[WSG] Re: WSG Digest

[Alan Whiteman]

On Mon 05 Dec 2011 06:25:53 PM PST, wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

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From: David McKinnon
Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:22:11 +1100
Subject: Divs for tabular data

OK, so I'm working on a project in which the developers are laying out tabular 
data using divs.
The site is using the 960 CSS grid system so making the 'tables' work just 
means applying the appropriate class to align each div/table cell to the grid.
They say this is good because:
It's fast
They can manipulate the resulting DOM much more easily than they could with a 
table
Developers find it easier to, say, add or remove columns from the tables, 
without having to edit the code all the way down the table (no wysiwyg editors 
here!)
To me this doesn't seem very good because:
It's not very semantic (although they've used micro data in the class names for 
some divs)
It doesn't seem very accessible -- I might be wrong about this, but to me good 
semantics is foundational to accessibility
There's a lot of markup -- I know tables aren't exactly light on code, but they 
seem quite light and efficient in comparison
It doesn't seem to me like the code will be very easy to maintain for anyone 
but the developers.

The lead developers assure me that this is good practice for speed and 
efficiency, but I'm not convinced.
Nevertheless, I don't want to be advocating tables as best practice if they 
aren't.

What do you think? Are tables too hard for the real world in large sites or web 
apps where large amounts of DOM manipulation is required? Or have these guys 
taken the 'Tables are bad' thing a bit too far?

Kind regards,
David



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Tables are the best way to display tabular data since the method does 
everything automatically, that is, without the extra work to make divs 
behave as tables. In my opinion, tables are perfectly adequate as long 
as they're not used for layout (though I'm guilty of this sin from long 
ago.)


One possibility may be that your developers have an easier time 
manipulating the grid with CSS when using divs instead of cells. But 
this is just a guess.


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Regards

Alan C Whiteman | Visualis Web Design
(562) 305-2862  | http://visualiswebdesign.com


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[WSG] Re: WSG Digest

[Alan Whiteman]

On Sat 03 Dec 2011 01:54:38 PM PST, wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

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From: "Stevio"
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2011 02:42:02 -
Subject: Content div sticking out the side of container div

Somehow I do not seem to have come across this problem before. I have two
divs, one contained within the other. If the viewport of the browser is
resized to be smaller than the contents of the inner div, the inner div
sticks out the side of the outer container div, which continues to resize
with the browser.

Surely the outer div should stop shrinking when it reaches the width of its
inner div, even if the viewport continues to be shrunk?

How can I fix this so that the outer div will not become any smaller than
the width of its inner div, when the width of the inner div will be unknown?

Here is example code that illustrates this. In my example, the inner div is
set to a fixed width, but for the web site I am developing, I will not know
the width of the inner div.



Test

#wrap {
background:#CCC;
border:2px solid blue;
}
#contents {
width: 800px;
background:#99F;
border:2px solid yellow;
}




Test
test
Test





Thanks,
Stephen


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From: "Greg Gamble"
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 18:51:15 -0800
Subject: RE: [WSG] Content div sticking out the side of container div


Outer Div has a fixed width.

-Original Message-
From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On
Behalf Of Stevio
Sent: Friday, December 02, 2011 6:42 PM
To: Web Standards Group
Subject: [WSG] Content div sticking out the side of container div

Somehow I do not seem to have come across this problem before. I have two
divs, one contained within the other. If the viewport of the browser is
resized to be smaller than the contents of the inner div, the inner div
sticks out the side of the outer container div, which continues to resize
with the browser.

Surely the outer div should stop shrinking when it reaches the width of its
inner div, even if the viewport continues to be shrunk?

How can I fix this so that the outer div will not become any smaller than
the width of its inner div, when the width of the inner div will be unknown?

Here is example code that illustrates this. In my example, the inner div is
set to a fixed width, but for the web site I am developing, I will not know
the width of the inner div.



Test

#wrap {
background:#CCC;
border:2px solid blue;
}
#contents {
width: 800px;
background:#99F;
border:2px solid yellow;
}




Test
test
Test





Thanks,
Stephen



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Try using overflow, or perhaps max-width.

--
Regards

Alan C Whiteman | Visualis Web Design
(562) 305-2862  | http://visualiswebdesign.com


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