On Feb 10, 11:30 am, John Joyce <dangerwillrobinsondan... / gmail.com> wrote: > On Feb 8, 2008, at 9:14 PM, Trans wrote: > > > > > > > On Feb 8, 2:20 pm, Dan Yoder <d... / zeraweb.com> wrote: > >>> But according to > >>> http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F% > >>> 2Fwww.rubywaves.com%2F > >>> you should avoid /> in HTML 4.01 strict. > > >> are there any browsers that actually interpret /> per the spec? i've > >> always just ignored that. > > >> it appears the underlying problem is related to the way some versions > >> of firefox calculate the offset dimensions of block elements. the way > >> it is laying out the page suggests that it doesn't think it has > >> enough room to put the main content and the sidebar side-by-side. > >> although ie6, opera, safari, and mac / windows ff2 don't agree. > > >> anyway. i will take this off-line since it has nothing to do with > >> ruby. > > >> thanks again for everyone's help and suggestions. > > > one suggestion... use tables and forget about it. all the drivel about > > the superiority of divs mean squat in the face of practical realities. > > > T. > > Well, I'd like to add to that. The argument against tables is often > an irrational one, but not completely. > The idea, is that using semantic divs for layouts is more flexible > and more accessible (for screen readers and such) > Tables are more brittle and make the code itself harder to read. No way are they are more brittle --it's divs that are more brittle. I've seen many a site screwed-up because of messed up divs. To me divs are beneficial in some of the ways you mention, but they were designed rather poorly I think. It boggles my mind that it effectively pushes us back to using absolute sizes all over the place --and then we end up with things like Blueprint --one monstrosity on top of another. Do developers like torture or what? > Tables on the other hand, are certainly easier to do layouts with, > but there are plenty of raw recipes out there using CSS to create div > based layouts. > Tables are appropriate when the CDATA (character data) makes sense as > a table. > All of that is just suggestions anyway. Ultimately you can do > whatever you like that works. > You could use spans and make them display:block; in CSS. You have to measure ROI. You can spend a whole day getting divs working the way you want. Just spend 10 minutes making it a table. And it can be worse. Case in point, Waves' site has been broken for a week now. Just use tables and get it fixed --you can always come back and redo it with divs when you have the time. > You can avoid CSS altogether and just use HTML containing all of the > presentational markup, but it's tougher to maintain. Well that's silly. Declarative stylization is hugely beneficial regardless of whether you use divs or tables for layout. > The biggest problem with tables for layout is that people are often > trying to approximate print document layouts that are fixed and > controlled, but the reality with html is that you must be flexible > and accept the fact that different user-agents (browsers) will render > things differently and that users can resize text in most browsers > and that they all have different possible screen sizes/window sizes. > The main philosophy of div based layouts is that you should give up > trying to exercise complete control of the presentation of the > document in html. > > Tables will do hideous things when designed for one platform in pixel- > based sizes... Why would you do that? You can size your table in % not px. T.