Re: TABLES - To label or not to label

> Another category of "simple table" is tables with only a single cell
> each.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "each". 

I'll let you detail.

In the mean time, I'll share some drawing of table templates using
pseudo markup (TR, TH, and TD) that Dave and I have been exchanging
(hope it's not too unaccessible)

Simplest table (a single header row at the top):

  TR TH TH TH
  TR TD TD TD
  TR TD TD TD

Next step up with headers on both rows and columns (~ below represents
an empty cell):

  TR  ~ TH TH
  TR TH TD TD
  TR TH TD TD

Another common case has two levels of column headers.
(-- means spanning is used for the first level headers to "cover" the
second level header)

  TR -- TH -- -- TH --
  TR TH TH TH TH TH TH
  TR TD TD TD TD TD TD
  TR TD TD TD TD TD TD

which can be handled by the algorithm in the HTML4 spec. However, we
should recommend people to use column groups to make the grouping more
explicit.

Two levels of *rows* headers are not generally done in the same way
since it wastes too much space. Instead an extra row is inserted into
the table and a special column header is used to label the row
headings below it. We could recommend people use row groups to make
this explicit e.g. repeated TBODY elements.  The scope attribute can
then be used to make the scope of the header explicit.

But IMHO this is not a "simple table" anymore.

Received on Thursday, 5 March 1998 05:48:18 UTC