I assume this is the right place for this? I'm currently using tables for my websites. Simply because thatäs what I first learned. But almost everyone are using div's instead it seems like. And I've heard it's better. So is that true? And if so.. is there any good tutorials on learning using divs instead?
A transition to a CSS based layout would require some time for you to pass the learning curve. Question is - are your websites not ok the way they are? Is your business currently suffering from a table-based website design? Would you do much better if you're websites were tableless? If the answer is "yes", then follow the link that Mooseman has suggested and get the study books on your workdesk If the answer is "no", then I'll hold on before redesigning my existing sites. Let Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera, Safari & Co first shake hands and produce browsers that can understand CSS the same way, then start redesigning. Otherwise you might end up spending lots of time here on DP asking for help, looking for workarounds
Thanks alot for the answers. Well, I guess I'll just continue working the way I do then since my websites works fine the way it is.
Here's another question to ask yourself. Do you know yourself whether everything is functioning properly as is? I'm not just talking about browser testing - that's the tip of the iceberg. Are you testing in alternative browsing environments? Cellphones and PDAs? Are you testing text browsers and screenreaders to see if the information lays out intuitively? Are you testing your site against WAI WCAG guidelines to see whether your coding choices might have an adverse effect on portions of your audience (typically, a site that caters to WAI accessibility guidelines gets significant preferential treatment in search engines)? The biggest mistake every developer makes is thinking what they see on their own screens is what everyone else sees too (including search engines). No matter how conscientious you are as a developer, you'll fall into this from time to time. I do it, I know it happens to us all. It's tough to see how an engineering decision really affects the greater audience, which is why taking the time to learn development techniques that are shown to be more universally accessible might not be a bad idea. Tables work fine for you. Are you positive you're able to assess whether they are working optimally for your audience, both human and otherwise?
I hope Google reads this. What I really think is they sit back and laugh out loud with their 2Kb home page that would take me 7 minutes to convert to tableless and finally make it "equally accessible" in all those browser environments we keep arguing about here and there. G is not bothered, and their website is one of the very few that have ever been accessed in every possible browser, and should be worried about <table> tags in their code if they're that big of a problem. What we're forgetting sometimes is that once an online project has its target visitors defined, it can easily decide whether a full flash design, a table design, or a CSS design is required. Come on, some websites will never be accessd on PDA's or mobile phones due to their nature so why bother unnecessarily. Let developers live and work according to their professional principles. CSS is here, I take it, you take it. But why use it everywhere, I don't get it. Maybe ask Google. Oh and who says there are no accessibility and display issues with CSS Take a minute to check this justfor fun. Everyone needs help, and it's not always because of lack of knowledge. CSS is fairly accessible to study but when you spend nights on finding out where did those 2 extra pixels come from in IE, and why is there a bigger gap between content blocks in FF, etc etc.. Workarounds, workarounds. Who are to be blamed for this? Site developers? Or browser developers?
Tables aren't necessarily going to cause an accessibility or usability issue. It's just that the chances of an issue being present is much greater than when you use semantically valid markup. There would be a great benefit to Google doing tableless, but that benefit isn't necessarily in accessibility - it is in bandwidth consumption (sure their pages are already small, but consider cutting them by half, multiplied by the number of visitors they receive). Tables as layout elements won't always be worse than semantically proper markup, but they will often be. Semantically proper markup won't always be better than table-based layout, but done properly it will often be better. Given how impossible it is to test all possible visitor environments, the safe bet is to learn proper semantic coding practices. BTW, Google has some serious accessibility issues for visitors with visual impairments. These issues don't happen to have anything to do with tables, but they are related, since they have to do with semantic markup. That's a discussion for another day The necessary knowledge is widespread and easy enough to find to do things right. There's no need to shun progress in favor of convenience anymore
I'm not rly sure where you're both betting with this? But I'm pretty sure no one is going to view my pages in mobilephones and things :S And they work fine on all screens I've viewed them at.. theres no differense at all.. I just don't see where you getting with this..
You wanted to know if using proper layout techniques was really better than using tables, and the answer is yes, for reasons a, b, c, d and e. If you don't think those answers apply to your site, then by all means ignore them. But the answer to your qustion of whether it is better is still yes. If you give a link to the site in question, I can give a more specific answer as to what you have to gain from learning how to use proper layout techniques
To be honest, I'm only equipped to answer the first half of your question, because everything I learned about engineering site layouts came from discussions within online communities. I've never used a tutorial for general knowledge, only to answer specific questions about specific problems. But it's best to link to these as specific questions arise. Perhaps someone with experience using a particular tutorial can give you better guidance in this respect.
Here are some links for you to bookmark. www.w3schools.com/css/ http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/learning http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/css/index.php
Here's a good resource for learning CSS layouts: http://blog.html.it/layoutgala/ There's a bunch of different CSS templates that you can download and play around and customize until you are more comfortable starting a CSS layout from scratch.
Here's good collection of ready-made CSS layouts: http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/page_layouts/ You may also take a look at what CSS can do here: http://www.csszengarden.com/