Definitely. Always go slow when you learn something new, and get a good foundation in what you are learning. Then, once you are really strong with the basics, start playing with the advanced stuff. Pretty much the best way to learn most things.

The basic funda is learn the basic and dont try to go too deep.

sushant shah
http://www.imediaacademy.com

No negative reaction here — I completely agree with most of what you said.

There is nothing wrong with using tables. There is a LOT wrong with using tables incorrectly. Tables are for data. Period. Tables were never intended to be used for layout. When used for layout, they cause many problems. When used for data, as they should be, they work marvelously. This article is talking about tableless layout, but perhaps I should write one about how to use tables within content properly.

If it is a bit slower sometimes to go the completely standards route, but you nailed it when you summarized that ultimately you have more layout control. There is a learning curve to be an up-to-date web designer, and I think that anyone who is not constantly learning new techniques and perfecting their talent is phasing themselves out of the business.

I understand your desire to caution people about using tableless layout, and your reference to certain browsers. A completely standard layout can, however, be done cross-browser with little or no hacking. I have done this repeatedly with my templates because I despise hacks. Again, its just about learning curve. If you force yourself to learn how to do it properly the first time, and not be satisfied until it is working the way you want, then you will learn more than if you start searching Google for hacks the first time you hit a snag.

You are right, tables are not going away! Hopefully, what will go away eventually are designs created using tables for layout, and the designers that make them without attempting to learn more.

~Nicole

Does anyone remember the industry wide push against Frameless designs?! That I did agree with. However, “Tableless” and how it is being interpreted is where I have an issue.

One thing about Tableless layouts I would like to point out to all, is that it is okay to use tables. “Tableless” does not mean do not use any them in your pages completely. The term has been wildly misconstrued.

W3C, when they announced this to the world, meant that designers should not use tables as part of the design of a site… meaning its look and feel; such as the main headers, columns, and footers of your design and non-tabular content. If you are displaying results from a database (enter the term Tabular Data) then it is most appropriate to use tables. In this case, it would be completely wrong to use divs to “layout” results in lieu of how table rows and cells can.

Using tables as part of your cool web dude tool bag to display data is fine, meaning Tabular Data. It is still up to the designer whether you want to use tables to layout an entire page. It is frowned upon by the stuffy W3C, give me a break. They certainly do not get a gold medal from me for design and layout.

I have personally embraced this technique and have tried it on a few enterprise sites that I’m developing and have launched recently. I like it… it is a little slower to deploy in some cases and much faster in others, but ultimately you have way more control over your layouts. Though when I need to display results from a database, give me tables every time.

I would caution the use only because of how many people are still using IE6 and FF1 vs. IE7 and FF2. If you want to go Tableless, just be sure to have access to these older browsers and not develop solely on the latest and greatest. Which of course we would all prefer.

Lastly, Tables are not going away. They are apart of the HTML standard and included in the W3C HTML 5 draft. Browsers will be supporting them for very long time. W3C is just saying know when to use them.

Its really very useful. I really appereciate your hardwork for this wonderful article. As far as coding is concerned “ITS REALLY OPTIMIZED” however takes much of designer time.

I can completely understand the frustration that you are feeling. About 8 or more years ago I was making websites that used tables. Why? I didn’t know that there was another way to do it. When I found out about CSS a year or two after, I spent the next several years piecing together bits and pieces of information scattered throughout the internet on how to create sites with CSS instead. Unfortunately, at that time (and largely still today), the information was never to be found in one place. You had to find little nuggets of information where you could.

Thankfully it’s gotten better today. We still need more resources that will show you everything you need to know in one place, but at least there are some that give you a good amount in one spot. What I dislike is that many high schools and colleges are still teaching table-based design to their students – continuing to put students at a disadvantage. I feel for these students who pay money to learn from someone, then find out later that they paid to be taught the wrong way, and now (if they want to be successful) have to un-learn everything they know and start over.

Good luck on your journey learning CSS – the resources are much more available today.

~Nicole

It’s kinda tough getting contents to square out like tables do, but I know, eventually I will get thru this.

It makes perfect sense that tableless would be helpful on SEO, or sense to anyone who understands how spiders crawl your website. Less “junk” to filter for the spider to determine what is content and what is not. That is well known knowledge and through my table designs I am very aware of this and try to keep the code at a minimum. I know designers that place table in table within more tables and I complain every time!

I thought going tableless was going to take more time, and it did at the beginning. It takes longer to get the basic design worked out (say your index), but working on the inner pages after you have the whole design layout working is faster and simpler. So it takes more time on the design concept, who cares. Professional web designers who understand the value of their time realize the advantages and also value to the customer (ie you charge a little more for standards).

Now I understand that the company you work for designs “hundreds of website a month” so perhaps tableless is not the way to go for your company, at that volume I am sure standards are less important than volume. All browsers read tables, this is true, but they do not read them all the same. If you check your designs in multiple browser platforms (which is greatly recommended to any designer) then you already know this.

The greatest advantage to tableless and css is the consistency between browsers and from one web page to the other. To many clients serious about their web presence that is extremely important and well worth a few extra bucks towards their investment. Just being a web farm will not be good enough in the future.

Nicole, you are right about screen reader devices. I have 4 web clients who are blind and I have really worked hard on making their sites easy for them to navigate, I would say that I have become a pro in the blind accessibility websites. And I am very excited to switch these clients to tableless to offer an even better experience for those people.

Back to Adam, I really recommend that in your spare time aware from the design farm you really work on doing a tableless website to at least have that knowledge. I have seen several web designer positions listed in the paper lately and that all say “must have tableless design experience”, even if it is something you do not believe in, as a web designer you need to have that ability when it is called upon to stay in the race. FrontPage has made everyone a designer, you should shoot for something more than what any average Joe can do with a few hundred dollars invested in a program.

Professional web designers need to pick up the pace and stop offering up these “ugly sites”, I see too many ugly and inconsistent sites that I think is done by a beginner in FrontPage and scroll to the bottom and see it was done by a professional that this poor client actually paid.

Don’t let FrontPage put you out of a job

Chad