Very Basic HTML question

[murraybiscuit]

if you want to do this again, declare the html5 doctype and use a css reset to get the pixels lined up across browsers.
start here: http://html5boilerplate.com/

the issue with tables is semantic. tables can work as layout elements, but they are overkill and don't make sense from a search and accessibility pov. use tables for tabular data. you also can't regulate cellspacing as a css property (harder to reset tables across browsers). if you're going to be griping about semantics, you'd better make sure the rest of your structure is semantic.

that said, there's certain things which divs just don't do as simply as a table from a markup/rendering point of view: auto-expanding column heights, and replicating tab stops in text come to mind.

[murraybiscuit]

look start with the design layout of the site. go for tables, avoid layers. as layers can only be used for temporary site designs, that you will only need later on in website design. then start of with a big table and then continue putting more tables into tables with make life very easy when you edit the site later. you can work with tags , selecting each region making sure the layout if fine. then start putting logos , data , forms into that sections. the best web design program out is Microsoft Expression 4 SP1 update. cheers, metrohub.

thanks for warning me about this app. i'll make sure to give it a wide berth

[Murdoc]

if you want to do this again, declare the html5 doctype and use a css reset to get the pixels lined up across browsers.
start here: http://html5boilerplate.com/

the issue with tables is semantic. tables can work as layout elements, but they are overkill and don't make sense from a search and accessibility pov. use tables for tabular data. you also can't regulate cellspacing as a css property (harder to reset tables across browsers). if you're going to be griping about semantics, you'd better make sure the rest of your structure is semantic.

that said, there's certain things which divs just don't do as simply as a table from a markup/rendering point of view: auto-expanding column heights, and replicating tab stops in text come to mind.

love html5boilerplate, I usually use html5shiv rather than modernizer but I diffently need to use modernizer!
And yes I am a purist, I like to think so. I can however understand why so many(usually hardcore backend) developers prefer tables. And it is IE to blame. Floats, haslayout , inline-block all require so much learning to find out why somethings looks the way it does in IE.

jQuery have made a bold move, apparantly from jQuery 2.0 there will be NO support of IE6,7 this comes along with Microsoft announcing window updates will include/force users to update to atleast ie8.
Still though ,so much css3 goodness thats not even supported in ie9 (css transitions)(
Front end can be such a ball ache, but in a world with no ie, man o man would i have so much moar fun

[phaktza]

DIV and CSS all the way

Agreed.