Stop with the Tables.
I’ve been working on a project for a jeweller, bringing their online catalog into the 21st century with some help from oscommerance, unfortunately the application still suffers from a 20th century relic.
Tables.
Tables are for data, not layouts, it should be as simple as that. But I still come across far to many site put together with tables, and not just sites from 5 years ago but sites being constructed today using tables for layout and presentation. Is it because people just haven’t heard the call of the wild CSS, or are they too reliant on WYSIWYG’s that code tables for them? Probably both, but I suspect it leans harder on the latter.
It’s almost unthinkable now, but when I started out I too relied on tables for layouts, and the transition to CSS was a long and hard road. There are so many benefits from using CSS based layout over tables, from making your pages load faster, to lower your hosting costs, and even search engine optimization that now I look back and wish I had known and resisted less when the time came to stop with the tables.
I attempted in vain to try to convert the table layout into a css driven machine, but it has so far proven fruitless and exasperating. Tables nested everywhere, so unnessicarily, doing absolutely nothing. It’s driving me insane to be honest, and I don’t think I can deal with it much longer before just giving up and using their archaic table layout. The only ray of hope I’ve seen from oscommerance is that a new version is being developed that no longer uses tables. But installing a beta on a clients site isn’t something I’m too gun hoe about; and I’m sure you may mention some other software that you prefer over OSC, but I’ve considered the major players and stuck it out with this one.
So when did you stop using tables or why are you still?
p.s. I’m looking for people interested in me reviewing their blogs in one of my future articles. Leave a comment if you are interested.
Jamie Harrop | October 27th, 2007 at 4:35 pm #
By ‘oscommerance’, I trust you mean ‘Oscommerce’, John?
Just to clear up John’s point, because we all know every blogger isn’t a hard core Web developer like some of us…
Tables, in Web development, are intended for tabular data. Tabular data, for example, is a list of exam results. Something that uses rows and columns, with each row having a relationship to the column. A table of race results, as another example.
Over time, tables ended up being used for full Web site development, which is very bad practice for the reasons that John stated (and he only stated a small proportion of the reasons).
I stopped using tables… wait… I *never* stopped using tables, because I still use tables today for displaying tabular data (this is perfectly acceptable and is correct in every way). Time for a re-phrase… I stopped using tables for full Web development and just tabular data about three years ago. It was the best breath of fresh air I’ve had in my six years of being a Web developer.
John, I’ll never turn somebody away who wants to review my blog. If you’re interested, please get in touch via my form on my site.
LGR | October 27th, 2007 at 4:47 pm #
I stopped using tables for layout when I started back fulltime in web design again. I have to admit though that when I am working with a program such as ‘Oscommerce’ or Joomla and I just need to get the job done I will fall back to using tables. The clients don’t usually care, they just want the job done as quickly as possible.
Martin | October 27th, 2007 at 4:53 pm #
I have a blog you can review:
MartinLaritz.com
It’s kind of new, and I do not update it as much as I should, but that should be changing.
Chris Coyier | October 27th, 2007 at 5:33 pm #
I’d be honored to be considered for a review =).
http://css-tricks.com
Regarding tables:
I have fought a similar battle lately. I have a client using Pinnacle Cart eCommerce software, which is actually decently nice and has a lot of useful features, but uses a table-based layout. The layout just absolutely sucks and control over much of it is hard-won.
CubeCart is an alternative that is not only free (or much cheaper if you buy it to remove the copyright), and is a very decent CSS layout. Seems like a no-brainer, but CubeCart lacks a ton of the nice features and usability of Pinnacle Cart.
In the end I ended up staying with Pinnacle Cart and really muscling in design control the best I could. The best solution was to just design a nice “shell” and drop the entire “store” within the shell.
J.D. | October 27th, 2007 at 5:38 pm #
Honestly, using profits from my website, I’ve just picked up Adobe CS3 Web Premium and am teaching myself CSS and Dreamweaver from that. I remember tables vaguely, but was never that far into web development that I used them.
From what it looks like, Dreamweaver has a nice little CSS editor.
And of course, I’d love a review. Who wouldn’t?
Lori | October 27th, 2007 at 6:06 pm #
I would love an honest review of my blog. It’s under 2mths old but has just given a PR 4:)
And, I don’t even know what tables are really
Just a country girl here!
Althaf Ahmed | October 27th, 2007 at 6:25 pm #
Hello,
Thanks for the article and the review offer. I understand that there are 3 people ahead of me who have requested for review. If there any space left, can I request a review of my blog at http://www.myblogpost.com ?
Thank you
Althaf
Hafiz | October 27th, 2007 at 6:45 pm #
wow Lori amazing, a pr 4 for a blog under 2 months old! Same age as my blog which is pr 0! But its okay I’m taking things slowly for now, not in any rush. Anyway I don’t see any tables on your site so you’re already on a great start.
Other than that, your site faces the same problem as mine, the loading time is horrible.
I had a problem with tables too. There is no way I want to have tables on my site as firstly its bad for SEO and secondly it slows down the loading time of the site. When I first started building my site, I was thinking of using Drupal or Joomla. I’ve spent weeks trying to learn how to make templates with these 2 CMS. The template engine is horrible as it produce alot of tables! Sadly to say I’ve wasted weeks on these 2 CMS, I should have just started with Wordpress.
With that said, how about a review of my slow loading (even though table-less) and not many posts site? Any extra exposure is welcome.
Keith Dsouza | October 27th, 2007 at 11:38 pm #
I too do not use tables at all, I redesigned my blog to use CSS layouts only, tables are a lot of headache.
On the other hand I would be glad if you would review my blog
talia | October 28th, 2007 at 12:53 am #
Personally I am into simplifying all my blogs as much as possible. When I started I was using tables to center things, I know that is so sad, but I didn’t know any better and it took soooo long to do one post. Thank goodness I have learned!
Althaf Ahmed | October 28th, 2007 at 1:02 am #
Hafiz, I dont know what you will say. I got PR4 for my blog that is just 27 days old.
Kevin | October 28th, 2007 at 5:20 am #
I have actually used tables to display the authors on blogging tips at the side of the home page. I did try to get it looking right with css but I couldnt get it looking right on all browsers. I told myself I would try and get it working with CSS later but I havent got round to it. Of course, I’m sure it can be done with CSS however whilst I know CSS, I’m not an expert.
Rhys | October 28th, 2007 at 5:55 am #
I stopped using tables around 3 or 4 years ago, ironically when I switched to blogging with Wordpress. Wordpress at the time did use tables for layouts, it was only in the 1.0 release that it switched.
And of course I’m interested in getting my blog reviewed. Been going for over 5 years now, adn would love to have feedback
srinivasan | October 28th, 2007 at 10:59 am #
mine is a 5 month old blog.
interested in getting it reviewed.
zparacha | October 28th, 2007 at 12:09 pm #
I just started blogging few days ago. I’ll be thrilled to be considered for a review.
http://www.zparacha.com/blog
Travis | October 28th, 2007 at 12:21 pm #
John, thanks for sharing your rant with us! I’ll take it as a warning to stay far away from tables (for layouts, anyway).
I’d be thrilled to get my blog reviewed. It’s less than 2 months old, and I write about blogging, entrepreneurship, and marketing, with some other stuff sprinkled in here and there.
Just a friendly note, you might want to update the Availability date on your site’s home page - it’s a tad out of date :wink:.
Nathan Chapman | October 28th, 2007 at 11:44 pm #
Hey John. I’ve been following your site for many months now, and this is easily one of the best things posted. The message about tables should really be getting through to people by now, especially businesses. Take Amazon.com’s new re-design. They’re still (stupidly) using tables for their content layout. Hmm… you’d think Amazon.com could afford to hire some good design professionals.
Also, I would very much appreciate it if you could review my blog (the one I am linked to).
Thanks, Nathan