Coding with CSS

[francis]

Sound familiar (http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0304e.shtml)?

[James]

Yes. It's infuriating designing layout in CSS.

April's .net magazine (http://www.netmag.co.uk/magazine/) has a very interesting article about layout using CSS v Tables. The writer concludes that it is still OK to use Tables (or a combination of CSS and Tables) for layout as long as they are done sensibly.

I am coming round to this way of thinking too. With the exception of CSS Zen Garden (http://www.csszengarden.com/) I have not seen any sites laid out in CSS that are truly "delight"ful! I find it really difficult to add graphical beauty to CSS layouts.

If the site validates, is accessible and is found by Search Engines does it really matter if we continue to use Tables for layout?

[David]

:D Oh the joy of it!

I never like to say "I told you so". Of course, the best way to learn is to find things out for yourself.

As I have said in the past; I aspire to using pure CSS for layout (it is undoubtedly the right direction to move in) but until it is easier to implement and as consistent across platforms as tables, I'm sticking with tables.

[Tom]

Thank you all for the advice. I've been feeling guilty about not shifting from tables to CSS and you hvae given me a good excuse to wait .... another 3 years?

[francis]

You mean you don't like to suffer for your art?

Looks like, so far at least, there's no sign of any improvements to IE in XP SP2 (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/winxpsp2.mspx).

[Tom]

I used to do art projects with my kids, reminding them that 'art is the child of suffering'. Their reply was that in their experience 'suffering is the child of art'. So I'll wait a while.