christi...@netscape.net wrote: > It seems to be a little-known fact that the W3C actually says that > tables can be used to lay out (actually it says "present") forms. > More info here: http://developer.cmzmedia.com/?p=71 > Yes, tables were not intended to lay out a whole web page but they do > have legitimate uses. There's no need to throw the baby out with the > bath water.
I'm not sure I'd consider it little-known, but it is often mis-quoted. First of all, the W3C specs *allow* many (nearly all) elements inside tables and table elements, not just the ones cited in that article. The issue isn't one of allowed versus disallowed, but rather of could versus should. While each of the elements mentioned in the reference page cited in the article (text, preformatted text, images, links, forms, etc.) [1] *may* go inside a table, every one of those elements can be more easily styled and more flexibly controlled using CSS-based, semantically correct HTML source. In fact, even in the specs as far back as HTML 3.2 [2], tables are permitted, though not recommended for layout. The specifications state: "HTML 3.2 includes a widely deployed subset of the specification given in RFC 1942 and can be used to markup tabular material or for layout purposes. Note that the latter role typically causes problems when rending to speech or to text only user agents." Note the last line of that paragraph, which is often excluded from references citing this particular line. The use of tables for layout *typically* causes causes problems when rending to speech or text only user agents...like search engines. While the technology employed by both speech software and search engines has progressed considerably such that most of those issues are certainly lessened if not alleviated altogether, the fact remains that tables are not the best way to manage layouts of anything except tabular data, including entire pages or sites. Chapter 10 [3] of Joe Clark's book, _Building Accessible Websites_, is a perfect example of the mis-quoting (or selective exclusion) of the 3.2 spec. His book is about accessibility and yet he omits the second part of that paragraph (the one about accessibility) and very nearly recommends using tables for the layout of a web page. (Please note: BAW was written in 2002 and I'm purposefully being awfully hard on Joe Clark here. In his defense, his recent writings seem to echo the thought that tables should not be used for page *or* element layout. [4]) [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32-19970114#table [3] http://joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/Chapter10.html [4] http://alistapart.com/articles/tohellwithwcag2#WCAG-documents:travesty-failure -- <!-- ! Bill Brown <macnim...@gmail.com> ! Web Developologist, WebDevelopedia.com --> ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
