Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.
Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
I’m about to begin working on a web page with a complex table-based layout (coded years ago).
One of the things I’d like to do is convert the layout to a proper CSS layout with divs and spans.
Can you suggest a good approach for tackling problems like this? Should I use a CSS framework like Blueprint? Just get in there and hack on it until it looks right? I already make heavy use of Firebug and the IE Developer Toolbar.
There generally isn’t a silver bullet in converting between table and CSS. Every site is different and has different requirements. The only real answer is: simply start the markup from scratch.
The best advice is to write the markup entirely first. Make sure the markup is accurate, semantic, and represents your data entirely. Do not write the stylesheet… yet. After the markup is done, create the CSS. This way you have semantic markup and CSS is purely controlling the presentation.
CSS frameworks often don’t advocate this approach to semantic markup because they force you to add additional tags to comply with their approach. Consequently, CSS frameworks are sometimes more trouble than its worth.
Do the markup, then the CSS.