It's real simple. There's just no logical reason to use tables over CSS. There's dozens of reasons at least to use CSS over tables.

There's only two reasons to use tables over CSS.
1. You don't have the skill to properly write CSS, and you won't learn it.
2. You don't have the money to hire someone good enough to code your shit in CSS.

End of discussion. Anyone who tries to say CSS us unstable, hard, or doesn't work properly in all browsers. Simply doesn't know CSS all that well.

Use whatever you prefer, do whatever you want, and code your site how you see fit. But please don't ever try to "bash CSS", or claim "tables are better". You just sound ignorant when you do.

i hate to jump in this argument but...can an SEO expert answer me this? this is what i was told by an SEO guy...

of course, a SE can read through and understand and differentiate between tables & text. but, i was told that amount of characters was also something to consider. especialy when your site is first getting crawled. because there is a limit to the amount of characters/data on a particular page that an SE will crawl through and store in it's archived data. Therefore, the less code needed to format, the more actual text gets stored. this is why you sometimes see those crappy sites that use formatting from HTML infancy do well in SE's.

is there any validity to this?

That idea is correct, they do read X amount of data - including html/css, but I think it ignores JS and header stuff.

That's the basic idea of css over basic html, less bytes used so more text and links, menus, ect are looked at vs. trash that does nothing.

However, by using a mixture of tables and css, you can keep the byte size just as small and sometimes smaller, than going pure css and pretty much always going pure tables.

The confusion is tables over css is better for reading, space, bw, whatever - is just wrong. That is all up to the designer/creator.

Uhhmm no there is not a reason, have you read the thread or done real research on the matter? Table based design is the widest accepted standard for cross browser compatibility hands down resulting in the firmest conformity in browser display.

THere are other reasons why Table based designs are better over CSS. Thats just 1.

Read above, or better yet go read the W3C site and the comments of the Consortium regarding CSS.

CSS is unstable thats a fact, as again mentioned at the W3C site numerous times over. CSS infact is the least stable for Browser display stability and cross plat form compatibility.
Infact with Mobile based design Table base design yields the greatest stability in page layout control.

Who is the ignorant one? CSS is over rated unstable shit. It's been proven time and time again at the W3C site and hundreds of designer based forums. CSS is useful to a degree in some cases but I see few arguments that factually put CSS ahead of table based layout and design. CSS may have a future and the future is when CSS is actually easier to utilise and easier to control design elements within a layout with non unpredictable results cross browser and cross platform displays.

No there is no validity to this argument, I read about that shit myself because I found it hard to believe. The fact is the Spiders will crawl in the site searching for content and they do not read tabled data or CSS as "Character's" for indexing. This argument is a wide spread claim that is completely 100% false.

THis claim spread out from none other than the CSS developers themselves and it holds not an ounce of truth.

Spiders are made to parse out layout elements and absorb actual content. Table information and CSS information style elements are all ignored.

Though some SE's do read Image Alt tags as content it is separated from the content formulation of a page separatly.

AlienQ you just don't know CSS that well if you think it's unstable. It's so easy to write code to work in every single browser. I do it every single day. You seriously just don't know what you're talking about. People who are good with CSS know exactly how each element will display in every browser before even testing it. It's not just a random way it's rendered as you make it out to be.

I don't know exactly what's gotten into your head that makes you think the way you do. You are wrong though. You are looking incredibly ignorant right now.






Oh, and as for your mobile browser idiocy.

SO by your very explanation of defense you hide behind the fact that it is better and more efficient to write alternate code for different displays and mobile devices when the reality is if you used tables you would only have to do it once!:thumbsup\

You are an idiot.

CSS is not the future if you are not using it yet you are already behind.

People just do not want to get out of their ways and i have no idea why. CSS is not unstable when coded properly you can have cross browser designs with 0 issues.

CSS has a bad rep because their is very few people who can actually code it properly. and i mean VERY FEW and even less in adult.

CSS is amazing for a CMS style system and makes editing pages with ease that tables just cannot match.

CSS is cleaner and more compressed code and you can set priority on a designs content which helps with SE rankings.

CSS is more dynamic in its capability of styling a page with minimum amount of images.

compressed code = faster loading speeds.

CSS templates are more dynamic and can be more easily moded compared to their table counterparts.

CSS teaches you how to design PROPER, you slowly teach yourself how and why to compress a code further and further. do not be afraid of the learning curve, it takes sometime but once you get the hang of it and understand the point of it you will never go back. you can almost use the same code for ANY site.

i dont know what the debate is about anyone who can code it proper 100% knows CSS is better then tables, there is just no debate any longer. adult webmasters are stuck in old times and refuse to change and this is why many of your profit margins are decreasing by the month.

And my point is proven:

http://204.15.255.138/~ialienco/index2.html
For starters you don't know shorthand. Secondly, you cannot use numbers in class or div names.

Please leave the conversation now. You're arrogant "all knowing" bullshit isn't going to fly.

Think of it this way.....

tables = excel
css = photoshop

Tables is for aligning things in a grid...
Photoshop is for having layers over and under layers.

LOL...
No my friend... You fail.

Cuz appearently the code works and works just fine.

No, you completely missed the features and ability an author has with media types. I'm saying, WITH CSS you have the ability to switch style sheets according to what type of browser is rendering the page. No scripting or hacking - it's built into the way CSS is designed.

You don't have to do this though. You can use a single style sheet for them all, and code it so it will work and render the same in them all. You think that's magic though so I don't expect you to believe it.

Oh, and just so you know. Doctypes also have a lot to do with how mobile and other browsers render a page. Which has nothing to do with CSS, or tables. You should know that though since you're a "designer".

It might in your browser. However it won't render properly in them all. Weird you don't know that since you're a designer.

I prefer it for faster loading pages that present the relevant info and not a TON of fucking markup.

My programmers also prefer working with it too, so whatever I can do to make their lives easier makes my life easier.

Can I start another argument about Content vs. Traffic in here?

fuck yeah!

omg how did i know that i was gonna get a "yes" and a "no"...

Paging: WiredGuy :helpme

as far as what i "believe".... it makes sense to me that even if a SE knows how to "disregard" something like table tags, it still has to process that info (it is a computer after all). so there has to be a certain limit that it will get to your page to allow for "fair" indexing across the internet. otherwise everyone would make SE pages with ungodly amounts of characters.

I wrote tubecgi ok. It crawls hosted galleries just like a search engine.
It dose not have, I did not write and I did not care if the gallery has tables or css.

It has nothing to do with the crawl.


A search engine crawl looks for text that is not included within tags ( > hello < )
Notice how I don't even give a shit what tag it is.

The search term for that page is now "hello".

It's not "<center><font style="someshit"> hello </font><center>".

or "<table><tr><td> hello </td></tr></table>".

It's just fucking "hello"....no matter what.

Understand?

Why is it "hello"?

Because it's the only thing on the page that is not html!
Nobody is searching for your html so neither is the SE. :1orglaugh

HTML is not content.
The SE is looking for your content!


It then looks for "href=" to find links.

It then looks for "<img" then the very next "src=" to get the images.

So where is the fucking table???????


Only idiots care because they don't know how any of this works.

So now this conversation has changed from table controled layout to font and text control in Mobile Display devices? You CSS fan boi's are reaching way to hard.

Listen...
Ya want to restructure a page easily sure no prob you can do the same thing with table based layouts. Table Based Layouts are templates as well. You should know this.

might as well. i'm sure this has already gone further than the OP expected :1orglaugh

My Dad can beat up your Dad!

;-P

I understand that FULLY but as i said above, that is still INFORMATION that would need to be processed. are we saying now that a SE has eyeballs and is reading the page? or that all SE indexing is done by hand? 1's and 0's are still 1's and 0's.... am i wrong?

No, it's not just font and text control. Media type allows you to specify an entirely different style sheet based on the type of browser that is rendering it. By switching an entirely different style sheet you can inherently change the entire site.

You could create a horizontal layout that is designed for 1500px wide. But if a mobile device is browsing it, the site could be changed to a vertical 200px wide layout with less graphics and smaller element file sizes.

That's just ONE possibility.

How much can I make a day on a 50K tgp?

this is the first time i read a thread about code and laughed until my side hurt

...unless it was a PHP vs. ASP thread.... those get ugly

And this can not be done with Tables for some reason? LOL!

Dude. One can always detect browser type and refer a specific layout template whether it is CSS or Tables. I do not think I can debate this with you anymore. The conversation is boring me and getting beyond stupid. You are like a punk ass Pig headed Redneck that insists the best way to kill a chicken is only with the newest knife in the house...

I am a developer that goes for killing the chicken, thats what the client wants I can care two shits about the newest knife to do it with as long as when the chicken is served it's good and tasty.

PHP can beat up ASP.

Phew... Well, thanks for the input everyone. Just trying to better understand all aspects of the game.

$1.00!!!!!!!!!

p0tter just drop it this is Alienq you are talking too, the guy who uses 1 image with an imagemap for a site.

Have you seen his coding abilities?

I know blind people that can code better.

The guy is worse at photoshop than my 3 year old cousin.

Yeah but only you would sell a flat screen monitor to people who only read Brail. Hows your beastiality site going loser?

If you don't know, now you know, nigga.

Heck, just make sure your design works in every browser, ranks well and converts your surfers. There's no masterplan how to achieve this (as in: "1) use only css.. 2) rank 1st.. 3) profit..").

because when you say things like "harder for SE's to understand." you set yourself up for it. LOL

Toomuch to read,so i will just say i more preffer css then tables beacuse it make html file much smaller and i am sure images lost faster then.With css i can put border on all images with just one tag while with tables i need to constatly repeat code where i want to put border.

CSS allows you to better separate your information from the presentation. Better separation allows you more freedom. If you're putting together some massive rave flyer type design into an HTML page... use what you want as it's all presentation. If you have data that you'd like to present in various ways, use CSS.

A lot of designers have no clue about function. A lot of developers have no clue about design. Thus you get fun threads like this one.

Please remove yourself from this thread, this bit right here just threw any credibility you THOUGHT you had about anything out the fucking window. No wonder your script failed and phatservers booted you, you know NOTHING.

Using a .css file is NOT over head, it loads the file ONCE unless it has been updated since its last checking, and then every time you visit that page, that css file is loaded again from YOUR local temp files, NOT from the server, unlike tables which are loaded on EVERY page view.

Nope it cannot be done with tables. You need either just simple CSS, or some programming.

Browser Cache FTW.