dreamweaver question

[glass addict]

I have Dreamweaver CS3 and a mac, so I'm thinking that this is the program I'll use to create a website. I've been doing some reading, and I'm a bit confused on when to use tables vs frames vs css-p.

Can anyone enlighten me? From what I gather, css-p does not work on older browsers, but it does look like the simplest way? Am I way off base?

Thanks,

Mary

[gbratton]

They are three different ways to place things where you want them.

CSS is placing items on a page without the use of frames or tables.

Tables are a way of containing information.

Frames are a way of containing information.

Pick one and run with it.

[Cosmo]

Tables is the way to go. Less cross-compatibility issues. Frames sometimes work fine, sometimes don't work at all.

CSS is generally used for page formatting, but can also specify element positioning. I don't really like it for that because different browsers interpret it differently.

Stick with tables. They always work as expected.

[glass addict]

Thanks so much! I was wondering about compatibility and which way would be most "readable".

Thanks again!!

Mary

[Hayley]

I just took a Dreamweaver refresher course (my original one was either years ago) . . . the industry standard is CSS now. I used to build all my websites using tables.

This is a very cool site of how powerful CSS is:

http://www.csszengarden.com/

Click on the different design on the right and you can see how dynamic and powerful CSS is. It's also much more compatible and reliable with browswers.

[Hayley]

Mary - I dug up my notes from my refresher course and here is the scoop:

All the web developers are trying to have their websites in standard compliance set by w3c.org - using CSS instead of tables.

http://w3c.org

One recommendation is to play with the CSS style sheet sample pages and use that as the base to build your site.

Hope this helps.

[Cosmo]

I don't know about "industry standard". There was a lot of discussion about it at WDDC this past year, but the consensus was it wasn't where it needed to be. Still a lot of cross-platform and cross-browser issues. Unless things have changed drastically in the last couple of months, I'm not ready to jump into the CSS boat yet. I use CSS for formatting, but still use and recommend tables for positioning.

[Hayley]

To each his own, Chad.

[Hayley]

Here is an interesting link - Firefox is gaining market share every month and is almost even with Explorer . . . that would eliminate the cross-platform issues! I think I am still upset when Explorer stopped making upgrades for Macs years ago.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

[Cosmo]

Plus, tables are a LOT easier to use for someone that hasn't done much with web sites...

[SteveWright]

I maintain about 275 pages on my sites and several other pages on friends sites. All of my pages are formatted using CSS. I still use tables, also defined by CSS.

I've tried to duplicate the look of a table using only CSS, but it is complicated (to me). I've never pulled it off to my liking.

I've tried floating items, absolute positioning and tables. I can do tables, and without cross-browser problems. Flock, Firefox, Safari, Opera and IE all like them.

Steve

P.S. This is the CSS for the tables on my glass site:
table.one{
margin: 10px 8px 10px 8px;
padding: 10px 8px 10px 8px;
table-layout: automatic;
font-weight: Bold;
text-align: Left;
color: #000000;
background: #FFFFFF;
background-color:#FFFFFF;
}

And the basic structure of a table containing two items on two rows.

<table class="one">
<!--row one -->
<tr>
<td>
stuff here
</td>
<td>
more stuff here
</td>
</tr>

<!--row two -->
<tr>
<td>
stuff here
</td>
<td>
more stuff here
</td>
</tr>

</table>

[glass addict]

Thanks Everyone!

I spent a good bit of today going through some tutorials, and it seems like the pages are set up with tables and then refined with cssfor text formatting. I was confused because they jumped in with making changes to pages that were already created. When I went back, I could tell that the pages were made with tables, so things made more sense.

Steve, thanks for sharing your css and website! It's cool to see how they relate!

Now that I'm slightly less than totally confuse, it's kind of cool!!

Thanks again!!

Mary

[Hayley]

Mary,

Are you familiar with lynda.com? It may be worth your while to join for a month or two and go through some of the videos.

http://lynda.com/

[glass addict]

Hayley,

Thanks, for the info! I'm a member and I love it! I've been watching the videos in a variety of subjects.

Thanks,
Mary