[WEB4LIB] Re: Tables vs CSS-P (was Re: Re: Question 2)

[Araby Greene]

If anyone actually attempted to look at the examples in my message, you may
have gotten DNS or other errors because our campus network has been
intermittently unavailable since last night at 9p.m. and will continue to be
up and down until 6 p.m. Friday Morning, August 8 for a hardware upgrade.
Apologies for any inconvenience.

-araby greene

----- Original Message -----
From: "Araby Greene" <araby at unr.edu>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 4:56 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Tables vs CSS-P (was Re: Re: Question 2)


> Kristina,
>
> Here is an example of a page that uses positioned divs to create 3
columns.
> I decided not to use it  because I didn't want to create two sets of web
> pages and because the divs tend to obscure each other if the user
increases
> font size to the max. Not good.
> http://nevadavotes.unr.edu/Default_csspositioned.htm
> I did use JavaScript for the drop-downs, but if it's turned off, a "Go"
> submit button displays.
> The banner is the only div that contains a table.
>
> The one I decided to use is done with both css and tables, and it looks
> about the same.
> http://nevadavotes.unr.edu/Default.htm
> However, if a vision-impaired user increases font size to the max, it's
> still readable. It doesn't look great in NS4 for several reasons (minimal
> styles being one), but it's all there.
>
> The version without tables loads a little faster and in text-only browsers
> you have better control over the order in which elements appear. Our
> audience for this site is not the university, but the general public, so
> users are going to be older and their browsers are less predictable than
> those of our regular clientele. This site isn't "live" yet, so there are a
> few things that need fixing, and the audio files are not in place yet.
>
> If we were using only two columns, I might have stuck with the "purer"
CSS,
> but there's not much wiggle room with 3 cols.
>
> Good advice on css column layouts is at these sites (which others have
also
> mentioned):
> http://glish.com
> http://www.alistapart.com
> http://www.bluerobot.com
> http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/
>
> -araby greene
>
> ________________________
> Araby Greene
> araby at unr.edu
> Web Development Librarian
> Getchell Library/322
> Univ. of Nevada, Reno
> http://www.library.unr.edu/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kristina Mairi Buhrman" <kmb19 at cornell.edu>
> To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 11:08 AM
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Tables vs CSS-P (was Re: Re: Question 2)
>
>
> > At 10:25 AM 8/7/2002 -0700, Kevin W. Bishop wrote:
> > >Think of using CSS for layout (or positioning) as less a "work around"
> for
> > >tables and rather a vast improvement that replaces the klunky, messy
> markup
> > >that pixel-perfect table layouts require.
> >
> > I haven't had much luck with using pure CSS-P for creating "liquid"
> layouts
> > (those that rearrange to any new browser window size) with anything more
> > complex than a two column style layout. Has anyone had any particular
> > problems or successes with this that they could share?
> >
> > (Currently, a project that's being worked on here has a header, and then
> > four columns of information in the main body, and the programmer on the
> > project is using fixed width for his tables. I'll be having to take
> > elements of this project's design and applying it to the web pages of
the
> > unit libraries I work for, and I really prefer having the information
fit
> > the area of presentation, rather than sit frozen in a box, so this is
> > currently on my mind. Unfortunately, we need to allow for a large number
> of
> > Netscape 4 users in our audience, and so table-layouts are probably here
> to
> > stay for us for a while. But I would like to have some hints for when
the
> > time comes that we can move away from tables.)
> >
> > Thank you for your input.
> >
> > -Kristina Buhrman  kmb19 at cornell.edu
> >   Web support specialist
> >   Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences Libraries
> >   Cornell University
> >
>
>