Help Request about 4.01 Strict

[Ed Mulroy]

...You'll find that many of the most knowledgeable members

of the group will quickly learn to ignore your posts if you
continue to top-post...

I have posted very many messages over many years as one of the knowledgable
members of some groups. If I reply to a message relates to if I think I can
help someone and is independent of if the message I am replying to is top or
bottom posted.

I assume that others are similar. My experience suggests that the more
knowledgable the person the less petty they are. If this group is different
and the "most knowledgable members" here put me in their kill file for how I
posted then "oh well".

.. Ed

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

To further the education of mankind, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"


But sometimes it's necessary to use ems, etc., such as in sizing a
container

Agreed. That's why I said "use percents for font sizing..."

where percentages refer to a completely different dimension.

I use ems for the content/nav/banner boxes.

 

[dorayme]

I have posted very many messages over many years as one of the knowledgable
members of some groups. If I reply to a message relates to if I think I can
help someone and is independent of if the message I am replying to is top or
bottom posted.

I assume that others are similar. My experience suggests that the more
knowledgable the person the less petty they are. If this group is different
and the "most knowledgable members" here put me in their kill file for how I
posted then "oh well".

Please, I beg you Ed... don't go there! You don't want to go
there. I have made a study of the killfiles at alt.html and they
are not like the ordinary simple minded ones in other groups.
Some of them have different level chambers and awful things go on
there. The killfiles at alt.html are not passive ones. They are
highly active and dangerous places to be.

Swallow your pride and don't top post, multi post is very
logical: the bit that you are responding to first (that you have
edited to bare essentials to cut down all the huge traffic), your
response. The next bit you are responding to, your response and
so on down the page. As a general rule, this makes a lot of
sence, no? Easy for readers to read and get the drift.

 

[dorayme]

I use ems for the content/nav/banner boxes.

Covers most things...

 

[Chaddy2222]

Hi Chad, I am extremely interested to ask you a couple of things
because of the way you must be using computers and reading
websites. I realise that general table layout has many faults
but what I want to hear is an accurate view of how much of a
stumbling block, if any, it is in simple cases compared with,
say, an equally simple css driven organization of material.

Imagine a table layout that has just two cols and one row,
navigation in a list in one col, content in the other. Lets say
the nav col is read out first. In addition, the navigation col
has information as to which "link" corresponds to the content
that is presently available in the other.

All this compared to say a navigation list in one div ("floated
left" in the css) and a content section in another div.

I would be keen to hear anything you might comment on in this
regard that I am not likely to hear normally. What is it actually
like? There is a "summary" in the table saying what the two cols
are for, it being simple enough. From there on, how awkward an
experience is it? Compared with the two div arrangement?

Used to have a blind student, he was top of the class, I would
ask him if I could find him these days - he went on to greater
things and left me in his brilliant wake...

Ha, fare enough.
Well, take my older website as an example, it is still where the web
design tips pages are http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc/design-tips.html Jaws
v 5.0 my Screen Reader of choice has no problems accessing the content
from that site. It is a simple two colum table with links on the left
and content on the right. As you can see.
Where it can have problems is with tables with moltiple colums and
rows, it reads something like: "Table has 6 colums and 17 rows. In your
example it would say that it has two colums and, well actually it may
just read the layout sumary and ignore the rest. So if a table with a
large amount of nested colums is to be used for layout, it needs to
have a sumary. If it doesn't the less clood up people will tab around
the table looking for the data.
Compare that with a three colum div layout, Jaws ignores the layout and
just reads the content, useually the nav first, depending on what the
author sets in the CSS, which is really how it should be.

[Sorry to hijack this thread, but here you are and here am I..
and come to think of it, it might not be so bad considering OP is
being so "tough-minded" to go into it a bit. He seems a
reasonable bloke underneath and he might come around a bit in the
end]

Yes, I know what you mean their.
A note to the op. If you can't get your design to work useing pure CSS
for layout, with a bit of simple HTML to help it a long. Then you need
to scrap your design and start again.

 

[dorayme]

dorayme wrote:

Well, take my older website as an example, it is still where the web
design tips pages are http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc/design-tips.html Jaws
v 5.0 my Screen Reader of choice has no problems accessing the content
from that site. It is a simple two colum table with links on the left
and content on the right.

Thanks Chad, this is what I suspected with the simple
arrangements.

 

[Joe]

On the site descriptions are already given for the rooms. There is nothing
remaining to provide alt text for the photographs and floor plan.

The width of the menu is given in 'ex' units, not pixels. The font size is
not given in 'ex' units and cannot be as 'ex' is a function of the font
size.

Ed: 1ex = 100% =viewers default. For an engineer, you sure don't pay
much attention to detail.

 

[Ed Mulroy]

Ed: 1ex = 100% =viewers default. For an engineer, you

sure don't pay much attention to detail.

What I said was flawed by a bad edit on my part. It was:
The font size is not given in 'ex' units and cannot be...
but was intended as:
The absolute font size is not given in 'ex' units and cannot be...

The discussion touched on pixels, units of absolute size. Specifying font
size in ex units is, but for a fixed scale factor, identical to specifying
in percent.

I am an electrical engineer, not a computer science person. What I know
about software is mostly C, C++ and assembly. HTML and CSS are specified
less closely and more open to interpretation than I am used to.

.. Ed

 

[Neredbojias]

To further the education of mankind, "Ed Mulroy"

I am an electrical engineer, not a computer science person.

Yeah, youse guys have it made! The job is like a Fair-a-day.

 

[Ed Mulroy]

Think about this, why are your links in a table at all? They

are just a list right? Why are your pictures and text in a
table? Is it just to hang them in some particular placement on
the page? You need to shake off the shackles of the table and
compose the page semantically then style to make it appear as
you wish. Google for some CSS layout tutorials.

I have tried to implement your suggestions. It is obvious that I am missing
something as I cannot find facilities in CSS to do what I want.

I have a list on the right and wish to arrange it something like this:

wide-image
aaaaa bbbbb
ccccc
ddddd ddddd

A table has a <tr> for table row. The <td> or table data items in that row
will be dispersed across the table width so the cluster 'aaaaa' will be
centered on the left half and 'bbbbb' centered on the right half. If I use
<td colspan="2"> with the ccccc line, it will be centered in the table area.
I can find no way to do this with CSS.

As for the image, there seems to be a 'centered' for text alignment but not
for images.

I also wish this assembly to consume all of the space not used by the menu
list on the left.

Do you know what I do with CSS to achieve this?

Just for completeness, the page I am speaking of is:
http://home.nc.rr.com/emulroy/theshore.htm

.. Ed

 

[dorayme]

http://home.nc.rr.com/emulroy/theshore.htm

You are being far too complicated.

Get rid of

<table align="left" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" width="22%">

and try

<table style="float:left">

for your left nav (then go on, if you have time, to be rid of the
table altogether and make it a list as has been rightly said. In
which case you could float the list left with something like <ul
style="float:left"> etc

Then be rid of

<table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"
width="70%">

and put

<table>

and it will immediately look better. Stop trying to constrain the
cell widths. the magic of tables is that they expand to hold the
contents.

But the tables for the right content are just too bad for words
and I will stop now.

If you don't want to get into floats and stuff, make the whole
thing one big table, the nav in the left col, the content in the
right col. And if you can't be rid of tables for the right col,
at least make a simple one with as few instructions to it as
possible. It will be the better for it.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I have tried to implement your suggestions. It is obvious that I am missing
something as I cannot find facilities in CSS to do what I want.

I have a list on the right and wish to arrange it something like this:

wide-image
aaaaa bbbbb
ccccc
ddddd ddddd

A table has a <tr> for table row. The <td> or table data items in that row
will be dispersed across the table width so the cluster 'aaaaa' will be
centered on the left half and 'bbbbb' centered on the right half. If I use
<td colspan="2"> with the ccccc line, it will be centered in the table area.
I can find no way to do this with CSS.

Okay, okay I get peeved when folks whine that they must use a table for
layout because it cannot be done with proper semantic markup and CSS for
their presentation!


http://www.littleworksstudio.com/temp/alt.html.20060614.html
The Beach House in North Wildwood - A better Way

Your links are lists, Your images will stay on the right like you want.
Your beach house feature lists are, your guessed it in lists! And the
the lists are

1 2
3
4 5

orientation that you desired!

 

[Mark Parnell]

Deciding to do something for the good of humanity, "Beauregard T.

'Tis amusing to see just how many sites there really are with a
forgotten background color assignment...

Especially when there are a whole pile of images with white backgrounds,
so you get a kind of mottled effect.

Admittedly my pale yellow is not as painful as your default background,
but it does the job.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Deciding to do something for the good of humanity, "Beauregard T.

It is really a pain when they use a colored background image but do not
set or pick a background color of the same color as the image. You
cannot read the damn page until the image loads! Painfully apparent on
dialup.

 

[Ed Mulroy]

I've replaced the left table with a <ul> and altered the right table to
<table style="float: left">. It worked just as you said:
http://home.nc.rr.com/emulroy/theshoreS.htm

Thank you. I appreciate the help.

.. Ed

 

[Ed Mulroy]

I am amazed at what you did with that page. Looking at the source is quite
a learning experience for me.

- Thank You!!

.. Ed

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I am amazed at what you did with that page. Looking at the source is quite
a learning experience for me.

The real advantage is that if you wanted to change the look of the page
and the arrangement of your features list from

1 2
3
4 5

to

1 2 3
4 5

or

1
2
3
4
5

or

1 2 3 4
5

or whatever; with a table for layout you might have to *totally* redo
the markup and that gets especially messy if you nested table and/or
spanned columns and rows to get the desired layout. With my example most
times you do not have to touch your markup but just make changes to the
stylesheet. Or if you do have to change the markup is usually only
entails changing the class attribute!

 

[Chaddy2222]

with a table for layout you might have to *totally* redo

the markup and that gets especially messy if you nested table and/or
spanned columns and rows to get the desired layout. With my example most
times you do not have to touch your markup but just make changes to the
stylesheet. Or if you do have to change the markup is usually only
entails changing the class attribute!

Yes, that's the main advantage that I like about CSS for layout. I
changed the colour scheme of my site the other night, I really only had
to change one file. If it had been a table, I would have had to go in
and change every page manually.

 

[Ed Mulroy]

The real advantage is that if you wanted to change the look of the page

and the arrangement of your features list ...

Your point is a good one. I like the separation between the content and the
presentation and that "clear" and "easily understood" are now more up to how
I did it than to the HTML requirement to sprinkle commands throughout the
HTML document. Maintenance and alterations are easier when done your way.

You blow things up a bit more than I but you're probably working on a larger
screen. I'm most often on a 1024x768 laptop but try to design for 800x600
as many still use that size (as do I, at least in width, because I run with
multiple, non-maximized windows).

My comprehension of CSS is mostly limited to CSS 1 and in fact have been
using a local copy of that spec,
http://www.w3.org/Style/css1-updates/REC-CSS1-19990111.pdf, as a reference.
Some of what makes your scheme work seems to be CSS 2, a level to which I
have paid too little attention and at times actually avoided mostly because
of fear of the lack of browser support.

I'm about 10 hours drive from my machine with IE 5.1 on it. Do you know
offhand if IE 5.1 supports the type of CSS you used to make that work?

Side note: I looked at your home page - impressive!

.. Ed

 

[Ed Mulroy]

Want to see a page that is going to benefit from your comments even more
than the one which you actually addressed?
http://home.nc.rr.com/emulroy/sitemap.htm

Thanks to you that puppy is undergoing revision even as we speak!

Again, much thanks for your kind help.

.. Ed