Sites as giant tables in HTML?

[Bard09]

I was reading Phillip Greenspun's Guide to Web Publishing and one thing he recommends AGAINST is putting your site in one giant table.

Recently, I switched my crappy frame-site over to a Dreamweaver-based template system. However, the technique I used with my old frame was to put it on one side of a table.

Now, my question is, how do you organize your site without making it one giant table? I have a "TOC" link area, and a "Contents" variable area that I would like to preserve on each pageview. How to do this without frames or one giant table boggles me. I intend to stay with HTML-based programming as long as possible

What's the solution?

Thanks in advance.

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: Bard09
I was reading Phillip Greenspun's Guide to Web Publishing and one thing he recommends AGAINST is putting your site in one giant table.

Recently, I switched my crappy frame-site over to a Dreamweaver-based template system. However, the technique I used with my old frame was to put it on one side of a table.

Now, my question is, how do you organize your site without making it one giant table? I have a "TOC" link area, and a "Contents" variable area that I would like to preserve on each pageview. How to do this without frames or one giant table boggles me. I intend to stay with HTML-based programming as long as possible

What's the solution?

Thanks in advance.

personally I use 1 table sometimes, I'm not a web designer or an expert. but it was the easiest way to have my content exactly where I wanted it (center page, middle page) I think if you're page views in IE and NS who cares about what some "expert" says. that is the beauty of HTML, you can do things so many different ways.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Take a look at most sites, 99% are tables or frames (or are 100% flash and turning away any customers who say no to plugins).

I'd say your 'expert" has an axe to grind and is ignoring how the rest of the world is actually building sites

And his own site design would be ridiculed if used by any real company.

So there!

 

[Bard09]

I believe the reason he said that sites organized through one "giant table" are inefficient is because the whole page needs to load before it can be displayed, because that is the way tables are viewed. Is there a way around this or is his arguement unfounded?

And-- indeed-- he is very close to an expert in the field of web design. Many people today forget that most information doesn't need to necessarily be prettied to be considered useful. I found the organization and design of his page to be very efficient. So sue me?

-Bard09

 

[DaveSimmons]

He's correct but for most sites his point is irrelavant. Yes, the browser will either wait to display or will display then re-render, but what is being wasted are CPU cycles on the client. Unless you are designing a website for PDAs those CPU cycles are going to waste anyway.

The scarce resource for websites is bandwidth / transfer. Using one table does not increase the amount of information transferred between the website and browser so in that (much more important) sense it is equally efficient to having many or no tables.

A 1-table design is likely to be faster to finish loading than a frames design in the real world. With a table the browser makes a single "GET" request to retrieve all of the HTML, while with frames the browser must make an additional "GET" request for each frame in the frameset. However, a frames design may "feel" faster to the user if they have a browser that doesn't render tables in stages because it will then show "something" sooner.

All of which is to say that you should take his pontificating with a grain of salt. Aside from the debate between "clean" vs. "attractive" (and in most any commercial enterprise you should prefer "attractive") you need to know what is important in the context of the site you're building. Is it important that you save CPU cycles? Usually not.

 

[Bard09]

Thank you very much Dave for that information! I feel a little bit more pleased with my progress now. Thanks again.

-Bard09

 

[BillinSDCA]

Here is a site totally dedicated to HTML help:

HTML Forums

HTH,
Bill