I have always though that (and do) when you design a website, you use tables to create the layout. I use dreamweaver, and when i want to create a site i just you the insert table feature, and add the appropriate number of cells and columns.
I was on a web design forum and came across a post that said something about know one using tables anymore, and the latest sites are all xhtml (instead of html), and the layouts are designed using css. I had always thought css was just used for the colour, font, mouse over effect, etc on a hyperlink (this is what i have used it for in the past).
Is it still ok to design a site using tables? Do most of the top websites use tables or css?
Where can i get an introduction on desiging site layouts with css?
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Yes ! major site have all changed their site to scemantique html and css style. Use CSS for style and HTML for content instead of mixing both in a HTML file mean a lot. Your design will degreace gracefully in older browser. Your design will be easier to maintain and use a lot less bandwidth (and by the side more speed). Easier to optimize for search engine like google. When you change some style you don’t even need to touch HTML you can change every color and image in CSS.
HTML was created to store the data (content) of the website only.
All the style, color, image which are a part of the design go to the CSS.
You can use HTML 4.01 or XHTML both are fine. XHTML are HTML over XML and offer very small advantage. Content served as application/xhtml+xml instead of text/html.
Good (x)html & css pratice :
http://www.csszengarden.com/
http://www.htmldog.com/
Yes!!
As browsers have increased their support for CSS, there has been a signficant shift away from table-based design. Tables were never designed for presentation, and only became the standard method of doing so because the CSS support of earlier browsers was pretty shoddy.
Some sites use tables essentially because it’s the quickest way from point A to point B. Because Internet Explorer has several rendering bugs when it comes to CSS, it is a lot of extra work to write special style rules for Internet Explorer to render pages correctly. The work is worth it in the end (in my humble opinion) as you end up with a site which has a lot less markup and is MUCH easier to maintain. As well, often times table based sites are not easily accessible to visually impared people who access the internet using screen readers.
An excellent place to start would be http://www.sitepoint.com . They have a few helpful books on CSS and tableless design. Also, try google.. http://www.google.com/search?q=css+based+layout&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8
plenty of useful info there!
As well, you may want to check out http://www.sitepoint.com, They have some good books on CSS layout. Also, check out http://www.csszengarden.com . It is a very good example of css based layout, and is a great demonstration of seperating presentation from design
CSS is the tool that most professional web designers use to create pages. Tables are still used occasionally, but CSS is the norm. A great web site to check out all things design and css is http://www.alistapart.com