What’s so bad about tables?

daltonrooney –

This is driving me *nuts* I’ve actually done this before for someone else – they were having the same issue. I’ll be darned if I can’t find the stuff I did to accomplish what you’re looking for. But I *know* I’ve done this before. (I hate it when I lose stuff!)

Let me dig around and see if I can find it again. But I thought I’d post and tell ya that it *is* most certainly possible, and it *is* cross-browser compatible. I just gotta find it. ??

Thanks doodlebee. I should have started here, even though this isn’t a CSS forum, it’s where all the smart people hang out. Are there any other forums you would recommend for asking about this stuff?

the CSS-D list is a good place to go for CSS questions – it’s run by Eric Meyer. Another good place is the webmasterworld CSS forums.

In the meantime – I’m still digging!

Hi CharlesKrause

JFYI – We aren’t talking about Ebay or Amazon, we are talking sites you or I design. If any of us was responsible for Ebay he wouldn’t be posting here. If any was capable of creating a site like Amazon (business-level-wise) he wouldn’t be posting here. So let’s be that modest and stay with what we do.

Separatíon of content and design has nothing to do with CSS per se. All you need for that is a CMS driven site and its templates. Whether that template is tabular or CSS backed IS OF ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE when it comes to separation of content and design.

The only situation where CSS can have the advantage in this respect is with static sites. But again this depends on the niftyness of the designer. If a page is properly designed, it is possible to do a site-wide change of basic look even without CSS.

That’s why your calculation of “case 2” is wrong:

With a CMS both templates are pulled from the set of templates, in one case the CMS pulls the CSS file and the linked html-files, in the other it pulls the tabled html-file. Even the usual cache-time-set isn’t going to make good the lesser size of the html-file. With a CMS you get a minus of 250k instead, with cache enabled at best -100k.

As to editing: you are comparing apples with oranges. If I have a large site driven by a CMS, I also only change one file with tabular design. That’s what I tried to make you grasp now repeatedly. The tabled html file is the TEMPLATE and that’s commonly reused all over the place!

On a WELLDESIGNED static site it may be nothing more than changing a couple of graphics to change the look of the whole site. And using halfway professional software I can redesign a 1000-page static site in less than 15 minutes too. I’ve done that countless times, I know it can be done.

As to your other arguments:

Mobile phone costs – still highend here and in most of Europe. This won’t change for a long while either, as just recently the legislation to force the european telecommunication monopolies into lower prices was partly lifted, not made stricter.

Many so-called “sure-fire” technologies washing over from the USA to Europe died in their very tracks due price politics and infrastructure over here. And I’m not talking about the price of the technological tidbit, I am talking of the price to use it (btw I pay 16 US cents per minute for voice via mobile phone, data transfer is more expensive) and the (missing) infrastructure to use it.

The reason for all this isn’t lacking technology, it’s lacking will of the providing telecommunication companies to establish access. The reason why they won’t is not pettiness, it’s because they not only wouldn’t make a profit, they also would make a deficit if installing the necessary infrastructure. That’s the bottom line.

It’s also the bottom line for every client who wants a website. He has to pay for multi-level coding, he calculates what his potential profit would be, and if there is none or nearly none, he will not include this in the contract.

That is a very normal business decision and I’m astonished that you refuse to accept that. These aspects are just as valid on the net as they are in the real world. I know a local bakery which would like to serve breakfasts, to do so they’d need to build restrooms for their customers. The restrooms would be way more costly to built, than what the bakery could earn by offering these breakfasts for the next 20 years. So they don’t offer breakfasts and won’t do that as long as they have to build restrooms.

And boyoh, CharlesKrause! Millions of customers??? You gotta show me the average normal website which rakes in millions of paying *customers* short of the real biggies (and we aren’t talking here about the biggies) like Ebay, Amazon & Co..

The normal calculation for the average business providing an online shop is different: 1% more users accessing the site can result in an average 0,05% more sales of the products (if that much at all). For an average commercial site this may mean possibly 50 bucks increase in yearly turnover (not income). With a costfactor of merely 1000 bucks for accessibility, that means that in 20-30 years (depending on income rate) that business may break the point of profit in this respect. Hello?! No good businessman will make such a bet on the future, cause that’s what it is: a bet and one with really bad odds at that.

Which doesn’t even take into count that for the absolute majority of (non-E, non-special-interest) businesses having an online presence this presence doesn’t generate much noteworthy or even any income directly anyway. Also a point generally completely forgotten in this here type of debate.

And nope, you’ve entirely misrepresented what my stance and opinion is. I can say it again, as you obviously overread it the several times I wrote it before:

Pure CSS and/or accessibility-enabled sites are just one facet of the whole spectrum. They have a valid place. But tabular design and no accessibility are an equally valid facet of that same spectrum and should not be reviled just on a pretty non-realistic credo set forth by a body of people who already right during their inception refused to have a close look at reality and market.

Hi Otto,

a couple of basic parameters of life over here:

A landline costs 25 USD base fee where I live, the average phone bill for such a line for most people is around 50 USD all put together.

A mobile phone contract costs also around 25 USD base fee, the average phone bill for this, when phoning exclusively via mobile phone, would be somewhere around 300 to 500 USD per month.

Maybe you can stomach such an amount, I can’t.

I don’t have a credit card, it’s way more expensive to pay via CC than cash or mastercard here.

It’s also not said that I would even get a CC, as issueing CCs is treated like issueing a full credit/loan here. Self-employed people usually have a very low standing with banks here, employed people *averagely* do not earn enough to be creditworthy enough.

As you commonly get a mastercard with your bank account, more or less restricted as to how it can be used, as bank transfers are usually nearly costfree and as cash still rules in most parts of Europe, few people have a real CC and of those few truly use it intensely.

Personally, I pay cash for anything under roughly 1000 USD. Above that I transfer money. Come to think about that, I paid my last used car cash too, and that was way more.

The last time I used a telegraph was end of last year. All put together I sent 17 telegraphs over the last two years. If you want to reach places without phone fast and cheaply there’s no better way yet.

Hi Jeroenl,

yes, I agree completely with you ??

It’s a very discussion-worthy topic, yet so often it just degenerates into pure namecalling.

What is particularly exasperating in that is that basically the whole topic is one which can be treated with logic instead of emotion.

Ihk: Where in Europe do you live? It sounds far away from Scandinavia… Here in Sweden it’s now cheaper to only have a mobile phone instead of a land phone and I haven’t heard about anyone sending a telegraph in the last 10+ years. Everyone uses credit cards here as well.

Maybe this is something for the EU to work with instead of giving lot’s of money to tobacco farmers!

Hi carho,

I’m aware of the fact that the Scandinavian countries have a slightly different price structure in telecommunication. The main reason being that it’s easier and cheaper to deal with the relatively sparse population across a lot of territory using mobile phone/wireless technology. It’s of course a lot cheaper to just set up transceivers in low-populated areas than laying down landlines for those customers.

You have to be aware however that this isn’t the case for most countries south of where you are. Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands or Italy for example are absolutely not in the same situation. Population is much denser, distances are much shorter, landlines already are in place mostly. Getting a landline is just a question of installing the line in the house/apartment from the street distributor.

Out of interest: what do you pay when calling to the outside of Sweden with your mobile phone per minute? What do you pay when you are called on your mobile while being outside of Sweden? I usually pay under 2 cents (Euro, not USD) per minute for longdistance calls to foreign countries via landline.

What happens if you have a negative banking/credit record with your CC? What happens when you have a negative record and apply for one? What if you’re older than 65 or 70?

In most of Europe what usually happens is that the card is withdrawn, or that you don’t get one. In the majority of all countries a negative record can be as little as one bill paid too late. Coupled with little income or self-employment this can bar you e.g. in France, Italy or Germany from getting a CC.

I have acquaintances in more than a dozen European countries who wouldn’t touch a CC with a ten-foot-pole and I have met countless European businesspeople who grumble when they’re forced to offer CC payment, saying it just costs them a bucket, but brings in little, as less than 10-15% of all the customers paying with a card at all use them and usually could/would just as well pay by master/bankcard. And the percentage of those who pay with a card as opposed to cash is decidedly lower than in e.g. the USA. It varies from country to country, but what I saw during my regular travels – especially since the Euro was instituted – gives cash the edge by a huge lead.

I’m by the way talking of real CCs, not of mastercards, bankcards, cashcards or eurocards.

And you need to be aware of the fact that unlike the Scandinavian countries there is a more or less pronounced recession going on in main continental Europe. The interest and fees on CC payment and the CC itself are quite high, few people see any sense in paying those, instead of using the much cheaper electronic payment via their master or bankcards. Even these you can spare yourself, if you simply use them to withdraw cash from an ATM of your bankgroup instead. Where people don’t have a lot of money to spend, they save where they can easily save.

As to telegrams, many of the places of the former eastern block, but also third world countries in Africa or Asia can only be reached fast by telegram. I host and maintain a couple of sites for people who can’t themselves access the internet, don’t have an own phone, and aren’t able to access one either. Mail takes ages too to reach such places, so I shorten the wait a lot when I send a telegram. If something’s important, I do so.

I travel a lot on business, and all that’s not based on a few incidents, it’s an overall impression and often enough just a look at my bills when I come back.

Of course you are right, a lot of this is caused by legislation or missing regulation. Companies will exploit what they can exploit. As long as nothing’s done against this, especially where monopolies or cartels exist, things will stay as they are. Just as phone costs, energy costs show this. But that’s a can of worms, really ?? And entirely beyond the topic of this discussion ;-))

>>A mobile phone contract costs also around 25 USD base fee, the average phone bill for this, when phoning exclusively via mobile phone, would be somewhere around 300 to 500 USD per month.<<

I just had to take note of this…does it cost this much where you are from, lhk, or are you saying that this is what American’s pay to go strictly mobile? Because if you’re saying this is what American’s pay, you are waaaaaay off, I’m sorry to say.

My landline caosts $40/month. My cell phone bill – with me, my husband and my daughter *all* using the same plan – costs $50 a month. That’s it. Nowhere near the 3-500 a month you’re saying.

I wasn’t clear if you were saying this is what the average American pays, or what *you* pay being from another country…so if it’s what you pay, yeah, they’re screwing people over in other countries.

>>But tabular design and no accessibility are an equally valid facet of that same spectrum and should not be reviled just on a pretty non-realistic credo set forth by a body of people who already right during their inception refused to have a close look at reality and market.<<

I don’t think *anyone* here has said anything about tables not being valid. Most people have easily stated that “to each his own”, basically. What works for you and your clients is what works. Great.

However, to dismiss web standards and CSS as something that a bunch of dweebs put together to make themselves some sort of elitist band of web designers who crap on everyone is a bit…off. (No, you didn’t say that, but that *is* the impression you are giving.)

The point of web standards is exactly that – to create a *standard*. When standards are in place, it won’t *matter* what browser you use to design with. All browsers will have a *standard* to live by, so that ALL CODE will be represented equally, no matter what you’re viewing it through. This is the *only* reason for web standards – to get rid of these cross-browser issues that we all have to deal with, and put the “browser wars” of the 90’s to a final and complete death. I simply do not understand how *any* designer can think this is a bad idea.

“I have a dream… that one day this world wide web nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all browsers are created equal.” – MLK with a twist!

I agree with what doodlebee is saying… it does appear, lhk, every time a topic like this comes up, that your opinion of browser standards and those who believe in them are doing so because they think it’s “cool” or “trendy” or are even worse, geeks who overthink things and try to fix things that aren’t broken. When in reality, I think that a desire for standards would mean less hassle on designers, less monopolizing of the internet (as in the countries where you often speak of less-advanced systems and a lack of funds/technology to upgrade), and in general, a unity on the internet between developers, website owners, and end users.

I don’t see how standards can be seen as “bad” in any way, yet it appears you think they’re fluff and useless. It doesn’t make sense, and apparantly, quite often winds up offending people.

Hi again,

@doodlebee:

How about reading, instead of guessing? I wrote:

“a couple of basic parameters of life OVER HERE:

A landline costs 25 USD base fee WHERE I LIVE, the average phone bill for such a line for most people is around 50 USD all put together.

A mobile phone contract costs also around 25 USD base fee, the average phone bill for this, when phoning exclusively via mobile phone, would be somewhere around 300 to 500 USD per month.”

That’s what pretty conclusive, I’d say. If I had a mobile phone and phoned for the same amount (calls and durations) with that, as I phone with my landline, I’d pay 25 base fee plus 300-500 US dollars per month (roughly).

If that was in the country south to me, it’d be some 500-600 USD, if in the country west to, that’d be some 200-300 USD, east of me some 1000 USD, north of me some 500-700 USD.

Nowhere – except maybe in the far Scandinavian countries – would it approach anywhere close to your bill of only 50 USD for a complete family. I always was talking one single person.

And a landline here where I live can be had for 25/month plus (depending on contract) 30-50 USD for inland and longdistance foreign country calls. Which, if you calculate, is still more than what you pay.

As to standards – you and I probably won’t still be alive before any general WWW “standard” is achieved. The chance is high that none ever will be.

W3C fucked up. If they had used IE specs as the standard at the time, they might have had a good fighting position to achieve a uniform standard. As it was for the Betamax vs. VHS system. There “only” PAL vs. SECAM vs. NTSC is making trouble and multi-system VCRs are and were available.

But have a look at other such attempts at standardization and you’ll grow grey hair. Papersizes, power (and powerplugs), DVD-players, secondary software for Unix/Windows/Macs/PCs, etc.etc..

Even in the USA you still have at best a distribution of 50:50 between the two big ones, not to speak of the rest also there and also not conforming. Lately FF has come into not at all unfounded criticism for hopping into the bed with Google, there are the first row of really serious bugs and deficiencies and also the first couple of equally serious viruses and exploits (bound to be more with each new FF user). With every bug, virus and image loss W3C also loses out. IE7 shows that Microsoft isn’t really playing the standards game yet (and I seriously doubt they ever will).

In my book the only chance at a standardized web will happen the next time a major technological hardware step is taken. And due to the way our society and our business competition works, chances are even less likely then than now. Have a look at what’s happening currently with MP3 and the fact that lately we have more rather than less different formats.

Given all that, it is to ME very off to suggest, that everyone use systems and devices which are geared to a fraction of all users and countries.

The telecommunication prices differencies I didn’t table for nothing. They are part of those differencies which see to it, that there is no system and no approach which works for the whole planet yet. And not for a long, long time to come yet. And “long” in my book means several decades, not a couple of months.

Many US american companies have landed badly splat on their noses because they assumed that what works well US-side also works well in Europe, Asia or Africa. Walmart e.g. lost in the upper number of millions of dollars over one such a simple item as KY-cream when expanding into countries outside of the USA. They lost way more until they learned about the differences in eating and clothing habits outside of the USA. I happen to know, as I happen to know someone whom they had to engage to set them right.

Thus if you base assumptions (of usage and usability) merely on what happens to work out in the USA, you’re bound for a similar experience right sharply. If someone had to pay 200-300 bucks to have the “fun” of surfing with PDAs and mobile phones at leisure and earns less than 1500 bucks a month averagely he hasn’t got lots to spend left over. Guess how valid your business plan is in such a case!

What I’m saying is most definitely NOT that CSS and accessibility don’t have their places. I very much insist however that all they have are places – among other systems and approaches. And that this will be just like that a long enough time to stop that silly CSS/accessibility-nazism which is going on.

And I will most assuredly defend that position on a forum like this one, where people from all the planet come together to seek help. What works for you, doesn’t work for others. It’s really time to notice that.

@ladydelaluna:

I don’t say standards are a bad idea. I like the fact that I can e.g. order a US videotape and play it on my NTSC-enabled VCR. I have more trouble when ordering a US-DVD and without major alteration US electronic/electric devices are unusable here. I’m quick by now in re-calculating non-metric measurements, and it took me only a short time to understand that the US pound is much lighter than my metric one.

You see what I try to say?

Standards might be a really good idea, but acquiring them is another ballgame. And W3C missed out. Which is why I will never call that bunch of idiots anything but geeks (which is much more polite than “idiots”). Instead of trying to brainwash people into “IE is bad, FF/Mozilla is good”, they should have taken a good hard look at the market share of IE during the late 90ies and heeled to facts. If they had, we’d have a standard now already.

And don’t start this “but IE is indeed worse” game on me. That was and is a propaganda item. The edge other browsers (and OS) have over IE mainly consists of their rarity where it comes to practical daily life. FF is just now starting to feel the hot breath of popularity in its neck.

If you closely and neutrally look at the motives behind this anti-IE campaign of W3C you’ll discover that it wasn’t technics-driven, it was personal antipathy against a marketleader and its owner.

Now, I don’t even say it’s a bad idea to shave a marketshare off Bill Gates. But the very fact of doing so is ensuring, FIRMLY ensuring that there will be no standard.

Given these facts all that to-do and moaning is to me just a big, huge lie. Propaganda. Hot air. The W3C has actively seen to it that there will be no standard, so it had better chill its feet (along with their fans) when people deal with the pile of shards they left behind them.

Have you – at any time – really noticed that the W3C ruleset is nothing but a RECOMMENDATION? That nowhere in all this there is the slightest means to enforce anything? That no company, no software author, no webmaster is in any way forced to heed those recommendations and that the VAST majority simply ignores them? Including those people who code browsers? Opera, Safari and FF still don’t display the same. And one would assume that at least that much would be easily possible.

No, I’m not oldfashioned or trying to hold on to anything. I am – contrary to quite a few – however a bonehard realist. And yes, I know that that is a stance which is extremely painful to take for many. I have never ever believed that anyone in commerce or in the powergame truly means “only the good for people”. This is not true in the real world, and it’s not true in the virtual one. Which is something you discover the moment you look behind the eyecandy and hogwash presented to the “believing public”, and which you’ll only grasp when you look at it from a realist’s vantage point.

you call yourself a realist? you sound more like conspiracy theorist. I’m suggesting this thread be closed already. It’s clear to me that logical discussion has been lost.

As long as everyone can all back away from the personal/personality issues, I’m game to let the thread live… although it certainly isn’t related to WP, it has been interesting. Refer to Miklb’s post on the 2nd page.

That being said: Does *anyone* participating in this (largely civil) 3 page debate think they will be changing anybody’s mind anytime soon? Ponder that before continuing. ??

“Does *anyone* participating in this (largely civil) 3 page debate think they will be changing anybody’s mind anytime soon?”

I never did – I have always taken the standpoint that designers and developers should in fact design and develop for their intended end users. In fact, I think that’s what a lot of people have concluded here, but the discussion has taken a few twists and turns when it comes to opinions on surrounding issues… and it’s hard to separate what one opinion is when some have yet to be addressed or stated.

Way back earlier in the thread, I gave statistics to 4 or 5 of my own sites and client sites that show that IE is not always in the majority, even on non-techie sites. And on the ones where it still held up, it was barely over the 50-60% range. To me, that states that my target audiences for those sites have more stable browsers, with better standards, and are on better machines than those of LHK’s target audience. Which of course brings me right back around to the first thing – Design and develop for your target audience and there’s no need to even debate this. Doing so only causes inflamed tempers and arguments.

Right on to what the lady said. Same here – design for *your* audience (as has been said several times by others, as well as me) and all will be well.