Tables
The $100 question. Tables, or tableless CSS design? It seems like a catch-phrase, the new big kitsch thing, but creating a website without the use of Tables for the structural markup can make a big difference in the usability and even the search viability of your site.
The bulk of the Ariamedia site was built without the aid of tables. It is structured 100% through CSS styled DIVs, H1s, Ps, and the like.
When we started to develop the idea for the current rendition of our corporate site, we decided that adherence to the W3C web standards was going to play a large roll in the decision making influence. Hence the tableless design.
Okay, okay, it’s not completely tableless. As in this page, the use of tables, while not necessary, was the way to go. Creating tableless code for the sake of conserving code-space, maintaining readability, or just because you want to join in the crowd are all fine and dandy, but that should not stop you from using tables when tables are appropriate.
Tables are the way to go when laying out and displaying tabular data. Hence the name “Table”. When and where are up to you, but in our experience going from a table-laden, non-compliant site to our current incarnation, any time you can say the word grid, or cell, it needs to be a table.
Styling tables is just as easy as styling DIVs, Spans, or any other HTML tag.
We typically start out by defining an ID for the table itself, like #product_table, and then through inheritance, styling it’s child-elements. TH, TD, TR, can all be styled to your liking, and can offer you control over an extremely easy-to-use standard HTML tag.
The bulk of the Ariamedia site was built without the aid of tables. It is structured 100% through CSS styled DIVs, H1s, Ps, and the like.
When we started to develop the idea for the current rendition of our corporate site, we decided that adherence to the W3C web standards was going to play a large roll in the decision making influence. Hence the tableless design.
Okay, okay, it’s not completely tableless. As in this page, the use of tables, while not necessary, was the way to go. Creating tableless code for the sake of conserving code-space, maintaining readability, or just because you want to join in the crowd are all fine and dandy, but that should not stop you from using tables when tables are appropriate.
Tables are the way to go when laying out and displaying tabular data. Hence the name “Table”. When and where are up to you, but in our experience going from a table-laden, non-compliant site to our current incarnation, any time you can say the word grid, or cell, it needs to be a table.
Styling tables is just as easy as styling DIVs, Spans, or any other HTML tag.
We typically start out by defining an ID for the table itself, like #product_table, and then through inheritance, styling it’s child-elements. TH, TD, TR, can all be styled to your liking, and can offer you control over an extremely easy-to-use standard HTML tag.
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