== I'm done with feeling guilty about using HTML tables for layout Just over six years ago I wrote that [[using CSS instead of tables was a hack CSSvsTables]]. As far as I can tell nothing has fundamentally changed since then; using CSS to create flexible, powerful column and row based layouts is still awkward and a hack. The promised high level CSS layout support is not particularly closer to materializing in real browsers now than it was then. (One difference is that you can apparently now fake it with JavaScript, just in case you would like to have two baroque hacks instead of one.) I don't know about anyone else, but I've spent a certain amount of the last six years feeling vaguely guilty when I periodically resorted to using tables for column-based layouts. As of now, I'm done with that. Until CSS gets its act together (if ever) tables are going to be my first and guilt-free choice for any grid-based things I need, all the way from just lining up form labels and form fields to full-page layout. And if the tables need additional styling I'm going to add bits of CSS without even thinking twice. Ultimately what it comes down to is simple: HTML tables make it easier to create grid-like layouts and they work better than at least basic CSS. Letting the ghostly voice of CSS get to me about this is stupid and counterproductive (in that it pushes me away from better, more usable designs). (As a side note, I'm not at all interested in recreating
and so on in suitably marked up and entries plus CSS.
I already have the table HTML tags and they work fine. Carefully redoing
them in CSS just so that I can say I'm using instead of |