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Posted by dorayme on 05/30/06 22:38
In article
<doraymeRidThis-A11655.07304431052006@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,
dorayme <doraymeRidThis@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> In article
> <1149013165.387351.198360@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> "Adrienne Boswell" <arbpen@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Beauregard T. Shagnasty wote:
> > > Adrienne Boswell wrote:
> > >
> > > > I am redoing a site and I have some data that was originally in list
> > > > form, and I am thinking that it should be for a table. Would someone
> > > > take a look
> > > > <http://atlas.nextblock.com/files/beta2/categories.asp?st=100&zip=18>?
> > > > I am interested in the categories, should these be in a table or
> > > > three UL columns? Is this really tabular data, or is it three lists?
> > >
> > > Tables are
> > >
> > > Name Address City State/Province Postal Code Telephone ...
> > >
> >
> > Thank you. I knew that, but, I wanted to make sure. Four eyes are
> > better than two.
>
> The point about the example of name, address
> etc is that these categories form a class of attributes that
> apply to individuals. The individual can be understood to have
> all the attributes on a row. There is nothing, for example, that
> Accessories, American and Accounting applies to that is being
> conveyed by these lists
And it is really more general than this... there needs to be a
relationship between the cells which the structure of the table
conveys. The relationship can be internal: Product, size, colour,
cost etc. I call this internal because the first col might name
or describe the individual to which the other cols assign
attributes. But there are other more subtle things that tables
can do, the individual that ties a set of properties might be
understood rather than named as an item. Likely clusters of
symptoms that are life threatening, each row displaying the
cluster across the cols, in each of which is a type of attribute
(eg., blood type). The individual here is something more
abstract, true - folk at risk of something or other...
I doubt that there is any definition of what a table "really" is
that would capture all the things everyone would reasonably want.
But there are paradigm cases. And, of course, use of them for
layout is just too far from these paradigms for folks around here
to stomach...
--
dorayme
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