Question

I’m still having a hard time not wanting to use Tables to do my Details View Layout in HTML. I want to run some samples by people and get some opinions.

What you would prefer to see in the html for a Details View? Which one has the least hurddles cross browser? Which is the most compliant? Which one looks better if a I have a static width label column that is right aligned?

By Details view i mean something similar to the following image.

Table

<table> <tr> <td><label /></td> <td><input type='textbox' /></td> </tr> <tr> <td><label /></td> <td><input type='textbox' /></td> </tr> </table> 

Fieldset

<fieldset> <label /><input type='textbox' /><br /> <label /><input type='textbox' /><br /> </fieldset> 

Divs

<div class='clearFix'> <div class='label'><label /></div> <div class='control'><input type='textbox' /></div> </div>   <div class='clearFix'> <div class='label'><label /></div> <div class='control'><input type='textbox' /></div> </div> 

List

<ul> <li><label /><input type='textbox' /></li> <li><label /><input type='textbox' /></li> </ul> 

Answer 1

Those approaches aren’t mutually exclusive, personally I’d mix them up a bit:

<fieldset>   <label for='name'>XXX <input type='text' id='name'/></label>   <label for='email'>XXX <input type='text' id='email'/></label> </fieldset> 

Although to get a right aligned label (something I’d personally avoid because it’s harder to scan visually) you’ll need to have an extra element around the text that isn’t around the input, so I’d go for

<fieldset>   <div class='label_input'><label for='name'>XXX</label><input type='text' id='name'/></div>   <div class='label_input'><label for='email'>XXX</label><input type='text' id='email'/></div> </fieldset>