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GWT also uses tables for layout extensively in its compiled output. I dont think its an ugly hack, as long as you can learn and work around ambiguities with tab
by jsjenkins168 19y ago
GWT also uses tables for layout extensively in its compiled output. I dont think its an ugly hack, as long as you can learn and work around ambiguities with table cell height between browsers.
But then I guess that is all part of exploratory programming.
- tlrobinson 19y agoTables for layout is awful in terms accessibility and semantics, among other things. Tables are meant for tabular data, and when you use them for layout it breaks those semantics, which in turn makes it much harder for screen readers to make sense out of it. It's also just ugly, in my opinion.
- anewaccountname 19y agoName one screen reader that handles divs and doesn't handle tables.
- pius 19y agoMost screen readers handle both. The problem is that screen readers will attempt to read the contents of tables as if they were tabular data. (Surprise, surprise. :P) This turns out to be a relatively poor user experience.
- olavk 19y agoIt is a trade off. If you want to support Internet Explorer, some kinds of layout are not easily achievable without using tables. W3C cannot be blamed for the deficiencies of IE though, so I'm not sure if this is what PG is alluding to.
- Hexstream 19y agoAgreed, in fact if everyone used tables for tabular data only, we could have nice browser-supplied column-reordering and row resorting, I think. Right now that kind of thing is intractable because there's no easy way to distinguish a table-for-data from a table-for-layout. I think it could be cool to have some way of putting something in your page HEAD that means: "In this page, tables are used exclusively for tabular data: you can activate your reordering features".