Has the world turned upside down in the past 5 months?

Tables here, tables there, tables tables EVERYWHERE

[AWildman]

I finally got a new job after being unemployed for FIVE STINKING MONTHS this year. I'm webmaster for a university in my hometown. YAY! I get here only to find that I've landed in Bizarro Tables For Layout Rule World! BOOOOO! Every department has their own website built off freakin' templates which all use tables. Boo. Boo. BOOOOOOO. Right now, I feel like the old woman in The Princess Bride, who heckled the princess, "Booooo...boooo...bow down to her...bow down to the queen of rubbish, the queen of garbage, the queen of filth, the queen of...puuuuuuutresence...." GAH! I have work up the wazoo (good thing given my recent experiences) but its all gonna be wipe out everything that is here and start over...And those are only the sites over which I have some control. A lot of departments got tired of waiting for the prior webmaster to be able to develop a site for them and contracted out to...companies that use tables for layout. Granted, the people seem happy with the sites because they offer all sorts of nifty functionality, but are unaware or don't care that TABLES SUCK!

Was there some convention that I missed that stated that css is now passe and tables are the wave of the future? Am I relic in 5 months and I didn't know it? I mean, I turned 30 in that time, so yeah, I may be one to the whippersnappers, but come on!

[rocknbil]

^ ^ LOL haha! That's awesome. :-)

[dauction]

I love Tables and I love Front Page /..I turn on as many businesses as posssible on to Front Page..just to irratate the hell out of snobby css webmasters.

In fact this past week I set up a table rich site for a local verternarian for $300.00 after our local css snob quote him $17,000.00

Our Vet now has a website that he can manage himself right in Front Page ..since everyone in our part of the world is on broadband ..that extra 1 second load time means nothing .

I hear our CSS guyt is looking for work

grin and bear it

[buy_online]

Some silly questions:

What kind of template are you going to give the different departments, remembering that they have very different levels of coding skill?

and...

If I'm in one of those departments, and need twenty-pages organized for me with a course syllabus, and some images and some stuff linked to a database, how long before you finish it, so I can use it? btw, I need it three-days from now. <<Yes, this is a rhetorical question, I don't believe you can fill everyone's needs unless you have some kind of "staff" to help you...

F

PS: I think that cool post with the nested tables just destroyed the formatting on this page! I'll have to remember that one - wtg!

[vincevincevince]

Personally, I'd be looking for a mix-and-match solution. Have a lovely CSS template, and use CSS as much as you want for pages you control. But stick a big WYSIWYG type HTML editor in the middle of the template and let your various users edit their own pages using it. Sure it won't be the most beautiful thing in the world - but you can predefine CSS for headings, fonts, etc. Just hope they don't ruin it.

[ronin]

I love Tables and I love Front Page

Yes okay, personal preferences are fair enough. But why go the extra mile to use an outdated hack? Surely it's faster and simpler to do it all with CSS? Why make more work for yourself?