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.
Tag: valid xhtml
Proof?
I was talking to a friend who was into computers way back when most of us didn’t know what to do with them, who told me he had made a few websites,one devoted to his cat Wokbait,with Dreamweaver. I told him I just use Notepad and he exclaimed you know how to code HTML and CSS?!?! I said yup, I learned the old school way. Which is how I know how stuff works. Well he was impressed. I keep seeing ads for jobs stating that the use of big design software like Dreamweaver is a requirement for the position. Not just use, proficiency. I always wonder what the difference is: if I know how to do what Dreamweaver will do for me by myself, does that mean I am proficient? No, because I am not proficient with using Dreamweaver to design websites.
Anyway, even if I can code by hand I am sure there are things Dreamweaver can do that I can’t. I just haven’t seemed to need it’s help so far. Also I’m not as against this kind of helper program as I used to be because a lot of people who do know how to handcode use it just to make their work faster.