On Sat, 2009-05-16 at 09:15 -0400, Robert Cummings wrote: > On Sat, 2009-05-16 at 10:48 +0100, Ashley Sheridan wrote: > > On Sat, 2009-05-16 at 02:25 -0400, Paul M Foster wrote: > > > On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 01:25:42PM -0400, PJ wrote: > > > > > > > I know of no better place to ask. This may not be strictly a PHP issue, > > > > but... > > > > I am busting my hump trying to format rather large input pages with CSS > > > > and trying to avoid tables; but it looks to me like I am wasting my time > > > > as positioning with CSS seems an impossibly tortuous exercise. I've > > > > managed to do some pages with CSS, but I feel like I am shooting myself > > > > in the foot or somewhere... > > > > Perhaps I am too demanding. I know that with tables, the formatting is > > > > ridiculously fast. > > > > Any thoughts, observations or recommendations? > > > > > > I think it's pretty telling that on a list of professionals who create > > > websites constantly, the overwhelming concensus is that for forms, > > > tables are the preferred solution. > > > > > > I liken this sort of discussion to the dichotomy between movie critics > > > and people who actually go and see movies. The critics inevitably have > > > all sorts of snobby things to say about the movies which are best > > > attended. I'm not sure why anyone listens to any critic on any subject. > > > > > > Paul > > > > > > -- > > > Paul M. Foster > > > > > I think the argument of tables vs css can go a little deeper too. These > > days, sites should not only be developed with good clean code that > > validates, but semantic markup. If your client doesn't like/know what > > this is, just give it to them in terms of seo! > > FWIW, everything I've read indicates that tables don't affect SEO. > > Cheers, > Rob. > -- > http://www.interjinn.com > Application and Templating Framework for PHP > > SEO is not the be and end all. Accessibility is a legal thing in many countries; UK and Australia especially (they are the two most prominent I know) so there's no excuse for shoddy coding. I'm not saying that using tables inevitably leads to that, but more often than not, tables are used in such a way that the reading of a page is wrong because the elements appear in the code in the wrong order, even though they visually appear correct. It's not the responsibility of the speech/Braille browsers to interpret code designed for a seeing user. They should only have to interpret semantics. Rob; sorry, this isn't a pop at you, I just wanted to explain to anyone who got hooked too much onto the SEO line you mentioned. I agree with you in that respect though, I've never seen any evidence for tables having any impact on SEO, and I've done a lot of SEO research! Ash www.ashleysheridan.co.uk -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
