I was designing the menu pages for a client’s website.It clearly wasn’t working as I had presented it with pure css.In fact,what it needed and what the client was asking for was that the menu be displayed in (gasp) tables.
I did remember this article by 456 Berea St.
about how designers who took the css only pledge are often spiting themselves.Because what happens is we try to make a page using only css when we could style the tables with css and let the tables do what they are made to do;display tabular data. And i love code’s writer once wrote to me saying she used tables when they were needed. This also made me think. Tables could be needed? When? Where? Why? I found out while trying to set up the lines of the menu(a literal menu) so that the food was over here,the price was well over there and there was a nice,neat line break betweeen all the items.
I can show you an example of a site I just built where I realised that inserting a tiny little Table where it was needed was ok.It was more than ok, was what the site needed.I’m not sure if it is semantically correct but I skipped semantics in school,anyway. So here I am using tables. Not that I really ever got into them,before. Because I got into web site design well after the css only,ever! ravers had had their say.
What got me thinking about this issue was my personal approach to design and development. I tend to grab what I need and integrate it into my designs;applications and such…like those nifty calendars or other premade widgets. Often there seems to be no other way to present the information of a calendar…basically a grid…you know…without using tables.And everyone loves those calendars. Ok enough wiffle. I just learned that it’s ok to use what you need to use that’s all.