8 times out of ten when I commit to do a new project it’s usually an already built site that the client wants updated. Usually they think they don’t need or want a full redesign but invariably when I start reviewing the files and documents I find a rats nest of tables.I simply do not understand the designer working today who uses these outdated methods! I’m starting to think it’s sheer laziness on their part. Maybe it’s the use of outdated and discontinued designer software like Frontpage,who knows? Maybe they learned their skills in the mid ninetees when there wasn’t much use of CSS or much attention paid to standards.
I had to use tables for a job recently because the client specifically requested them.I probably could have recreated the same effect with some suave list styling and the client woulda been none the wiser.But I had given the project enough of my time and it was a last minute request and so I relented.I realised that even if I didn’t like to use them in this one particular case it was ok because it was tabular information.Tubular!
So this latest paying gig is for a site built in February 2007.Not 1997. It’s chockfull of tables and unvalidatable because there’s no doctype and even if there were there’s some crazy javascript blocking everything anyway. I had to upload a page to my own server just to make sure it was valid.
I’m very proud of myself for creating a layout for this site with CSS because it wasn’t easy to do. Each new page I have to make consists of 2-3 thumbnails on each side of one large pic. I’m fairly new to floats,I’ve only been using them for six months but I don’t know how I got along with out them. With this layout, to achieve the effect I wanted, I had to float one set of thumbnails to the right,place the large image in a margin 0 auto fixed width and fluid height div and the left set of thumbs div could just hang out. The right floated div had to go first in the source then the left thumbs div and then the center image div. I found this out just by experimenting.
This layout I designed is going to seriously help me design future sites,especially ones for e commerce because it is perfect for a catalog layout.