Re: css layout should be symmetrical

> http://teenlearningnetwork.com/
> There are several things wrong with this site and I argued them to the
> producers and designers (flash, nested tables, fixed width, etc). They make
> the decisions. I have to follow orders. Do you suggest we should just Say No
> to these things and wait for a job where the designer will design things
> properly?

This may be a bit off topic, but i think its a mistake to look at something
like this, and say "its wrong to use flash". "Its wrong to use fixed width
design", etc.

I think the site is pretty nicely designed, and I imagine that its audience
will respond well to the look and feel, etc.

Things Like fixed width are an approach to the design problems presented by
the web. Its a working/workable/successful (if not 'valid') approach, it has
disadvantages (as does CSS), but perhaps in this case the pro's outweighed
the cons.

I am a big believer in the potential of CSS, separation of style and
content, etc etc. But it currently is one approach of many. To be used when
it makes sense. Sure, tables are hacks, but they are a hell of a lot more
predictable than full-CSS is right now.

Until more browsers support CSS consistently and in a way that does not
prevent developers/designers/stylists from getting what is in their head on
to the screen, it will never reach the point at which it is "the only right
way to do things"

This my opinion based on working with it. Right now I have full-CSS sites in
development for clients as well as table-based sites. I made the choices
depending on the needs of the project.

>> I found (personal opinion) that it's better to get money in some business,
>> sometimes not related to IT or Web at all, and to re-invest those money in
>> your hobby and volunteer work.
>> I hardly believe that I could buy a car I drive nowdays if I was doing web
>> design :-)
> 
> This makes no sense to me. If I'm making a great living working as a web
> designer (something I enjoy), why would I do something else?  This is the
> bread and butter business for a lot of people. The exact people that the w3c
> has to win over.

I agree with this sentiment. I think there is a divide between the
theoretical/practical camps out there (I guess thats obvious).

I love CSS. I would love to use it more... I just can't... yet.

::john-paul
::http://www.mmodule.com


> From: "Robert Koberg" <rob@koberg.com>
> Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 06:51:46 -0800
> To: "Vadim Plessky" <lucy-ples@mtu-net.ru>
> Cc: <www-style@w3.org>
> Subject: Re: css layout should be symmetrical
> Resent-From: www-style@w3.org
> Resent-Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 09:54:37 -0500 (EST)
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have been following this thread with great interest. I want to Believe. A
> few months ago I had took a contract to setup a website. One of my
> responsibilities was to create the XSLT templates for transformation from
> XML to HTML (using CSS too). I am curious how you would handle the situation
> where the design DEMANDs tables to lay out properly. Can you use CSS (1, 2
> or 3) to lay out this site:
> http://teenlearningnetwork.com/ - should work in all 4th gen plus browsers,
> cross-platform
> 
> There are several things wrong with this site and I argued them to the
> producers and designers (flash, nested tables, fixed width, etc). They make
> the decisions. I have to follow orders. Do you suggest we should just Say No
> to these things and wait for a job where the designer will design things
> properly?
> 
> Is this group mostly theoretical?
> 
> best,
> -Rob
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Vadim Plessky" <lucy-ples@mtu-net.ru>
> To: "Ian Hickson" <ian@hixie.ch>
> Cc: "Christian Wolfgang Hujer" <Christian.Hujer@itcqis.com>;
> <www-style@w3.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 9:22 AM
> Subject: Re: css layout should be symmetrical
> 
> 
>> On Tuesday 19 February 2002 10:51, Ian Hickson wrote:
>> |   Vadim Plessky wrote:
>> |   > And it was clearly indicated by several posters that Tables are not
>> |   > suitable for achieving this (and Tables should be used for Table
>> |   > information, not for Layouting)
>> |
>> |   Tables in HTML should be used for tabular data and have nothing to do
>> | with layout.
>> |
>> |   Tables in CSS should be used for layout and have nothing to do with
>> | tabular data.
>> 
>> Well, there is no warranty that Tables will be supported in future
> versions
>> of CSS.
>> So far, Tables is part of CSS3 Tables module - and this module is
> optional.
>> You can develop CSS-compliant browser whcih doesn't support tables at all.
>> 
>> Therefor, Tables in CSS *should not* be used for layout.
>> special 'display' properties were added to CSS in order to be able to
> render
>> tabular data for pure XML (not XHTML!)
>> Some people assumed that 'table-cell', 'table-row', etc. should be used
> for
>> HTML and XHTML as well.
>> To my best understandimng, this is wrong.
>> Tables in CSS should be used only with XML!
>> 
>> as about enhancing CSS specs: I think Tantek Celik proposed very good
>> solution some time ago.
>> We should create CSS 2.1, take some important parts from CSS3 and add it
> to
>> CSS 2.1.
>> So far, I don't see other solution which will make spec available for Web
>> Designers in nearest future.
>> Still CSS3 lack possibility to make vertical centering. Hope this can be
>> fixed - good proposal how to do it were discussed on this list few months
>> ago...
>> 
>> |
>> |   The only reason that CSS Tables are not suitable for centering is that
>> | the actual CSS used is too complicated:
>> |
>> |       http://www.damowmow.com/mozilla/demos/centering/
>> 
>> again tables...
>> We should get rid of them - tables are for represnting Tabular data, not
> for
>> layouting!
>> --
>> 
>> Vadim Plessky
>> http://kde2.newmail.ru  (English)
>> 33 Window Decorations and 6 Widget Styles for KDE
>> http://kde2.newmail.ru/kde_themes.html
>> KDE mini-Themes
>> http://kde2.newmail.ru/themes/

Received on Tuesday, 19 February 2002 11:49:40 UTC