Why do you prefer Tableless CSS markup?

[cardinalvices]

Our clients can order their sites in tableless css markup.
Why would you prefer to have your sites done like that? The ease of change? A better browser compability? List your reasons.

[XX_RydeR]

Tables are messy and harder for SE's to understand.

[After Shock Media]

Tables are messy and harder for SE's to understand.

Give me a break. It may matter at some very small level but come on. Just go look at some of the top rated listings in the engines.

[XX_RydeR]

Give me a break. It may matter at some very small level but come on. Just go look at some of the top rated listings in the engines.

He asked for fucking reasons man, get off my case.

Why does everything here have to be a debate?

[PowerCum]

I use tables.
Have found absolutely no benefits for SEO by using css.

some people may argue that css renders faster on most browsers. This is not true at 100%. Big css renders slower than several small tables. A big table render slower than big css.
The benefit from using small tables is that you cannot use small css layout. It's either big or small.

And if you want something extravagant, try small tables + css layout to position them on the right place on the page. Then you get the benefits from tables and css at the same time.

[Shaze]

Give me a break. It may matter at some very small level but come on. Just go look at some of the top rated listings in the engines.

he's actually right. if se's cant overcome a little problem as reading through tables these days something is very wrong

CSS is just alot more easier to propogate changes sitewide and to build templates with which run on CMS systems.

[XX_RydeR]

Smaller file size makes it easier for Search Engine Spiders to crawl through your website.

Less junk markup makes it easier for Search Engine Spiders to decipher between code and content. Ideally, try to keep your content-to-code ratio as high as possible (more content than code, obviously).

Structural organization is greatly improved by using h1, h2, h3 tags ensuring that the Search Engine Spiders know what you’re trying to show them.

[FlexxAeon]

less code = more room for SE text goodness. therefore...css

and on a non seo level, i like the ability to make a change sitewide with a clean, easy to use file. imagine having to move a navigation column around with tables & no CSS (anyone remember dreamweaver templates? lol... fail)

and i'm an old schooler who swore by tables way past the point of being reasonable. i have been converted recently and haven't looked back

[After Shock Media]

He asked for fucking reasons man, get off my case.

Why does everything here have to be a debate?

Does not need to become hostile. Was not even on your case. We dissagree on its importance.

Just take it easy and do not let small things get to you.

[StuartD]

http://www.csszengarden.com/

Click on some of the designs in the menu.

If you can't see why CSS is better after browsing for a while, you're not thinking of the big picture.

[XX_RydeR]

Does not need to become hostile. Was not even on your case. We dissagree on its importance.

Just take it easy and do not let small things get to you.

[sandman!]

who says everyone prefers css ?

personally i rather have tables since im not a designer and i know how to edit tables properly.

[FlexxAeon]

who says everyone prefers css ?

personally i rather have tables since im not a designer and i know how to edit tables properly.

come with me to the DARK SIDE of code, and experience UNLIMITED POWER

[2012]

Tables are messy and harder for SE's to understand.

WHOOO HA !

[Voodoo]

Try doing a 3x3 stretchy div layout.

[DamageX]

A better browser compability?

That is complete and utter bullshit. If anything CSS means WORSE browser compatibility, since different browsers and different versions render CSS differently and very few of them are really compliant with standards.

[scouser]

smaller file sizes (in most cases), displays better on mobile devices (normally), easier to edit (even if you hardcode every page its own html, you can switch the layout/look easily just with the stylesheet). plus, tables are meant for tabular data, not layout ;p.

[The Sultan Of Smut]

I find designing with css way easier than working with tables and when it comes to needing to make small changes to the look of a site there's absolutely no comparison.

[AlienQ - BANNED FOR LIFE]

I amnot sold on CSS just yet. It tends to load slower especially when over done. With tables its not so hard to get over done. 2 tables deep, rarely 3 and the pages load tons shit faster than CSS.

Some say CSS reads easier to SE, and I still have a hard time believing that as one looks under the hood of a css site, the character's go far beyond what the spiders like before it even gets a taste of content. Besides SE spiders to not generally count Table data as content...

Besides my clients enjoy tables and request them most often as it makes it easier for them to edit themselves. With CSS you trap a client who may not understand it as it is far more complex to make even simple changes to a layout.

Lastly CSS does not layout in all browsers as well as table sets do.
Tables took a long time for a final accepted cross browser compatibility and CSS still has a ways to go in that department.

[AlienQ - BANNED FOR LIFE]

I find designing with css way easier than working with tables and when it comes to needing to make small changes to the look of a site there's absolutely no comparison.

YOu goto be kidding me. No matter what mobile device I use the sites never layout right in CSS. NEVER. It seems in each different mobile device a CSS site presents itself differently.

Surf in a PSP?, or a Black berry?, or a MObile phone they all look different in the display.

[scouser]

YOu goto be kidding me. No matter what mobile device I use the sites never layout right in CSS. NEVER. It seems in each different mobile device a CSS site presents itself differently.

Surf in a PSP?, or a Black berry?, or a MObile phone they all look different in the display.

for mobiles with small screens they aren't really meant to display the exact same. because h1's, ul's, etc are used rather than tables it can display fine without any styling. (ie, just the html).

btw - use an iphone or some of the newer htc's. the browsers on those are pretty much the same as ie/ff.

[cherrylula]

Give me a break. It may matter at some very small level but come on. Just go look at some of the top rated listings in the engines.

shhh...

nothing is more awesome than a really busy CSS site that loads all fucked up... but hey, no tables.

[nation-x]

I have table based sites and css based sites... the css based sites consistently outperform the table based sites in both speed and search engine ranking... all of my sites are very simple.

[CurrentlySober]

shhh...

nothing is more awesome than a really busy CSS site that loads all fucked up... but hey, no tables.

Thats scarily accurate !

[fris]

easier to edit, i had a 1200 line design using tables, it was 45 lines using css

if you code it right, it should work, dont hire someone that doesnt know css

[FlexxAeon]

i used to be all about tables. i still use them when it is necessary for a few of the reasons stated above. i think if you're a designer, and are doing some wild layouts that really attempt to defy browser positioning, tables are the way to go.

me.... i moved into programming more or less several years ago - i could never really cut it as a designer. and thats where the CSS power comes in handy. cause it was a BITCH trying to do shit like for/while loops amongst an ocean of td /td /tr tr td....

so i dunno... maybe thats where the divide is. i always thought CSS was "design for coders". kinda like how they added OOP into Flash...

edit: and just to twist the knife.... i've yet to run into anything i had to do with tables that i couldnt with CSS

[StuartD]

i used to be all about tables. i still use them when it is necessary for a few of the reasons stated above. i think if you're a designer, and are doing some wild layouts that really attempt to defy browser positioning, tables are the way to go.

I agree with the rest of your statement so I cut it out, but this first part.... I think if you're truly trying to defy browser positioning, you need CSS.
With CSS you can overlap elements and put images in places that you never could with tables.

To put it another way, you can recreate any table design using CSS.
But you can not recreate any CSS design using tables.

[munki]

I like putting stuff where it's not naturally allowed to be...

[Iron Fist]

Tables are messy and harder for SE's to understand.

Wrong. SEs couldn't give two fucks whether it was a <table> or a <div> tag... it sees text in either. As far as I can tell as I have a few tableless sites in my network, SEs don't favor either one over the other...

[travs]

hehe I may know the benefits of CSS but I suck at it

that's why I gave up being a designer

[Robbie]

We spent months re-coding all our sites to CSS only. Just to say we could. UNFORTUNATELY the 3 column layouts of my tgp's are the hardest to make work. We researched and used every "Holy Grail" hack in the world over and over. And of course since there are no real compliance standards for CSS yet...the damn things would always have SOMETHING wrong in one of the browsers.

It would look great in mozilla and like shit in I.E. or vice versa.

Got real frustrating. Finally after a couple of months I thought: "Why in the hell am I wasting my time on doing something that isn't going to make me a penny"

I mean, it was very cool to learn CSS. I definitely needed to do that.

So I went back and re-wrote my stuff again. But this time using tables and CSS together. Now everything works and displays correctly on every browser.

The only way I could have went with table-less CSS would have been to completely re-design my TGP's. And I'm not going to make that mistake. I've already seen a couple of classic TGP's do that. They have ended up looking like My Space instead of the familiar look and feel that we cut our teeth on.

My "simple" design just isn't meant to be made on CSS yet.

And even the couple of times we were able to hack the CSS to get it to work...well, if you wanted to make changes or add something on the page BAM! The damn css would fall apart.

For someone who doesn't want to change their design, I feel that until browser standards for CSS are all compatible and universal...it just won't work for me.

But on a "silver lining" side...I can continue to design my sites with crayons and cardboard paper and retain my "amateur" and more human feel. That's my specialty when it comes to entertainment. Making them feel comfortable and at "home". Meanwhile, as more and more of my competition re-design their sites to go up a number on their Page Rank, all of their sites are starting to have the same "feel" and look. Which makes my shit look and feel more unique.

[potter]

To put it another way, you can recreate any table design using CSS.
But you can not recreate any CSS design using tables.

/thread




Seriously though.

• Less Code
• Cleaner Code
• Separation of design from content
• Tables are designed for TABULAR DATA, not the structure of a website layout
• Easier to modify layout / structure site wide by simply editing a few lines of the CSS file
• CSS' ability is much greater. Positioning, characteristics, and style structure is beyond what is possible with tables.

Lastly. If you're still using tables, you're behind the times. It just goes to show you do not know how to keep up with the trends and direction web technology is moving to. Honestly I could care less what anyone does. But it's only going to hurt yourself by sticking to archaic ways. Let alone if that line of thinking seeps into more of your business than just the code of your websites.

[StuartD]

We spent months re-coding all our sites to CSS only. Just to say we could. UNFORTUNATELY the 3 column layouts of my tgp's are the hardest to make work. We researched and used every "Holy Grail" hack in the world over and over. And of course since there are no real compliance standards for CSS yet...the damn things would always have SOMETHING wrong in one of the browsers.

Did you try "display: table" and "display: table-row" and "display: table-cell" ?

I can guarantee you that it would work just fine using those

[Rui]

Robbie - offtopic but Im really enjoying seeing your recent posts, seems everybody wins when you dont go "all agressive" (referring to some tube and cross-sales discussions in the past).

You really seem to have your shit together

[FlexxAeon]

I agree with the rest of your statement so I cut it out, but this first part.... I think if you're truly trying to defy browser positioning, you need CSS.
With CSS you can overlap elements and put images in places that you never could with tables.

To put it another way, you can recreate any table design using CSS.
But you can not recreate any CSS design using tables.

i agree.... but again it depends on the circumstance.

for example: when i want to do a "coming soon" page i like for the logo and/or text to sit in the middle of the page, scaling to the size of the browser window so it is always absolute middle. i STILL can't do this effectively is CSS due to lack of a "vertical align" attribute, and still use a table lol

[Varius]

CSS can be a pain to work with due to the compatibility issues, but once you know what you're doing it's a great tool and tables really should not be used for layout purposes.

I also believe there IS search engine benefit, as when the spider has less html clutter to go through it is able to read more of your page content and thus find a better keyword density and content-to-html ratio. Just make sure your css is linked to not included in the page or you defeat the whole idea there

[FlexxAeon]

We spent months re-coding all our sites to CSS only. Just to say we could. UNFORTUNATELY the 3 column layouts of my tgp's are the hardest to make work. We researched and used every "Holy Grail" hack in the world over and over. And of course since there are no real compliance standards for CSS yet...the damn things would always have SOMETHING wrong in one of the browsers.

It would look great in mozilla and like shit in I.E. or vice versa.

Got real frustrating. Finally after a couple of months I thought: "Why in the hell am I wasting my time on doing something that isn't going to make me a penny"

I mean, it was very cool to learn CSS. I definitely needed to do that.

So I went back and re-wrote my stuff again. But this time using tables and CSS together. Now everything works and displays correctly on every browser.

The only way I could have went with table-less CSS would have been to completely re-design my TGP's. And I'm not going to make that mistake. I've already seen a couple of classic TGP's do that. They have ended up looking like My Space instead of the familiar look and feel that we cut our teeth on.

My "simple" design just isn't meant to be made on CSS yet.

And even the couple of times we were able to hack the CSS to get it to work...well, if you wanted to make changes or add something on the page BAM! The damn css would fall apart.

For someone who doesn't want to change their design, I feel that until browser standards for CSS are all compatible and universal...it just won't work for me.

But on a "silver lining" side...I can continue to design my sites with crayons and cardboard paper and retain my "amateur" and more human feel. That's my specialty when it comes to entertainment. Making them feel comfortable and at "home". Meanwhile, as more and more of my competition re-design their sites to go up a number on their Page Rank, all of their sites are starting to have the same "feel" and look. Which makes my shit look and feel more unique.

Robbie: I'd like to know when that was that you tried that switch over. just off the top of my head i can't see it not being possible now. i do 3 column layouts all the time. But i remember when CSS CBC was a nightmare.

not trying to sway you... just curious

[JamesK]

Pro's:
- You can list your most important content at the top of the page for SE bots
- Since the makeup files are all external it is faster to load for the SE's

Cons:
- CSS is tricky as it requires additional code to make it look the same in multiple browsers
- In my opinion CSS is harder to modify, I found it way easier to change tabled layouts

[potter]

for example: when i want to do a "coming soon" page i like for the logo and/or text to sit in the middle of the page, scaling to the size of the browser window so it is always absolute middle. i STILL can't do this effectively is CSS due to lack of a "vertical align" attribute, and still use a table lol

If you simply want the image in the center of the page.

body{
background: url('image.jpg') center center;
}

If you want the image to stretch. Just put the image on the page and make it's width and height set to 100%.

[TheDoc]

My two cents...

Tables are needed when using Forms. It is not less code to to write proper table/css mixture than it is to write proper html/css compliant tables.

Some sites, like paysite tours. Should have tables. The table version "WILL" load faster than perfect css and neither hurt or gain anything related to SEO.

Proper CSS, does not have issues between IE and FF or any browser. The keyword is Proper which is what 99.9% of the Internet does not create and doesn't know how to create.

Entire Websites with Columns do not ever need tables for structure. Using CSS on columns gives you a massive advantage if you need the body text OR menu pages spidered more. And CSS allows you to swap up the positions of things in the html, without changing the look of the site, all to better control/help flow.

[JamesK]

i agree.... but again it depends on the circumstance.

for example: when i want to do a "coming soon" page i like for the logo and/or text to sit in the middle of the page, scaling to the size of the browser window so it is always absolute middle. i STILL can't do this effectively is CSS due to lack of a "vertical align" attribute, and still use a table lol

I normally use a simple table for that too, but there's a way to do this with CSS:

http://www.jakpsatweb.cz/css/css-ver...-solution.html

[Bro Media - BANNED FOR LIFE]

We spent months re-coding all our sites to CSS only. Just to say we could. UNFORTUNATELY the 3 column layouts of my tgp's are the hardest to make work. We researched and used every "Holy Grail" hack in the world over and over. And of course since there are no real compliance standards for CSS yet...the damn things would always have SOMETHING wrong in one of the browsers.

It would look great in mozilla and like shit in I.E. or vice versa.

Got real frustrating. Finally after a couple of months I thought: "Why in the hell am I wasting my time on doing something that isn't going to make me a penny"

I mean, it was very cool to learn CSS. I definitely needed to do that.

So I went back and re-wrote my stuff again. But this time using tables and CSS together. Now everything works and displays correctly on every browser.

The only way I could have went with table-less CSS would have been to completely re-design my TGP's. And I'm not going to make that mistake. I've already seen a couple of classic TGP's do that. They have ended up looking like My Space instead of the familiar look and feel that we cut our teeth on.

My "simple" design just isn't meant to be made on CSS yet.

And even the couple of times we were able to hack the CSS to get it to work...well, if you wanted to make changes or add something on the page BAM! The damn css would fall apart.

For someone who doesn't want to change their design, I feel that until browser standards for CSS are all compatible and universal...it just won't work for me.

But on a "silver lining" side...I can continue to design my sites with crayons and cardboard paper and retain my "amateur" and more human feel. That's my specialty when it comes to entertainment. Making them feel comfortable and at "home". Meanwhile, as more and more of my competition re-design their sites to go up a number on their Page Rank, all of their sites are starting to have the same "feel" and look. Which makes my shit look and feel more unique.

Um... heh...

I'm not even gonna comment, both Stewart, Potter, and many others who arn't stuck in the past KNOW what CSS can do for you, and that's all that matters.

Keep designing in tables and waste extra bandwidth by not caching the .css file and having it load LOCALLY instead of REMOTELY.

http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/index.html

Read that.

[FlexxAeon]

If you simply want the image in the center of the page.

body{
background: url('image.jpg') center center;
}

If you want the image to stretch. Just put the image on the page and make it's width and height set to 100%.

yeah but then it's a background image which looks like a blank page to SE's. and if i want text right under the logo it gets funky

[Bro Media - BANNED FOR LIFE]

Also I'd like to comment on "CSS doesn't display properly in all browsers" arguement.

Yes it does, All standard compliant browsers it displays properly on, the only one it doesn't is Internet Explorer, and that's because Microsoft thinks that they need to have their own way of displaying stuff...

And still theres easy ways to fix that, it's usually widths, heights, padding, margins etc that are different, so make an extra attribute for ie with a * infront of it, that tells browsers that it's a IE only attribute, problem fixed.

[woj]

http://www.csszengarden.com/

Click on some of the designs in the menu.

If you can't see why CSS is better after browsing for a while, you're not thinking of the big picture.

yea, that's a great example

[NickPapageorgio]

http://www.csszengarden.com/ is really the only explanation needed.

*Edit: Damn it StuartD...beat me to it. ;)

[Shaze]

Um... heh...

I'm not even gonna comment, both Stewart, Potter, and many others who arn't stuck in the past KNOW what CSS can do for you, and that's all that matters.

Keep designing in tables and waste extra bandwidth by not caching the .css file and having it load LOCALLY instead of REMOTELY.

http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/index.html

Read that.

"Keep designing in tables and waste extra bandwidth"

LOL...this comment made me fall on the floor laughing so hard! if your still worried about bandwidth from some tables code then your in the wrong business

[potter]

yeah but then it's a background image which looks like a blank page to SE's. and if i want text right under the logo it gets funky

So then just add the image with the width/height properties like I said. Or just make two divs, the top one wit the bg logo and the bottom one with the text.

Why are you making this seem more difficult than it is?

[FlexxAeon]

I normally use a simple table for that too, but there's a way to do this with CSS:

http://www.jakpsatweb.cz/css/css-ver...-solution.html

interesting. but much harder than slapping a table in, right?

just a reminder to all: i am FOR css lol. just making a point. don't taze me

[Bro Media - BANNED FOR LIFE]

"Keep designing in tables and waste extra bandwidth"

LOL...this comment made me fall on the floor laughing so hard! if your still worried about bandwidth from some tables code then your in the wrong business

Oh yeah, the "Bandwidth is cheap" argument, always loved that one.

Keep wasting bandwidth, your choice, but I'd rather have that extra $10/day in bandwidth saved over the years then paying it just because I'm to lazy to, or can't figure out for the life of me, to get with the times.

Idiots throwing money away are the same people who can't get up to date with stuff.