Search

 

 

Informative Articles

Are We Blind To Banner Ads?
Do expensive, flashy banner ads really work? Studies suggest advertisers attempting to draw traffic through banner ads could be wasting their time and their money. Many advertisers are putting a great deal of money into the placement of...

Effective Website Design
One of the most commonly overlooked elements of an effective E-Business is the very thing that is essential to your success. Something as simple as the design of your website can make or break your business. Each consumer has their own set...

Microsoft and Webmasters
Does Microsoft care for Webmasters It’s always been a problem with websites appearing exactly the same on different platforms. As a web developer / webmaster it is extremely difficult to make user experiences rich by having the site look the...

Page Structure: Headings and Lists
When HTML started, people put all sorts of things on their pages: there was a tag to say which font you wanted your text to be in, a tag to say you wanted it to be in the centre of the page, and so on. Now, though, that way of writing pages...

Size Matters, It's True what they say!
Yes, it really does and the smaller your webpage the better it is. Size is an area where people can lose focus when they are concentrating on the look and branding of their website. In print and other forms of media, size and complexity...

 
Using CCS to Eliminate Tables

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets has opened up tremendous possibilities for improving web site designs, web page layouts and adding new features. The HTML code can be made shorter, cleaner and simpler by CSS resulting in faster loading of web pages, and making them more accessible to search engines. Here I am narrating my experience with only one part of CSS - using it to eliminate tables.

If you look at a traditionally designed web page, you are likely to find number of tables in the layout. Tables were earlier used only for displaying information in a tabular form. But web site designers soon started using tables for other applications such as showing images, graphics and other decorations.

My own web pages were earlier checkerboards of tables. Each web page was almost fully covered with tables and many tables were nested inside other tables. As I tried to add more features the design became more and more complicated resulting in longer loading times. It also took lot of time to "adjust" the tables on the page to make it acceptable.

It was not an easy task to redesign all the pages using CSS. But once I started, the improvements were more than I had bargained for. The design became simpler, the appearance improved and loading time came down considerably. The code looked real clean. Most of 'td' and 'tr' tags were gone.

My purpose of this exercise was not really to change the appearance but to make the design simpler. Now the tables which were earlier used only for design purpose have been eliminated. For eliminating tables first step is to decide which tables or more specifically which cells have to be removed.


Ex-Lacrosse Player Guilty Of 2nd-Degree Murder
Former University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely V was convicted Wednesday in the May 2010 slaying of his ex-girlfriend, who also played lacrosse for the university. Jurors rejected a first-degree murder verdict and possible life sentence, instead finding him guilty of second-degree murder, and recommending a 25-year term.

Virginia House Revises Controversial Abortion Bill
The amended bill requires women seeking abortions to undergo an external ultrasound, not a more invasive procedure. The state's Republican governor came out against requiring the more invasive procedure after the proposal drew national outrage. The amended bill now returns to the Senate, where it will likely be killed.

Is A Lie Just Free Speech, Or Is It A Crime?
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday over the constitutionality of a law that makes it a crime to lie about having received a military medal. But the questions posed by the justices ranged far beyond that from deceptive advertising to lying on a date.


For applying CSS each cell of a table can be considered as a "box". These boxes are given separate identities and description of each "box" goes into CSS code. The "boxes" can be given names such as box1, box2 etc. The description of the "box" can include size, its location on web page, background color and image if any, font details, padding, border details etc. The location of the "box" can be made "fixed" on the web page, or it can be floating in which case location can be defined with respect to another "box".

If the location and dimensions of the boxes are properly worked out, they neatly fit into the web page giving it a clean look. Since the code associated with table designs are done away with, the content of the page attains more prominence in the code. This makes it easier for search engine spiders to locate the actual content of the page.

If you have several web pages with similar design, the CSS code with these and other details can be put in an external file. This will further shorten the code for each page. With CSS lot many improvements can be done in web page design and layout. CSS can also be used for search engine optimization of the page.

My experience with CSS has been great and I wonder why it is not used more often. My advice - convert to CSS based design.
Sanjay Johari contributes articles regularly to various ezines. His website contains information, articles, resources, opportunities and more for small business owners and home based business owners. http://www.sanjay-j.com Join the longest running internet business opportunity - because it works! http://www.sanjay-j.com/empowerism.html