Re: HTML Tables Freeze Panes

On Sat, Jan 2, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Paul Cotton <Paul.Cotton@microsoft.com> wrote:
> We have a web application that is fully HTML based. Currently we have a
> feature in Internet Explorer to build a HTML table with a Fixed Header by
> using the below style tag on the TR element. top:
> expression(this.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.scrollTop-3);
>
> Currently, I am unable to locate a parallel feature that would work for
> other browsers. I recommend that we must add a similar feature in the
> specification to say <tbody style="overflow: auto"></tbody> and the table
> body must be allowed to scroll. We must extend this to be available for the
> columns as well. using colgroup.
>
> The work around we are using is two tables one for the header and one for
> the body of the table contents. Now synchronizing the alignment across
> tables becomes a major issue.

This is a CSS feature, not an HTML one.  Luckily the group was just
talking about this precise issue a few weeks ago.  The precise
mechanics still aren't nailed down, but several of us in the group
think this is a very useful feature, and were able to find many uses
of it (and a more general case, where a heading prevents itself from
scrolling off as long as its section is on the screen) in high-profile
sites on the web.  Javascript is currently being used to create this
effect, but it should be simple to do in CSS.  It should hopefully
appear in a draft soon, once we settle the use-cases a bit more.

~TJ