Reader Question: Are tables easier?
"If you build your client a website and the deal is that they will take over the maintenance and all afterwards, wouldn’t it be best to build the site in tables? By this I mean using tables for the layout and CSS for positioning and styling (no nested tables). If your clients are not the tech-savvy, web-savvy clients and you are afraid that <div> tags will be confusing for them and they will not be able to work with them, would you build the site using tables?"
My Thoughts
Personally, I have found that DIVs are easier for most people to understand than tables are. For one thing, there are only 2 tags - <div> and </div> - that they put their text and images within. Tables require that they put them inside a <table>, <tr>, and <td> - and all the closing tags.
If your clients use a WYSIWYG editor, then I would definitely use div tags and CSS - since that is more accessible, more search engine friendly, and easier to maintain for the developer. From the perspective of the client, WYSIWYG will make maintenance about the same for div tags as with tables. This is especially true if you're going to use CSS for the positioning of the layout. As that's what is really difficult about CSS layouts - not the div tags.
Bottom line: if they are going to maintain the layout, then you'll have to teach them something about CSS and positioning anyway, so why teach them a method that is old? And if they're not going to change the layout, then it doesn't matter, so I'd still stick with a more modern method - namely CSS with div and block tags.
More Resources
- Why You Should Give Up on Tables for Design
- Web Page Layouts Shouldn't Use Tables
- Tableless Layouts - Using CSS Positioning to Layout Web Pages
- CSS Layouts Can Use More than Just the Div Tag
Do you change your pages depending upon who's maintaining them?
Do you make a distinction in your HTML code depending upon who will be maintaining the pages? If you do, what differences do you make? Do you provide special tools for your clients to maintain sites? Or do you make the pages as simple as you possibly can? Let us know by posting your ideas in the comments here or start a new thread discussing this in the forum.
Comments
Use a CMS like Joomla or Drupal and your clients will never need see a div unless they really feel like div-ing in! *really bad pun*
Charles
Until pure div+css is cross-browser consistent, I use divs as much as I can, but use a table for the 2-column or 3-column center of the page. And of course format it entirely with css. I just don’t have time to learn or teach all the different work-arounds needed to address all the various browser issues that the columns present if done entirely with divs+css.
Clients work entirely withing “boxes”, however those boxes are generated, so are table/div agnostic.
I absolutely hate having a client ‘take over’ maintaining a site. The few times that I’ve tried it, I’ve had to do more work cleaning up the mess that they’ve created than I would have had to do maintaining the site myself.
IMNSHO, there are only two good ways to go: 1) I build and maintain your site or 2) I set up your site with some sort of CMS that allows you to make limited changes to your content.
If a client insists on maintaining a site after I’ve built it, I think that I’d prefer to build it with SiteBuilder or some similar tool to limit the damage they can do.
I’m with Bob & Charles, above.
If a non-tech savvy client wants to maintain their own site because of very frequent updates then use a robust CMS system.
I don’t think WYSIWYG editors are the solution because, depending on the editor, they can still create a mess.
If someone wants to learn HTML then they should learn it building their own site not just doing maintenance.