Bob Schwartz wrote:
In reality I have evidently hit upon a problem with "pure" CSS. The
fact that it may not be a problem for those who do not have clients
asking for a certian site design is irrelavent. I do and am seeking a
way to satisfy them and do "pure" (in the spirit of this group) CSS
at the same time.
The problem - and yes, it is a problem - is lack of browser-support for
those existing CSS-solutions that meet the criteria. I can do all that a
table can do without having a single hard-coded table in sight, but
there will be pretty weak results across browser-land.
That is not a flaw in CSS, although CSS is far from mature. CSS
compliance is the barrier.
I have not found one, single, design-challenge where tables as
design-element were preferable. However, I have severe problems with all
those nice-looking sites/pages that exists, where usability have been
thrown overboard or not even considered, just because someone wants to
prove the point that CSS can solve everything. It can't.
I left tables almost as soon as I had started to use them, because they
put too many limitations on design. CSS worked better without those
tables, and CSS support is constantly improving. A few more years, and
tables as design-elements can't be justified at all. Not yet there
though, regardless of, or maybe because of, zen garden solutions and so on.
There are different philosophies at play here...
1: Table-grid solutions, and limitations.
2: tables where needed (enhanced with CSS) - and full CSS where it works.
3: CSS freedom, and workarounds for weak support.
4: CSS mess that try to satisfy all camps, while ignoring the
usability/accessibility side of web design - apart from those badges
that are mostly signs of untested claims. Half of zen garden is there, IMO.
I prefer to stay at no.3, and play around in no.4 in situations where it
doesn't hurt anyone.
I would fall back to no.2 if I ever found the need, but that hasn't
happened during the last couple of years at my end.
regards
Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no
******************************************************
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
******************************************************
