Tables vs CSS - Which is better? by Mike
When I started exploring the design possibilities of the internet back in 1996,
NetObjects Fusion was (at that point) a revolutionary WYSIWYG editor that
allowed you to place pretty much any components anywhere you wanted on the
page. Unfortunately for Website Pros, Inc. Macromedia had also seen the
potential in WYSIWYG editors and developed what is arguably the most popular
web design tool ever - Dreamweaver.
Dreamweaver has managed to keep up with the requirements of the modern day web
developer by constantly updating and improving aspects of its design, layout
and functionality. With the latest release of Dreamweaver, Macromedia have
again improved on various features but have also come to realise the potential
and the need to support (in more detail) the new designer's technique - cascade
style sheets (CSS).
Having always designed using table based layouts, I recently (less than 3
months ago in fact) decided it was time to look in more detail at CSS, to learn
what it could do to improve the quality of my work, specifically in terms of
positioning and layout of website elements. At that point I already had a basic
understand of CSS and how to use CSS to influence text styling, link styles,
table colours and borders etc. The challenge was (more clearly) to see if
designing layouts using CSS instead of tables was (to me) easier and more
beneficial - could I be persuaded to change despite my dedication to tables?
My choice of two books (which I'm still reading incidentally), are both written
and published by Sitepoint. The first (The CSS Anthology - 101 Essential Tips,
Tricks & Hacks) is an excellent practical guide, not only for beginners but
also for people (like me) wanting to learn a bit more (or in fact a lot more)
about the potential of CSS. Whether you want to know how to justify text,
create a pure CSS drop down menu or implement a liquid, two-column layout, this
book is an excellent start or continuation for anyone interested in CSS.
The second and probably more relevant book that I chose (again by Sitepoint) is
the 2nd Edition HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables using CSS. This book
again goes over the basics of CSS, but in a more concise and brief manor. The
main bulk of the book concentrates on more examples of positioning and layout.
In short these are two books that I know I'm eventually going to read from
cover to cover - two books that will always be to hand and provide the answer
to my question when something goes wrong or I don't fully understand exactly
what I'm doing (something that happens on a regular basis).
So what have I learnt in the last few months from reading these books, reading
relational website articles and listening to peoples points of view on
webmaster forums? Quite simply I was quite stubborn in the beginning. I had
tried about a year ago to use CSS for layouts but hadn't got very far (although
at that stage I had no books to use for reference). This time around I had the
knowledge (or more accurately the books of knowledge) but was already expecting
my own personal failure (based on my previous experiences). Luckily though I
stuck with it and now know a lot more (although obviously not everything, by a
long shot) about the potential of CSS.
Obviously (just by looking at my site) you can see that I have indeed changed
from table based layouts to CSS layouts - but what truly changed my mind and
would I ever go back to tables? Is this site simply a one off?
Read the full article @ http://www.michaelthorn.co.uk/021106.php
and find out if i really have been converted to pure CSS layouts!
About the Author
Visit http://www.michaelthorn.co.uk for
the full article and other articles on web design, SEO and adsense!
|
