[WEB4LIB] RE: CSS vs. Tables

[Vishwam Annam]

Saarah,

Since you are thinking about designing web site with out using much 
tables (of course, you can use tables to show data, but not for layout), 
you may want to consider skimming through these 2 books,

1. The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks, some sample 
chapters are at http://www.sitepoint.com/books/cssant1/cssant1-sample.pdf
2. Designing with out tables, using CSS, some sample chapters are at 
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/css1/htmlutopia.pdf 
<javascript:ol('http://www.sitepoint.com/books/css1/htmlutopia.pdf');>

In book2, they mentioned some web sites such as 
http://www.alistapart.com/ http://espn.go.com/, http://www.sitepoint.com 
used CSS page layout. 

These are useful books, however one thing makes me think is, 508 
guideline "Documents shall be organized so they are readable without 
requiring an associated style sheet", I haven't find answer to that 
question in these books. (?)

Good luck,
Vishwam

-- 
Vishwam Annam 
Web Developer 
Library Computing Services 
120 Paul Laurence Dunbar Library 
3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy. 
Dayton, Oh 45435 
Office: 937-775-3262 
FAX 937-775-2356 



Brandon Dennis wrote:

>Sarah -
> 
>There are two primary benefits (plenty of minor ones too :) to switching
>to a CSS design as opposed to a table design:
>1.  For consistency and ease of coordinating design, CSS separates
>content from presentation.  So if your patrons (or boss) don't like the
>font, you can change it across the board with one or two lines (as
>opposed to going through every file).  As well as most other
>presentation decisions.
>2.  Using Style Sheets (and separating presentation from content) means
>that the browser only has to load the .css file that those pages use
>once.  It *will* just use the same presentation once it's loaded.  So if
>you are interested for a honest comparison, you would need to strip all
>the HTML files on your site and then compare the total size.  Usually,
>even if a visitor only goes to a couple of pages, it makes up for the
>difference.  And if it doesn't, for a variety of other reasons, it's
>worth the difference to have converted your site to CSS.
> 
>Best of luck!  (I'm getting ready to do the same thing)
>Brandon
> 
>
>	-----Original Message----- 
>	From: Smith, Sarah [mailto:sarah.smith at fresnolibrary.org] 
>	Sent: Fri 3/4/2005 5:00 PM 
>	To: Multiple recipients of list 
>	Cc: 
>	Subject: [WEB4LIB] 
>	
>	
>
>	I'm tinkering around with converting a website from a table
>layout to a
>	div layout, and I've managed to get identical appearance. The
>div and
>	table based html files are identical in line length, and the CSS
>file
>	for the div based layout is longer than the CSS file for table
>based
>	layout. I only noticed because I ran a "Speed Report" from the
>Firefox
>	Web Developer's toolbar and it said my CSS file was twice the
>	recommended size.
>	My question is: does/should separating content from layout
>reduce the
>	number of lines of coding needed? Size of files? Etc...
>	TIA,
>	Sarah A Smith
>	
>
>
>
>  
>