Gradient Backgrounds in IE/FF - Page 2 - Overclock.net

lattyware · 08-26-08

1) You need a Doctype Declaration - that tells the browser what it is it is rendering. Is it HTML? XHTML? What version?

2) Tables for layout are disgusting, CSS for Style and Layout, (X)HTML for markup.

OasisGames · 08-26-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by lattyware

2) Tables for layout are disgusting, CSS for Style and Layout, (X)HTML for markup.

Tsk tsk. This is one of the most heavily debated subjects in all of web coding. Or it was, until it finally died ending with 'to each his own'. It all depends on what you're trying to layout. Though, yeah, what he's doing would best be done with a <div>...

lattyware · 08-26-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by OasisGames

Tsk tsk. This is one of the most heavily debated subjects in all of web coding. Or it was, until it finally died ending with 'to each his own'. It all depends on what you're trying to layout. Though, yeah, what he's doing would best be done with a <div>...

I'm sorry, what?

Tables are for tabulated data. Using them for layout can cause major accessability problems, not to mention disgusting, unmaintainable code which is hard to deal with. There are no advantages. It's slightly easier if you have never used CSS for layout, but that's just laziness.

Highly-Annoyed · 08-26-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by lattyware

1) You need a Doctype Declaration - that tells the browser what it is it is rendering. Is it HTML? XHTML? What version?

2) Tables for layout are disgusting, CSS for Style and Layout, (X)HTML for markup.

You know, it's weird, I've never used the doctype declaration. I'd never even heard of it until this thread. Yet, despite it's utter absence from every wed site I've created, I've never had a problem loading those sites in IE6, IE7 or FF... If the doctype is required, how come web pages work without it?

As for laying stuff out with tables. Well, I've never done anything else. I barely ever use CSS at all, unless it's to solve a problem I can't find a solution to any other way. As I said earlier, I'm not educated in web design at all. I've just taught myself as I went along and have just used what seemed most logical at the time, or what was easiest to get the job done.

Idk, maybe you see some kind of beauty in code, but I certainly do not. I just see it as a means to an end. I frankly don't care how elegant the code is, as long as the end result matches, or comes close to, what I want to achieve. Frankly, I'm just happy if it works, which it always has done for me in the end, even if the W3C checker might not of liked it.

To be honest, I know that a professional could achieve far greater results than I can, with a much more polished final look, with more logical, or elegant coding, but doing things my way costs me nothing and gets a result I can be satisfied with, at least in the medium term. Paying a professional would cost me a lot and to be candid, I don't think the extra money would buy me much more in the way of functionality, or looks from a site, than I really need.

Sure, it would be better to hire a pro, but cost to me could be anywhere from £200 ($400 US) to £4000 ($8000 US) for the kind of things I want. The extra impact from a professional job on the average Joe or Jane, wouldn't really correlate with the money I would have to spend to get it imo and only a coder would appreciate elegance in the code. From a small business, or personal perspective, it simply makes more sense to cobble something together that looks OK, rather than pay hundreds, or even thousands to get a pro to do the work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OasisGames

Tsk tsk. This is one of the most heavily debated subjects in all of web coding. Or it was, until it finally died ending with 'to each his own'. It all depends on what you're trying to layout. Though, yeah, what he's doing would best be done with a <div>...

LOL, like much else in this field, the controversy over this issue was something I was not aware of

.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lattyware

I'm sorry, what?

Tables are for tabulated data. Using them for layout can cause major accessability problems, not to mention disgusting, unmaintainable code which is hard to deal with. There are no advantages. It's slightly easier if you have never used CSS for layout, but that's just laziness.

Well, as I said, I'm certainly no expert, but in the few years I've been cobbling web sites together and teaching myself a few basics along the way, I've never found tables to be "unmaintainable". In fact, I find them rather easy to use as they follow a logical structure, rather like the kind of simple equations I'm used to using with spreadsheet work, where you need to use brackets to calculate financial figures etc. I also find it relatively easy to see the end result, just by looking at the tables, so that gives me a little extra guide as I code. Maybe CSS has the same kind of logical structure? I just don't know.

What do you mean by accessibility problems? Again, I've never had any issues I can think of that might fit this into this category, but perhaps I'm not interpreting what you mean correctly?

As I've said several times, I have had no education in web creation at all. Not a single minute of it. I've taught myself from scratch and just chose tables as that was all I knew about at the time. I've been using them for years and at least for what I've needed to do, I've never had any problems. When I think back to the thousands of hours I've spent making sites, I have to chuckle a little at you pronouncing me "lazy"

.

You obviously have a different attitude to me with regards to web creation. You presumably see it with some reverence, as some kind of artform perhaps? Maybe the code sings to your emotions and it's elegant efficiency delights your intellect? Perhaps, to you, my kind of low tech, cobbling is an insult to the beauty and sophistication of the code you craft with? Maybe, you see it as mathematical clay, that you deftly sculpt with respect and love into something as elegant, as it is logical? I don't know? Clearly you have some passion for it anyway

.

To me, it's simply a set of instructions that tell a browser what shapes, sizes and colours I want to appear on a screen, in what position and where I want text and pictures to appear within that framework. To me, it's a device, a vehicle through which I am able to achieve much greater things. Frankly, if my "disgusting" code, can create on the screen the same, or almost the same as some elegant code can, I don't see the difference, or care too much about it if I do.

If the result is good enough for me, what does it really matter how elegant the code is? The end user will never see the code, so other than some extra visual sophistication (most of which is lost on the average human anyway) and perhaps a few milliseconds of load time (which again, will be lost on most, if not all humans) what's the big deal about the code? From my point of view, there isn't an issue. If it works well enough for my needs, it's doing it's job. There's no real urgency for pretty code, to do the same job marginally better than "disgusting" code does; at least from my amateur perspective anyway

.

Thanks again for your input people. It's been most interesting

.

Highly-Annoyed

lattyware · 08-26-08

You think I was formally taught web design? I learnt it all by myself, online guides and the like.

Tables can cause problems for blind users using screen readers, for example - the screen reader will read the data as if it is a table. Acessability problems. Also text-based browsers, etc...

Sites work without doctypes as browsers can generally work it out, but it's good practice to put them there. It makes sure it'll work.

As to CSS vs Tables, look at the code for, as an example, this site I designed. Notice how it's human readable, and makes sense.

Now, the user may not see the code, but good code renders faster, works better cross-browser, is more readable by non standard software (screen readers, applications that use site content, text-based browsers), and is by far easier to maintain.

For example, if I wanted to change the layout of the site, I could do it by editing only the CSS, I wouldn't have to touch the XHTML. Now, with your site, you'd have to rewrite the table structure on every page.

Not only that, but technically attributes such as 'border' are depreciated - <img src="img.png" border="0px"> should be <img src="img.png" style="border: 0px;" /> - or even better, do it in an external stylesheet.

Things like the XHTML closing of tags (tags with no </> counterpart have a / in them, as seen above) make total sense. A program parsing the code would read an <img> tag and go searching for a </img> tag - which it'd never find and fail.

There are other things. <b> and <i> tags to bold and italicise are depreciated - What does a screen reader do when it comes across a bolded word, what exactly does bold mean? <em> (emphasis) tags should be used, and styled as you want with CSS - then a screen reader (or any other software) knows exactly what is needed. CSS tells it how to display it when drawn to a screen.

Using CSS/XHTML properly to create valid and good code is faster and easier for the web developer, and better for all end users.

Sure, most of your end users might not use alternate browsers, be they graphical, text or audio based, but why not design to a high standard when it is actually easier? You don't need to be a pro to write good code, you just need to look around and use the correct stuff.

*dangerousHobo* · 08-26-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by lattyware

Things like the XHTML closing of tags (tags with no </> counterpart have a / in them, as seen above) make total sense. A program parsing the code would read an <img> tag and go searching for a </img> tag - which it'd never find and fail.

Using CSS/XHTML properly to create valid and good code is faster and easier for the web developer, and better for all end users.

One thing to watch for is with the script tag. You need to end it with </> if its in the head. Because while it is valid XHTML it will not work in FF.

Using CSS/XHTML is defiantly easier to maintain for a front-end web developer. I have horror story I could tell about some ugly written sites I've been handed at my job.

Also you need to declare a type for your style and script tags.

EX)

Code:

<head>
		 
<!--[if IE]>
<style type="text/css">

body {filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Gradient(endColorstr='#FFFFFF', startColorstr='#000000', gradientType='0');}

</style>	
<![endif]-->

</head>

OasisGames · 08-26-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by lattyware

I'm sorry, what?

Tables are for tabulated data. Using them for layout can cause major accessability problems, not to mention disgusting, unmaintainable code which is hard to deal with. There are no advantages. It's slightly easier if you have never used CSS for layout, but that's just laziness.

I'm sorry, but what does vBulletin, Invision, phpBB, phpNuke, and every other piece of forum software (mine included) have in common? They use tables for layouts. Why? Because using a <div> for this stuff doesn't make sense. And this isn't just the (non-)tabulated data of a set of forum posts, but also menus, headers, and footers.

I'd also like to note that the days-of-old when mobile browsers didn't support tables are starting to come to an end.

Also, +1 to XHTML <... /> tags making perfect sense.

lattyware · 08-26-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by OasisGames

I'm sorry, but what does vBulletin, Invision, phpBB, phpNuke, and every other piece of forum software (mine included) have in common? They use tables for layouts. Why? Because using a <div> for this stuff doesn't make sense. And this isn't just the (non-)tabulated data of a set of forum posts, but also menus, headers, and footers.

I'd also like to note that the days-of-old when mobile browsers didn't support tables are starting to come to an end.

Also, +1 to XHTML <... /> tags making perfect sense.

Why? Because they are written lazily, and also, forums are sort of tabulated data.

Still, the bact remains that CSS should be used for layout and styling - the separation of content and layout/style makes sense.

In theory, CSS has table layout stuff, so stuff that should be layed out as a table, but is not tabulated data (e.g.: a forum), problem is browsers don't have the support yet.

Tables for layout with forums is veugly-but-soon-to-be-redunant-and-yet-grudgingly-acceptable, tables for layout of the average site is an abomination.

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