Hi Scott,
Not sure how to use CSS based layouts to manage the placement, rearrangement, and adding new sections to web pages. If you would point me to a reference, I would appreciate it. I find CSS very cumbersome to use when it doesn't match up to syles specified in the tags already on the tables, cells, paragraphs, images, etc.
As for getting rid of tables and cells, that's a pipe dream. In ther world of maintaining existing pages, tables are everywhere.
Thanks for your help.
Luke
Luke, I really wish I could tell you that there is a magic bullet, a single reference, example, or tutorial that I could point you to that would tell you what you need to know to move from deprecated, non-semantic, hard to maintain, search engine indexing-resistant table-based layout to modern, compliant, SEO-friendly CSS-based layout, but as much as I would like to do that I have to admit that there is no such beast.
Basically, your layout will have to be re-created from scratch using containers and CSS. The good news is that this is much more straightforward than trying to re-create it using tables. Quite literally, once you know CSS and HTML, all you have to do is look at a layout and you can duplicate it, presuming you have access to the resources (images, etc.) used in the original. Lemme tell ya a story...
I took a contract back in March to convert a site that was basically a slice-and-dice table-based layout, created in GoLive, and rewrite it using compliant markup and CSS. Originally it was a small contract, for the home page only, which is visually and structurally dissimilar from all of the other pages of the site, which the client referred to as the "inner pages," and which all shared a basic structure with one another, although still slice and dice table-based layouts.
Anyway, I rebuilt the home page, without a single table anywhere in the markup, and using less than one-third the lines of markup the original had required. More importantly, the page loaded much faster, and the markup was both cleaner and easily readable, as well as being heavily commented so that the client would know which sections of the CSS file to address to modify various segments of the page in the future.
As a result, more work has come from this client, and now not one single page of her site (formerly 100%GoLive-generated and table-based) uses tables for layout. I created a DWT for her for the "inner pages" which shared a common design, and now she happily creates and modifies pages in her site as it pleases her, instead of having to go back to her original designer for every little change, each of which had to be made and then regenned in GoLive and sent back to her.
Here's the point I'm (finally, eh? ;-) trying to get across: There is
nothing that you can create using tables that any competent Web developer cannot duplicate using compliant markup and CSS. The key factor is knowledge, and that, Luke, is something that you can't get from osmosis. No single reference will give it to you, and although you can learn an awful lot from reading here, none of us can instill it in you. You just need to start out with the basics and work at it.
You don't have to change it all at once. You can work with practice sites and pages while you're learning, becoming comfortable with the technology, asking questions here, etc. When you feel ready, you can work with a single page of your current table-based site, working with it until it's right before going live. Then move on to the next. The truth is, "getting rid of tables and cells" is not only not a pipe dream, it's a piece of cake when you know how HTML and CSS work.
Check out the 150 lessons in the w3schools HTML course to get a great start on what you need to know. Believe me, this stuff ain't rocket science, and you can handle it. But ya gotta start somewhere... ;-)
cheers,
scott
How do you highlight multiple sections and move it?
