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Posted by Andrι Gillibert on 11/05/07 22:30
Ed Jensen wrote:
>
> Speaking from the viewpoint of a USER of the web rather than from the
> viewpoint of a DEVELOPER of web sites:
>
> I prefer web sites built with table-based layouts. I have trouble
> reading the tiny, tiny fonts that are all the rage on the web these
> days. I almost always increase the font size a step or two.
>
> Table-based layouts seem to handle my font size increases without any
> problems (for the most part).
>
> CSS-based layouts seem to have trouble handling my font size
> increases. This usually results in sections overlapping other
> sections and, in many cases, some sections being completely obscured.
> Sometimes, sections even vanish entirely, apparently being rendered
> into some kind of void.
>
Now, I'll talk about my recent user experience.
I used to access to two Web BBS.
The first one (site X) uses an awful table layout + some small bits of
very bad CSS.
The second one (site Y) uses CSS (+ tables for tabular data) with many
non-semantic nested DIV whose only purpose is CSS styling.
Both are a logical structure mess, though the first one is much worse than
the second one.
site Y has a fixed layout: Fixed font size, fixed font family, fixed
width. It assumes a 800 px window width. Unfortunately I often have a left
panel and I don't always maximize my windows, which reduce the window
width to fewer than 800 px.
site X has a more fluid layout. I can use a left panel without getting a
horizontal scroll bar.
Both sites have a bad layout, full of useless decorations, navigation bars
and stuff that clutter the interface.
Without user CSS, I would've slightly prefered the layout of site X.
Since I liked both sites content (as opposed to structure and
presentation), I invested resources in styling them.
For site Y, in a few hours, I removed all the fixed widths. I removed all
the navbars and I replaced fixed position divisions with floating
divisions. With !important rules in my user CSS, I got a fluid, pretty
layout.
This was possible thanks to the ID and CLASS attributes of every HTML
element.
For site X, I tried for hours to find CSS selectors specifically
identifying some parts of the site. Combining direct child selectors,
attribute selectors and adjacent selectors. I knew that any tiny
modification in the site would break my user CSS. But, even with those
complex CSS selectors, I couldn't select things accurately enough. I gave
up.
For instance, one of the very few CSS classes used was "smallfont". It was
used for everywhere for unrelated things.
Eventually, site X got yet another 18 kilobytes navigation bar, full of
inline style. e.g. The style "color: #fff; font-size: 9px; font-family:
arial,verdana,helvetica; text-decoration: none;" duplicated for every list
item element (approximatively 100 elements).
site X became far too cr*ppy for my preferences. I don't use it anymore.
site Y is now perfectly styled. I use it daily.
Conclusions:
1) 99% of the Web s*cks.
2) A CSS based layout, with not too illogical class names (e.g. "forumnav"
rather than "smallfont"), is easier to control manually through a user CSS.
3) Inline style is not better than the FONT element.
4) A "smallfont" class used everywhere for anything isn't better than
inline style.
5) You can get the worst of both worlds (table layout and CSS) if you're a
bad designer.
> But the fact of the matter
> is, if a tool makes it hard to do things right, then the tool should
> probably be considered fundamentally broken.
>
It isn't hard to do things right. It is easy to do things wrong, because
it's easy to do things.
A language learnt without any manual or whith manuals who where written by
people who never read the specifications, can be used by novice people who
produce bad code.
Anyway, with your argument, all computer technologies are fundamentally
broken. Statement with which I wouldn't really disagree. :)
Since this usenet group is about HTML authoring, it would be on topic to
figure which way is better for an expert programmer who read
specifications.
I know that a novice will write very bad code with table layouts and
equally bad (or worst) code with CSS.
But, I'm not novice, and I assume that a large (non-negligible) part of
alt.html members aren't novice.
In that case, a question can be raised: What must I use if I've a brain?
Examples of cr*ppy code mustn't be used to answer. Examples of good code
must be given.
The question: "I don't have a brain, and I want to style my page, what
must I use?", makes sense too, and should be answered separately.
--
If you've a question that doesn't belong to Usenet, contact me at
<tabkanDELETETHISnaz@yahoDELETETHATo.fr>
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