Paul Novitski wrote: > Pairs, triplets... the number of columns doesn't matter. For me a > table is a dataset naturally structured in rows and columns -- in > which everything in each column belongs to one class of data and > everything in each row is one associated group. In your example, the > two columns appear to be Position and Name. It's the fact that > everything in the first column belongs to the class of Positions and > everything in the second column belongs to the class of Names that's > my clue that this is a regular dataset, and therefore a likely > candidate for table markup in HTML.
But this definition applies to more than just table elements, isn't? In the above, we could replace the words "first column" with "dt" and "second column" with "dd" and it would make as much sense... > The fact that it can also be marked up as a definition list is great > -- that gives me two tools to choose from. > I guess it would depend on the circumstances. From where does the > data originate? What's its purpose and function? Does this single > row belong to a family of similar datasets elsewhere on the site that > have more than one row? For easy, consistent styling I'd likely > choose a single markup for all those datasets that have a similar > look and feel and function. Again you're talking about markup and presentation while I'm trying to focus on what make people think "tabular data". Everything you say here is important in term of choosing the right tool for the job, but AFAIK, it doesn't help *define* the data. It's true that in my second post in this thread I said I was using markup as my own criteria, saying that if the data could make sense in anything other than a table then (for me) it was not tabular data, but that was a tool to "evaluate" the data, it has nothing to do with my final decision on how to mark it up. > Thierry, I understand that you're looking for simple criteria for > deciding when to use table markup and when not to. Not at all Paul. My question is *not* related to markup, it's about defining "tabular data". It's even the subject of the thread.... :) --- Regards, Thierry | www.TJKDesign.com ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
