designer wrote:
OK, I don't use tables, except for tabular data. I've been doing this
standards stuff for for just one year and there is only one place where
I use a table for layout, and that is to put something (div, or
whatever) slap bang in the middle of the screen, both vertically and
horizontally. There are many ways to do this, but none of them (that I
know) are as simple or as reliable as this method using a single-cell
table:
... So, the challenge: do what I've done above with no table, AND make it
work in IE.
I don't see the challenge. Easy as a table, reliable as a table,
cross all buggy browser bullet proof as a table in all rendering modes
(and no hacks, as the next one will add):
Use a table.
So what? The argument against the use of tables for layout is not
affected a bit by this dead center problem you are asking and others
have thrown into in abandomed discussion threads before.
In general, there is no reason or sense to discuss pro or con of tables
for design. The pro/con table troll question as a whole is answered a
zillion times to dead, and wastes time and bandwidth like spam, and
nothing seems to help, neither yawning nor closing similar threads
immediately.
If fact you are asking what to do if the recommended pure CSS pathway is
not matching the specification and demands of your design question. With
or without the ability to ask in forum or mailing lists, you have three
options:
1) you can achieve it with a table
2) you can do it with css and hacking, or scripts
3) you can think about changing your layout
For your specific dead center question, were the pure CSS path shows a
very known CSS weakness in vertically centering content:
1) use the table as you have suggested
2) use ambitioned CSS hacking like [1], but beware of browser problems
once it gets only a bit more complex [2], or simply use a script
3) Dead Centering is only usable for very small content like a logo or
an "under construction" message. When you want to add more content, you
are going to use buggy overflown boxes with scrollbars, usually the text
gets smaller, and so on. But: there is no reason to dead center long
content. The monitor screen is already dead centered in my range of vision.
I believe 3) is the only question for a dicussion in this web standards
list, if at all.
Ingo
[1] http://www.brunildo.org/test/shrink_center_5.html
[2] http://www.satzansatz.de/photocenter.html
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