TABLES mentioned in style sheet section.

CPL:: I am starting this new thread based on the following comment made by
Daniel Dardailler regarding the mention of TABLES in the recommendation to
use Style Sheets in the Page Author Guideline:

DD:: Reality check.

I think it is not reasonable to mark as "required" not using table to
layout things, and to put it in the same bullet list as horrible
things like converting text to image or using 1pixel gif.

CSS2 positioning will provide better support for absolute position of
boxes on page and there is already some floating properties in CSS1,
but we're still far from the implicit-rescaling and the simple layout
model provided by table rows and columns. Plus there are thousands of
such tables out already and I don't see them moving to any kind of
positioning anytime soon (W3C being on my top list).

I would argue for talking about TABLE in the table section only, while
exposing the details of making TABLE (even used for layout)
accessible. More comments there.  End DD.

CPL:: I think we need to discuss this.  My own opinion is that it is
reasonable to leave the statement: "Use style sheets rather than:... using
tables or PRE elements to layout pages".  A strong statement such as that
may catch an author's eye and cause them to think about their techniques.
Perhaps the statement should link to the TABLEs section. 

I have been looking at example pages that use the MS IE 3.0 supported
version of CSS(1), and they chock full of TABLES to overcome the
deficiencies of that version.  People are likely to continue to use both
CSS and TABLES to achieve their goals, since TABLES are sometimes easier
and more logical as Daniel mentions. End CPL.

Chuck

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Received on Monday, 8 December 1997 15:12:09 UTC