05-10-2003 10:13									#1
	HTML Tables fun... Support Apolyton

Okay, a question for all of you web-designers out there.

Suppose I want to create an HTML page with a table that looks like this:

code:

+----------+------------------------------------+
|          |                                    |
|          |             Cell 2                 |
|          |                                    |
|  Cell 1  +------------------------------------+
|          |                                    |
|          |             Cell 3                 |
|          |                                    |
+----------+------------------------------------+
|          |                                    |
|  Cell 4  |                                    |
|          |                                    |
+----------+                                    |
|          |                                    |
|          |                                    |
|          |             Cell 6                 |
|          |                                    |
|  Cell 5  |                                    |
|          |                                    |
|          |                                    |
|          |                                    |
|          |                                    |
|          |                                    |
+----------+------------------------------------+

So, in this table, I want cells 1 and 4 to be of fixed dimensions; cells 2 and 3 of fixed height and width - according to the page width; cell 5 of fixed width, and height - according to the page height; and cell 6 to fill the rest of the page.

So, I give the cells I know the dimensions of the appropriate style attributes, and it seems everything should work out very well... Well, cells 1, 2, 3, and 6 do, indeed, behave as I want them to. However, in IE, cell 4 doesn't want to preserve its height! (It works just fine in Netscape and Opera, but knowing that a lot of people that will browse the resultant page will be users of IE, I have to accomodate them. ) What IE does is, it distributes the height evenly between cells 4 and 5 - both half of cell 6's height... It must have something to do with incorrect interpretation of the rowspan on cell 6, but that doesn't help me much.

Now, if I add a spacer image to cell 5 to make it higher that way, rather than through a style attribute, it works, but that limits how much information I can have in Cell 6... If I put more text there than the height of the spacer image, the problem kicks in again, and IE distributes the left over space evenly between cells 4 and 5...

Sooo, anyone know how to fix that and make cell 4 a fixed height? Help would be greatly appreciated.

	05-10-2003 10:22									#2
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declare the size. WIDTH= or height=

Or just use Dreamweaver to take care of everything for u

	05-10-2003 10:28									#3
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quote: Originally posted by Zero declare the size. WIDTH= or height=

I'm not that ignorant.

Sorry if my original post didn't make that clear, but I did that and it doesn't work. Tried both - Dreamweaver and the good ol' notepad. The problem as described above persists.

Anybody else have any ideas how to fool IE into rendering the page correctly?

	05-10-2003 10:38									#4
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Gimme 2 minutes... I'll give you the code... hold on.

	05-10-2003 10:51									#5
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disregard.. the forums won't display the borders well and they got rid of all my formatting

Last edited by BustaMike on 05-10-2003 at 10:56

	05-10-2003 10:54									#6
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Sometimes you will find many problems with tables such as this, a tiny 1 pixel long image will hold all the tables together nicely.

It's obvious Cell 6 will have the text, if your text is long, cell 5 will stretch downwards, gotta make sure that everything is justified correctly.


Honestly, I dislike Dreamweaver a LOT, it has caused so many uneccessary problems I just got sick of it. I went to Frontpage 2002 and will never look back. I am waiting to get Frontpage 2003. This program IS solid. People will say "But its Microsoft" But but but, well, tell them to shove off, if the program works, it works, simple as that. If it don't, then bugger off.

	05-10-2003 10:56									#7
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Ah, yes, I haven't tried nested tables yet - only styles, attributes and spacer images. I'll bet this one will work though. Thanks.

	05-10-2003 11:05									#8
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The borders might have to be tweaked if you want them to show, because they will double up in the nested tables. The stupid forums took away all my formatting and wouldn't display it right anyway so here's the correct code for what you want. You'll have to play with the dimensions obviously but the gut of it is there.

Attachment: untitled-1.gif
This has been downloaded 97 time(s).

	05-10-2003 13:15									#9
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For god sakes stop using tables! That is so 1998!

	05-10-2003 13:42									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger For god sakes stop using tables! That is so 1998!

That's all fine and well, but I tried to recreate vovansim's lay-out in pure CSS for two hours now and I can't get it right in both Opera7 and IE6.

So nested tables is the way to go for now I guess...

	05-10-2003 13:46									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Hueij That's all fine and well, but I tried to recreate vovansim's lay-out in pure CSS for two hours now and I can't get it right in both Opera7 and IE6.

Hm.

I suppose a better way of saying it is to redo the layout The reason is it is silly to attempt pixel perfect layout on such a huge array of disparge output devices, some of them are not even visual.

	05-10-2003 14:43									#12
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Maybe he should be using frames

Hehe...

	05-10-2003 15:13									#13
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* Urban Ranger throws a cabbage at Hueij

	05-10-2003 22:14									#14
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Frames? The horror! Nooooooooo....




Yeah, any way, nested tables worked perfectly fine, and I got my pixel-perfect solution on IE 6, Mozilla 1.4, and Opera 7.

Another question: I was looking at this mozilla.org site, and there is a whole bunch of different distributions over there: mozilla, firebird, and thunderbird. Anyone know the difference between those?

	05-10-2003 22:15									#15
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Well, you could always merge Cell 4 with Cell 5 and create a special child table in there with two cells.

	05-10-2003 22:16									#16
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quote: Originally posted by St Leo Well, you could always merge Cell 4 with Cell 5 and create a special child table in there with two cells.

Cross-post is that? That's what I did.

	05-10-2003 22:17									#17
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quote: Originally posted by vovansim Another question: I was looking at this mozilla.org site, and there is a whole bunch of different distributions over there: mozilla, firebird, and thunderbird. Anyone know the difference between those?

Mozilla: The old-style suite
Firebird: A temporary browser fork that strips away a lot of the fat and some of the bone marrow
Thunderbird: A temporary mail fork that strips away al lot of the fat and none of the bone marrow

	05-10-2003 22:24									#18
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layout tables
Use layers.

	06-10-2003 03:45									#19
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara layout tables Use layers.

Layers?? As in Netscape layers?

	06-10-2003 03:58									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Hueij Layers?? As in Netscape layers?

No, not Netcape layers, CSS layers. It also requires a little javascript, since you need to get the layers on the right to line up with the right edge of the left layers.

Download the SnapLayers extension from PVII, and you can have valid CSS layers with the layout you want.

	06-10-2003 05:37									#21
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Javascript? To get your lay-out right with CSS?

Anyway, is there a way in CSS to get a block to stretch to the bottom of the screen? This is the problem I ran into when I tried to make vovansim's lay-out to work in both IE and opera. Opera takes the "height:100%" but IE doesn't.

Same goes for stretching to the width of the screen.

	06-10-2003 07:16									#22
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara No, not Netcape layers, CSS layers. It also requires a little javascript, since you need to get the layers on the right to line up with the right edge of the left layers. Download the SnapLayers extension from PVII, and you can have valid CSS layers with the layout you want.

That's an interesting idea, though I still maintain that any designer who wants to treat the Web like tranditional media are in error.

The Web is not Print

	06-10-2003 07:17									#23
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quote: Originally posted by vovansim Yeah, any way, nested tables worked perfectly fine, and I got my pixel-perfect solution on IE 6, Mozilla 1.4, and Opera 7.

I did that way back in 1996. Is there something new you want to tell me?

	06-10-2003 07:24									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Hueij Anyway, is there a way in CSS to get a block to stretch to the bottom of the screen? This is the problem I ran into when I tried to make vovansim's lay-out to work in both IE and opera. Opera takes the "height:100%" but IE doesn't.

Which cell is that? Cell 5? Try setting margin-bottom to 0.

Several weeks I was playing around with CSS, which involved placing several boxes around on the screen. It worked perfectly in Mozilla, but IE foobared on it as usual

	06-10-2003 08:25									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger That's an interesting idea, though I still maintain that any designer who wants to treat the Web like tranditional media are in error.

I agree with you, but we wouldn't be true to our craft if we weren't pushing the edge.

	06-10-2003 13:21									#26
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Agreed.

That's why we should be blazing new trails, or at least follow them.

	07-10-2003 04:34									#27
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara I agree with you, but we wouldn't be true to our craft if we weren't pushing the edge.

Too bad you can't do that in MSIE.

	07-10-2003 04:57									#28
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Sure you can. It's just difficult.