Tables work just fine too

Originally Posted by feros As far as the "accessibility" issue - valid coding (with or without tables) is all you need to have an accessible site. Even invalid coding is usually accessible. People just like to be nit picky.

Ah, I see you've never used a screen reader. You should really read up on the topic before trying to discuss it.

Correct alt tags are a part of accessibility for example, but you can't validate those... Access Keys? Not part of validation either. Please don't mislead the people on this forum who are looking to do things correctly with such misguided and ill advised notions.

Originally Posted by feros As far as the "accessibility" issue - valid coding (with or without tables) is all you need to have an accessible site. Even invalid coding is usually accessible. People just like to be nit picky.

I totally disagree with this. CSS does not an accessible site make!

Validating is only one of many best practices. I can code a page that is in accessibility terms "horrendous", yet still validates. To make such a sweeping statement about accessibility is somewhat naive.

Think how a speech synthesizer might render a table design. Very confusing for the blind. What about defining a text and background color almost identica; valid but not accessible.

Have a read at:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/
And hopefully you will see that accessibility if far more complicated that mere validation.

Maybe even try out a text reader or other disability aid and you will see where I am coming from.

Tables for me..

I always use to use tables but then I got to the point where they just took too long to load due to the cumbersome ways they use images and backgrounds and such, I don't know if it's a huge difference but I find table free coding much faster.

Plus, Divs load alot faster, I know we can't see it, but it just does.

Hello friends
Here is my view on subject.

Using tables is wrong approach, which will not have any use in future. On the other side designs created with w3c compliance in mind, are rather limited right now. Browser support is just weak and from time to time you will find yourself learning stuff you should not need know, like hacks.

For the accessibility, you might want to read this:
http://www.contentwithstyle.co.uk/Articles/106/

I'm out.

Yeah, admittedly you do get used to using hacks sometimes... but if you can think about things logically enough, there's usually another way of getting the layout and positioning to work correctly in all browsers without them. Often if you find hacks on the net somewhere, they get removed and a proper solution is given once it's been found... if it's you own hack then it's just up to you to find a way around it.

i've only used 1 hack (one time, a month ago) in my 4 years of css driven coding.

Originally Posted by RaZoR^ Yeah, admittedly you do get used to using hacks sometimes... but if you can think about things logically enough, there's usually another way of getting the layout and positioning to work correctly in all browsers without them. Often if you find hacks on the net somewhere, they get removed and a proper solution is given once it's been found... if it's you own hack then it's just up to you to find a way around it.

You're right.

Hack free tableless code is not difficult, it just takes longer to find the solutions.

Jeff, I know tables work fine, but the whole essence of the <table> tag is for tabular data, if you want to display a spreadsheet of data, or calendar for example. But we can even create tableless data tables now, so why code tables at all?