Just a quick question Russ to make sure I understand better. Calendars and events (with dates and venue) or even for e.g. certain competition results (with points) would be more suitable to be done with tables rather than CSS right?
With Regards Jaime Wong ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SODesires Design Team http://www.sodesires.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -------Original Message------- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 03/10/04 04:29:58 To: Web Standards Group Subject: Re: [WSG] Lists & weird requirement Frank, I completely agree with Tonico. Many people getting into web standards assume that it is based on removing tables. This is incorrect. There are times and places for tables. However, one of the main aims of web standards is to make your content more accessible to devices and users. This means choosing the most appropriate html elements for your content - not just for modern browsers but for all devices. In pure terms, using tables for positioning content on the page, or layout is semantically incorrect as it is using the table element for something it was not intended. However, tables are designed for displaying tabular data. Even more important, tables have a range of accessibility features that allow you to make this tabular data accessible to a wide range of users. The most common ones are: "summary" "caption" "thead" and "tbody" "id" and "headers" There is also scope="col" and scope="row", but these are as well supported by modern browsers (my opinion only). The article I wrote on definition lists (linked to a few posts back) includes an example of a definition list styled to look like a table. This was simply to show how a simple definition list could be styled to look radically different to the default list style. It was NOT trying to encourage people to replace tabular data with definition lists. So, how do you choose when to use a list, a definition list or a table? Experience helps, but it also comes down to thinking through the purpose of your content before you mark it up. You should ask yourself questions like: "If I mark up this content, how will this work in browsers without style sheets, text-based browsers, screen readers? How will it look to Google? What is the best way I can display this particular section of content so blind users can access it?" If the content involves simple couplets of information, then a definition list may be appropriate. If the content requires a series of columns related to headings or is obviously tabular data, then tables are much more appropriate. A final note on the article that Tonico mentions: (http://www.ferg.org/section508/accessible_tables.html#contents_item_5) is It is an excellent read, but I would skip the section on "Visible formatting". Some of the methods mentioned are semantically incorrect (use additional table cells for visually indenting content) and the styling examples could be written in much simpler and more powerful ways using descendant selectors. Russ > > Frank wrote: >> Re: tables... I wasn't sure if it was wise to use them here... But as you >> said, tables were meant for tabular data. Although I would still prefer >> to use a table-less layout (if it's still considered a wise choice). > > You would greatly improve accessibilty if you use appropriate table > markup for tabular data. > > See <http://www.ferg.org/section508/accessible_tables.html> for details. > > Tonico ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ ***************************************************** ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *****************************************************
