Html – Can you do this HTML layout without using tables

csshtmllayout

Ok, I had a simple layout problem a week or two ago. Namely sections of a page needed a header:

+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Title                                            Button |
+---------------------------------------------------------+

Pretty simple stuff. Thing is table hatred seems to have taken over in the Web world, which I was reminded of when I asked Why use definition lists (DL,DD,DT) tags for HTML forms instead of tables? Now the general topic of tables vs divs/CSS has previously been discussed, for example:

So this isn't intended to be a general discussion about CSS vs tables for layout. This is simply the solution to one problem. I tried various solutions to the above using CSS including:

  • Float right for the button or a div containing the button;
  • Position relative for the button; and
  • Position relative+absolute.

None of these solutions were satisfactory for different reasons. For example the relative positioning resulted in a z-index issue where my dropdown menu appeared under the content.

So I ended up going back to:

<style type="text/css">
.group-header { background-color: yellow; width: 100%; }
.group-header td { padding: 8px; }
.group-title { text-align: left; font-weight: bold; }
.group-buttons { text-align: right; }
</style>
<table class="group-header">
<tr>
  <td class="group-title">Title</td>
  <td class="group-buttons"><input type="button" name="Button"></td>
</tr>
</table>

And it works perfectly. It's simple, as backward compatibile as it gets (that'll work probably even on IE5) and it just works. No messing about with positioning or floats.

So can anyone do the equivalent without tables?

The requirements are:

  • Backwards compatible: to FF2 and IE6;
  • Reasonably consistent: across different browsers;
  • Vertically centered: the button and title are of different heights; and
  • Flexible: allow reasonably precise control over positioning (padding and/or margin) and styling.

On a side note, I came across a couple of interesting articles today:

EDIT: Let me elaborate on the float issue. This sort of works:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Layout</title>
    <style type="text/css">
      .group-header, .group-content { width: 500px; margin: 0 auto; }
      .group-header { border: 1px solid red; background: yellow; overflow: hidden; }
      .group-content { border: 1px solid black; background: #DDD; }
      .group-title { float: left; padding: 8px; }
      .group-buttons { float: right; padding: 8px; }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div class="group-header">
      <div class="group-title">This is my title</div>
      <div class="group-buttons"><input type="button" value="Collapse"></div>
    </div>
    <div class="group-content">
      <p>And it works perfectly. It's simple, as backward compatibile as it gets (that'll work probably even on IE5) and it just works. No messing about with positioning or floats.</p>
      <p>So can anyone do the equivalent without tables that is backwards compatible to at least FF2 and IE6?</p>
      <p>On a side note, I came across a couple of interesting articles today:</p>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

Thanks to Ant P for the overflow: hidden part (still don't get why though). Here's where the problem comes in. Say I want the title and button to be vertically centered. This is problematic because the elements are of different height. Compare this to:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Layout</title>
    <style type="text/css">
      .group-header, .group-content { width: 500px; margin: 0 auto; }
      .group-header { border: 1px solid red; background: yellow; overflow: hidden; }
      .group-content { border: 1px solid black; background: #DDD; }
      .group-header td { vertical-align: middle; }
      .group-title { padding: 8px; }
      .group-buttons { text-align: right; }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <table class="group-header">
    <tr>
      <td class="group-title">This is my title</td>
      <td class="group-buttons"><input type="button" value="Collapse"></td>
    </tr>
    </table>
    <div class="group-content">
      <p>And it works perfectly. It's simple, as backward compatibile as it gets (that'll work probably even on IE5) and it just works. No messing about with positioning or floats.</p>
      <p>So can anyone do the equivalent without tables that is backwards compatible to at least FF2 and IE6?</p>
      <p>On a side note, I came across a couple of interesting articles today:</p>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

which works perfectly.

Best Answer

There is nothing wrong with using the tools that are available to you to do the job quickly and correctly.

In this case a table worked perfectly.

I personally would have used a table for this.

I think nested tables should be avoided, things can get messy.

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