how to make websites

Allright guys.

How should websites be made? Should we make our sites so they are supported in older browsers? Should we use only CSS div tags instead of tables? Is it improper to do otherwise? Are tables only good for tabular data? Is that all they should be used for? What is on the horizon? CSS? Tables? And whats with all these standards we keep hearing about? I've been chatting to a lot of coders and webmasters lately who adhere to the "table-less"rules. I've also been surfing the web a lot, following some links, reading about web design and coding. There seems to be two completely different sides to the issue.

There are people that make sites that use only CSS for layout, and shudder at the prospect of using tables at all. "What about older browsers?", "The standards, the standards!", "All sites should be CSS-only and tablelesss"; is what they seem to be saying. This seems like a pretty good viewpoint, but their sites are often very boring and bland. Also, is it just me or do they all look the same? Here are some examples of said sites:

-- http://www.mayerweb.com
-- http://www.brainjar.com
-- http://www.glish.com

Then there are people that use tables. And Adobe Photoshop for coding and ImageReady for rollovers. The sites are usually graphically intense. They also take longer to load. They don't fit in with the "standard" of table-less layouts. These are the kind of sites that I have made and seen many people make here. It seems that the design is more important than the code. Is there anything wrong with this? It might not display properly on some browsers. Or you might need some ugly hack to get it to. But does that really matter? Here is one site in particular that I found that represents this alternate viewpoint:

-- http://www.alistapart.com/stories/tohell/

This seems quite extreme, but if you read what the CSS sites had to say about coding with CSS and tables, etc. you'll see that they're pretty extreme about their beliefs, too. You'll never see them coding with tables. Ever. And I'm not really sure that this is a bad thing.

Unless everyone starts doing it fanatically. Then where are we? Will there be any art? Or is there some way to combine the two? I don't think I've been to a site yet that has done this with real effectiveness. If somebody has found a site that they believe both "sides" of webmasters would appeciate or even love, please post it.

The reason I posted this was to get some discussion going about web site creation now and in the future. Even if many of us do it as just a hobby, it is still important (at least I think) to be knowledgable in the subject. I apologize if some parts of this post are a little unclear - I did not proofread this.

**As an end note, many times I have referred to "they" as a class of webmasters. I understand that this is stereotypical, but if you read the whole thing then you will understand and hopefully not bring it to my attention (e.g. "But not all web designers are like that"). It was easier to write using the words "they" and "them" than constantly clarify what I meant.

tom

www.csszengarden.com

Just had to get that link up there real quick. That is your example of absolutely beautiful sites done in all CSS. To top it all off, all of the dozens of designs use the EXACT same xHTML document. The only thing that changes is the CSS file. That is the power of CSS. Completely change the entire look and feel of a site by changing one document. There could be literally thousands and thousands of pages changed, with one CSS document.

CSS is not only good web design technique, it just plain makes sense.

Standards are important. If you really want your site to be accessible to older browsers, use xHTML and CSS, not tables. Older browsers don't even know what tables are, so it turns into a huge mess. If you use CSS, all of your presentation and style is hidden from old stupid browsers, but the content is viewable by everyone whether they are using Lynx, a cell phone, a screen reader, or netscape 3. it doesn't matter because your content is just a basic, semantically correct HTML document. All of the graphics, fonts, leading, padding, layout, colors, etc are in the CSS file. So if you have a good desktop browser, you see a beautiful site. But if you are using something else, you still see all of the content, just not as pretty.

Not to mention search engines loves CSS layouts. They ignore the CSS and jump right into the content. No table tags to sort through, no hundreds of font tags to skip over.

Granted there are some things CSS still can't do very well. I've been trying for weeks to get a three column centered layout to work in CSS, and I just can't get it right. But I've done other sites in CSS that work wonderfully.

It is definitely the future, and extremely important to learn and adapt to. I'll be designing all of my future sites in CSS to the best of my ability.

But if you can't make it work with CSS, then use a single table to make your columns. Then use CSS to add color, padding, images, text control, etc. There is nothing wrong with that for the time being either, and it is what frequently has to happen in the "real world". Just remember to only use a couple of tables to do the very minimum that you need them to do, and leave all of the other stuff to CSS. You'll think yourself in 6 months when you redesign the site...

why are css sites so ugly?

(i didn't read the posts, i just clicked the links)

Did you look at the css zen garden llink? it's not ugly at all.

Hahah, I said the same thing Charm. Only Deker went midevil on my ass. :P

Well my opinion is CSS is the future. Web sites have to complement all the new technologies. But from a graphic artist's point of view you have to sacrifice the beautiful site - then diced for the web approach, as it starts to break this model. But I rather like the simplicity of CSS sites. Its like a breath of fresh air (*ah breathe*). The idea is to make the content define the structure and not the design. - but that is my opinion.

Why do you guys think you have to sacrifice the look of the site to do CSS? IS NO ONE LOOKING AT THE FREAKIN' CSS ZEN GARDEN LINK???

Here's a couple more CSS sites:

www.espn.com
www.wired.com
www.mezzoblue.com

http://www.tableless.com.br/eng/content.asp
This site shows CSS redesigns of popular sites like apple.com, adobe.com, hp.com, etc. All in CSS, and identical to their ugly table counterparts.

And all of these sites are in CSS too: http://www.meryl.net/css/

it just somehow seems difficult to put everthing up with floating, relative/absolute positioning and all..

maybe its because i have this idea theyll all get in the way of each other and create a giant mess..

also, sometimes when i use positioning in css it doesnt stay put when rezising the window.. (i know css and tables doesnt work together that well)

but well. i dont know.. i want to do most of it in css because tables, as we all know, can be annoying..

You're just more familiar with tables. Once you actually get in there and create a few layouts in CSS you'll never look back at tables.

I usually start at one of the layout sites, and modify it from there. Sites like this:

http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/box_lesson/boxes.html

that give you basic 2/3 column layouts with all the hacks in them. Then you just pop in your pictures and colors and all of the customizing you want to do.