do the topics themselves but using a table for the Rate this Thread/Forum Jump thing is silly.

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Using tables like that is not silly at all, it is in fact logic. Using only div's there would be silly...

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Originally posted by saralk
P.S. my website only uses DIVs, and I think it would be hard to do something like that in tables.

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There is nothing in the iframe which needs tables. However the grand layout (the page and iframe in the middle) could have been easly done with tables without problems.

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Originally posted by hmaster5
I tried to convert my site to tables but it just didnt work and it would have been to hard to edit.

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Again, the grand layout (topheader, left area, middle area, right area) could have been perfectly and very easly be done with a table and it wouldn't have been any harder to edit it afterwards. The reason why it wouldn't "work" is probably because you didn't implemented it correctly...

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Originally posted by raceprouk
ATM, my new site uses tables, but I may try a CSS-based layout, and see what I can do with it. Then I'll come back and say which is easier/better/smaller/sleeker etc.

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I suspect in the case of http://www.rpsoftware.net/ it would be almost equally easy (that is, if you're talking about the grand layout - top and the three vertical areas).

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All this said, the forum does use many tables in the appropiate places. But some columns, rows or container tables (as I like to call them; tables to hold other tables) could have been stripped and aren't needed making the source more readable/manageable. But the problem with sites as this forum is that it uses templates and creates the final pages out of many pre-designed other pages, hence you get a bit more seemingly redundant tables. But I dare everyone who say tables are crap and div's is "the L33t" to make 1 simple thread page with div's only...

PS: There is also the "problem" of what is called layouting:
- Tables can be use for layouting the page (if appropiate). If you call layouting: determining which elements should be placed where in the overall scheme like the overall topheader and three distinct areas on hmaster5 and raceprouk's website.
- Div's can be use for layouting the page (if appropiate). If you call layouting: coloring, identing, sizing, etc the things in the inner frame of Saralk's website. Thus layouting textblocks, lines, etc...

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
There is nothing in the iframe which needs tables. However the grand layout (the page and iframe in the middle) could have been easly done with tables without problems.

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That's not an iframe.. That's simply a div with the overflow set..

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
All this said, the forum does use many tables in the appropiate places. But some columns, rows or container tables (as I like to call them; tables to hold other tables) could have been stripped and aren't needed making the source more readable/manageable.

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I agree there, which is why in newer versions of MyBB we've stripped alot of the redundant tables just used for containers and such.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
But I dare everyone who say tables are crap and div's is "the L33t" to make 1 simple thread page with div's only...

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* surfichris feels a challenge coming..

Now, would you like that with author information on the left or author information on the top above posts?

I've been working with CSS quite a lot last year. Divs are associated with CSS because you need CSS to complete the divs. In other words, divs don't "layout themselves", like tables. This of course DOESN'T mean you can't use css on tables, or vice versa.

I made one of my last websites, http://www.ringtoneweb.net XHTML & CSS compliant, without using tables. It makes the source code look better and has some more advantages, but I have to admit it wasn't very easy.
A simple 3 column layout with variable height and separate backgrounds for each column can't easily be done in CSS, and if one succeeds, you probably won't have the same flexibility as with tables.

Regarding to the source code of this forum, the PHP is great, but the HTML is quite a mess (I'm customizing it for my own website atm). It's a pain to find the correct cell when there are 20 tables on one page...

Something else, lists (ol, ul) are quite often underestimated. You can use them quite often to replace table cells/menu's/lots of breaks.

All by all, I quite agree with CR. Tables can be used for layout (untill CSS provides some new features), but they're often been over-used. It's very temptive to quickly create another cell instead of open your css file, add a class & assign some positioning stuff.

Edit: I will accept CR's challenge, only need to make some time

lol... would be interesting to see this thread converted in a div only page (btw, no, the first one doing it will not win anything accept a big tap on the shoulder for the hard work )

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Originally posted by Chris Boulton

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
There is nothing in the iframe which needs tables. However the grand layout (the page and iframe in the middle) could have been easly done with tables without problems.

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That's not an iframe.. That's simply a div with the overflow set..

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oh well, didn't bothered to look at the source Anyways, it could be done with a simple table also (with the div-block,  iframe, hard coded picture, whatever, inside it)

Yeh I take Cookies point.
Trying to make this thread into css would be quite hard as there are a fair amount of elements. Forums are best used with tables.

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Originally posted by Chris Boulton
Now, would you like that with author information on the left or author information on the top above posts?

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top would be easy, problem at the side lies with making certain divs have the same height

EDIT: if it was a challenge ill have a go now

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Originally posted by Lee Jeffery
EDIT: if it was a challenge ill have a go now

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Id like to see how much you can do

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Originally posted by hmaster5

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Originally posted by Lee Jeffery
EDIT: if it was a challenge ill have a go now

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Id like to see how much you can do

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well it appears harder than it at first seemed and i gave up to continue work on stuff im actually getting paid to do lol

I made a little start: http://www.msgweb.nl/plus_css_forum/. Looks like the hardest part is next.
It's only firefox compliant atm (making it work for IE won't require many changes).
Edit: I 'fixed' over 10 tables