The CSS Debate: When Dinosaurs Attack!
Comments: 13
I’ve been surprised to see a bit of life left in the CSS versus tables debate recently (OK, maybe I shouldn’t call it “life” ;-). If you want my 2¢ (on a subject which is over for this little black duck), people are missing an important point: it’s not an either/or proposition.
Garret illustrates this on dangerousmeta today:
i see dave’s still discussing xhtml/css advocacy. have some fun … the ‘userland calendar’ is one of the most excellent tools for teaching the limitations of table-less xhtml/css. try recreating the calendar so it displays cross-browser [ie, moz, ns, opera, konq, etc.], in proportional fonts, with less ‘weight’ than a simple table construction. you won’t succeed. crushing failure makes one grouchy, mean … and ultimately, quite humble. it’s a great exercise, overall.
Both approaches have limitations, of course, and as as an exercise in identifying some of those associated with CSS, a calendar is not a bad example. But tables are fine for calendars because calendars contain tabular data.
Use tables for tabular data, folks, that’s what they’re for!
(By the way, calendars may be good examples of using the right tools for the job, but, for me at least, they’re lousy ways of navigating archival content. Haven’t quite put my finger on why, but I’ve never liked them.)
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Posted to MetaStuff • 2003.05.06 (Tue) • 09:35
Comments
Posted by James B. 2003.05.06, 10:02
Because few people think in terms of specific dates. People think in terms of subject matter or in wide dates, ie “Last Month” not January 7th, 1999. imho of course.
Posted by sam 2003.05.06, 11:01
You are exactly right. Tables are just fine for tabular data. People have a tendency to think in black and white, and this is no different.
Posted by jazer 2003.05.06, 11:15
The problem with calendars, I believe, is that they offer no content on first glance, much like having a home page that is just a list of links to other stuff.
By having a plain tabular calendar, you are assuming that a user will say to themself “Gee, I wonder what’s happening on the 8th of May!” and then click there to find out. Better to give them a few things to look at, and then an option to click for more… if they want.
Posted by sam 2003.05.06, 11:36
More effective than a calender, in my opinion, is a short list of ‘recent entries’ coupled with a list of categories organized by date. Also, I find blogs that have short lists of ‘similar entries’ next to each entry makes for a nice entry to previous postings. If I’m interested in the subject matter of a post, I can instantly read a few other entries that are similar, regardless of date.
Posted by Phil RIngnalda 2003.05.06, 11:55
Whether or not calendars are useful weblog navigation tools (I hate little ‘just a number’ calendars, but love full-page calendars with entry titles), the default UserLand calendar is actually a lovely example of the benefits of CSS, and one I’ve used several times. Assuming that the scripting.com calendar is pretty much the default, in order to specify a background color, font size, text-align, and one of two colors, it repeats the td bgcolor, a font tag, and a center tag for every single day, rather than just having <td class=”linked”> and <td class=”unlinked”>. To my mind, that sort of “CSS is function calls for HTML” example is a perfect way to evangelize CSS for programmers.
Posted by gregory 2003.05.06, 19:31
I have a kind of mixed feeling about calendars. I’ve been thinking of how the one of my site works and how I find it difficult to work with when I’m looking for some post that I know I made in the last month. I’ve been trying to think of a good way to do a browse by week feature, since I’m thinking a week probably gives a nice big set of stuff to browse through without being a month, which would definitely be way too much. The question then becomes do you offer daily listings? I’m thinking not at the moment.
Posted by Adam Rice 2003.05.07, 00:44
Phil is spot-on. I long ago discarded the calendar from my blog as superfluous, but I’ve been thinking that a calendar view that actually shows what I’ve been writing and when might be interesting.
Posted by jh 2003.05.07, 01:05
Mena Trott used to do a nice big calendar on dollarshort.org (I think) but I just went looking for it and couldn’t find it.
Phil —- thanks for mentioning the use of CSS to style tables. I had that in mind and neglected to mention it. Wasn’t going to take it as far as “a perfect way to evangelize CSS for programmers” (simply for lack of developing the thought) but you’re perfectly right —- I hope.
Posted by Stephanie 2003.05.07, 01:17
I don’t think Mena uses this anymore, but it’s at http://dollarshort.org/days/.
I’ve kept the thumbnail calendar on my sidebar as a gateway to the larger calendar view. As anything else, it’s useless.
Posted by dowingba 2003.05.08, 09:20
My weblog has a “just numbers” calendar as well as a list of titles organized by date (no categories, just each individual entry title). I find the calendar useful just as a quick statistical reference to see how often I post. I don’t expect anyone to click on the number to see the ‘day view’. It makes it look as though I’ve been working real hard when you see a whole month full of seemingly random numbers, some days have 8 or 9 entries.
The weblog is hosted on Blurty.com, one of those free journal services, so I don’t get the most freedom with how it’s set up. The calendar view is just a default feature that I never bothered to get rid of.
Posted by Mark 2003.05.13, 00:16
Full-screen calendars in Movable Type (heavily inspired by Mena’s old calendar)
Also relevant:
Posted by Karl Dubost 2003.09.09, 10:28
Calendar are tabular data and list too :)
Posted by imran 2005.11.04, 08:31
Hi
Please can any one help me to manage a stick up footer on the website for IE 5.0 +. Its designed in CSS or JavaScript or Both.
As you can see 1 on http://www.bmw.co.uk . Any kind of help is highly appriciated.
thanks
Imran Hashmi http://www.visionstudio.co.uk
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