XHTML and browsers.

January 06, 2003 | 0 Comments

Zeldman talked about upgrade notices, and the overall state of XHTML and standards compliant sites this weekend.

In my experience I’ve not been able to recommend going to a 100% tableless Web, but I do advocate XHTML, and CSS positioning where it makes sense. There are two main areas where I find that I have to resort to tables, they are usually related:

Client expectations. I’ve found that there are times when you have a client that will not accept anything less than a pixel perfect design, or a design that looks the same in 4.0 browsers as it does in the newer. This is usually based on the Web savvy of the client. At times a compromise can be reached, or the design could be done with XHTML and CSS but would be very challenging. Which brings me to my next point.

Development time. There are many times where a tableless design is just more work than it warrants. I’ve found this to be true quite a few times. It could just be my understanding of CSS, but I’d guess it’s also due to the age-old problem of browser incompatibilities. Mozilla, Opera and IE still don’t render things the same and CSS bugs abound. Thankfully, as they hold user-share, it seems that IE is the easiest to develop for.

If you go back to Zeldman’s post — he makes a good argument that my concerns don’t matter all that much — as long as the site’s content in accessible and the site is usable in all browsers. In theory I tend to agree with him, and I think it’s just a matter of time before I make the leap to all tableless designs, but for now I’ll stick to a transitional valid XHTML — with tables as needed — way of working.

Filed under: Web General