Can you give examples of what type of styling you can't do with tables? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm legitimately curious.
Here's just a random image pulled from Google:
<snip>
With the use of tables it's impossible to code.
(2013-03-02, 03:01 AM)brad-t Wrote: [ -> ]Why does everyone hate tables so much?
Because they were often used incorrectly. Tables were a hot topic a couple of years ago, but not anymore. This is not the kind of discussion we should be having today. It's well established that tables shouldn't be used for layout or anything other than tabular data. We should be worrying about responsive web design, mobile optimization, scaling and the like (which is in fact what you read about the web today, there are no divs versus tables articles). It's just ridiculous to ask that question in 2013.
(2013-03-02, 03:01 AM)brad-t Wrote: [ -> ]Forums are tabular data.
This is very vague (but pretty much wrong). Some areas display tabular data, others do not. The discussions (arguably the most important area) most definitely do not represent tabular data. Your idea of tabular data is irrelevant. The specification is what you should be following.
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/ma...bular-data
http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/guides/html_tables
In general you should think of tabular data as the kind of table you drew in Science class to take note of the results of an experiment, or a group of people's personal information from a survey. Forum posts often consist of very long paragraphs and heated discussions. Many times they are direct replies to other posts. Others will bring new things to the table and change the course of the discussion. There's just no way you can describe this semantically with tables. Also, do look at the image Eric posted (which is a very basic representation of a discussion) and tell me why on earth would you describe that as a table?
(2013-03-02, 03:38 PM)blueparukia Wrote: [ -> ]Amen to that. Forums should are tables, use tabular data and please for the love of all that is Holy, do not use a CSS framework such as Zurb or any of the horrible grid ones.
I like to think we will adopt
flexbox in 2.0. That's the future of user interface design. Grids will soon be a thing of the past. However between tables and grid systems, you can't possibly be serious about sticking with tables. I don't think we will use Bootstrap or Zurb either. They make way too many design decisions and that's unwanted I think. Something like
inuit.css is probably worth looking into though. No design whatsoever, just a really solid base to work off of. SASS, object oriented, very abstract, organized, etc.
Thanks for the super-detailed response, Fabio. I understand the distinction now. That said, I was more talking about forum/thread listings versus thread views, where I am already using divs instead of tables for obvious reasons haha.
That said, I don't really appreciate this kind of response ...
Quote:We should be worrying about responsive web design, mobile optimization, scaling and the like (which is in fact what you read about the web today, there are no divs versus tables articles). It's just ridiculous to ask that question in 2013. ...
Also, do look at the image Eric posted (which is a very basic representation of a discussion) and tell me why on earth would you describe that as a table?
I was asking a legit question, not trying to press people's buttons. I've not exactly been secretive about my weaknesses in the technical aspects of web design, and have been very careful to describe myself as a hobbyest designer at best. I never tried to describe Eric's image as a table and I never would.
There's no need to scold someone for legitimately wanting more information about something.
I had forgotten about flexbox – hopefully it will be finalized soon.
I don't think he was trying to scold so much as press the fact that tables are now understood to be a lot less useful than divs, except where they're extremely fitting. It's not really a discussed point anymore.
People have moved on from "Should I use tables or divs?" to "How do I make my site adjust to all views".
That said I personally wouldn't use tables for anything, tabular or not. They're just limiting when it comes to styling.
Well, it was a flippant remark that I probably shouldn't have posted – I certainly didn't expect such a lively response. Thinking it over, I can definitely understand why it seemed like a stupid thing to say. Tables shouldn't be used for layouts. I guess I have stockholm syndrome from working with MyBB ...
Oh well. Life goes on.
I'm sorry I upset you with my response. That was not my intention at all. Looking over my response, I guess I could have worded some things differently to avoid the confusion.
(2013-03-03, 05:34 AM)brad-t Wrote: [ -> ]That said, I was more talking about forum/thread listings versus thread views, where I am already using divs instead of tables for obvious reasons haha.
I can understand why you would want to use tables in thread listings. It's pretty reasonable actually, depending what your goal is in displaying that information.
Discourse's thread listings for example are described using tables, and looking at their approach to a thread listing it makes sense to use tables. If you were to design the thread listing differently however, tables may not be suitable. If you think about it, the thread
listing is just a list, so maybe a <ul> wouldn't be such a bad idea. Both are valid solutions so as long as they describe the content accurately.
When implementing tables however it is very important to consider how mobile users will see the data. There are a lot of solutions and approaches to this issue. Chris Coyer has got it covered pretty well on
CSS-Tricks.