ugly tables., tables are ugly. Options

[Maccabee]

This is just me personally but If I ever go to a site that is just like a table with like nav on the left and content on the right I just leave.

Tables are just so unproffesional and ugly.

I only ever use them to like hold or postiion content in a div section.

I only use div sections.

Who agrees that tables are gross.

Also it seems like they are kind of behind with like other w3 guidlines.

There just weird.

[fixtatik]

tables are perfectly fine for building a website. you can easily format them with a style sheet, exactly the way you would using divs. you can remove & add borders, padding, margins whatever you need.

tables are simply an easier way to align a layout. they're far better if you have a need for complex nested content.

for example:

click to enlarge

it's going to be a tad more difficult (and take far longer) for a web designer to replicate a table like that using divs. because it's harder, inexperienced designers will result in malformed code that doesn't display properly in all browsers.

sure, you can always use the float:; attribute, but browsers render widths of divs differently, meaning that if the width isn't absolutely perfect, then a div that is meant to be next to another will most likely drift to the line below it. even with perfection in widths, it's still difficult to get the correct padding, as some browsers will stretch the div according to the padding.

tables are the most cross-browser compatible format for building a website, and definitely the easiest. it's just with the transition to web 2.0 that standards are calling more for divs compared to tables.

[Maccabee]

tables are perfectly fine for building a website. you can easily format them with a style sheet, exactly the way you would using divs. you can remove & add borders, padding, margins whatever you need.

tables are simply an easier way to align a layout. they're far better if you have a need for complex nested content.

for example:
http://i29.tinypic.com/312v5nc.png
it's going to be a tad more difficult (and take far longer) for a web designer to replicate a table like that using divs. because it's harder, inexperienced designers will result in malformed code that doesn't display properly in all browsers.

sure, you can always use the float:; attribute, but browsers render widths of divs differently, meaning that if the width isn't absolutely perfect, then a div that is meant to be next to another will most likely drift to the line below it. even with perfection in widths, it's still difficult to get the correct padding, as some browsers will stretch the div according to the padding.

tables are the most cross-browser compatible format for building a website, and definitely the easiest. it's just with the transition to web 2.0 that standards are calling more for divs compared to tables.

You can use a stylesheet with tables?!

How?!

That was my one problem I had with them.

Can you give table and cells id and class's?

[fixtatik]

You can use a stylesheet with tables?!

How?!

That was my one problem I had with them.

Can you give table and cells id and class's?

you can assign any HTML tag an ID or class, whether it be divs, tables / rows / cells, scripts, objects, fonts...absolutely anything. CSS is a pretty powerful tool.

it's how i design my myspace div layouts - i use the predetermined myspace table classes to hide everything.