Re: <table>-less layouts; Ideas welcome

Jim Lucas wrote: > Since this has been a topic of dicussion, I figured I would add my > thoughts. > > I have been toying with the idea of doing a <table>-less layouts > involving tabular data, calendars, etc... Why? > Recent threads have finally made me do it. Let me know what you think. > > http://www.cmsws.com/examples/templates/div_tables.php > http://www.cmsws.com/examples/templates/div_tables.phps (source > for > above) http://www.cmsws.com/examples/templates/div_cal.php Looks clever, but unfortunately it solves a problem which does not exist. In other words, and with all due respect: useless. > When you turn off the styles, the calendar becomes pretty rough on the > eyes, but still "accessible". > > Same thing with the tabular data structure. > > But, not knowing how the various types of accessibility applications > work, I am guessing that the layout to an application trying to read it > should work fairly well. Let me know if I am way off the mark with my > thoughts. Yes. <table> tags are intended to represent tables. It's as if the authors of HTML foresaw a need... ;) Browsers render them quite well. They are valid in all versions of HTML including HTML 5. Why not use them? The "evil" of tables is in abusing them for layout purposes. Where entire pages are inside tables. Where you find tables inside table cells of other tables (I've seen them nested 6, 7 levels, no kidding). It goes against fluidity, accessability, maintainability, and everything that's sane and right. "Tableless design" means you abstain from such table abuse, that you do not use tables for enforcing layouts. Not that you get rid of tables altogether.