Layers or Tables which is better and more professional

[DevelopsWebs]

Thanks for everyones help first off. I hope one day I can be a contributor rather than a questioner. Just got a new job with a very professional web house. Normally for my websites in the past most designs for added flexibility have been done with layers. In dreamweaver just drawing layers and adding appropriate conent, pics, flash etc.

Question to senior developers is this, will I look less experienced and professional doing the same for my new boss? Is it an acceptable practice to draw layers and add content? Our will this look amatuerish if I do not use just tables? In viewing page source for other sites my new employer has developed I see no "div" tags on their designs.

Your help would be greatly appreciated as this is my first "real" non-contract job in web design and I want to look and design like a true professional.

[BonRouge]

I'm not a web designer by trade, but I've read enough on these forums to tell you now you're looking at it the wrong way. The BEST websites are done WITHOUT tables. I think the best coders/designers on these forums always tell people to get rid of their tables because tables are for tabular data like sales figures or whatever - not for organising the layout of your page. I think you'll be advised not to just draw layers in Dreamweaver, but to code them properly and keep the layout stuff out of the body and in the head.
I feel strange saying this to you because it's your job - not mine - but maybe you should do some more reading.
Try [hotdesign.com...] for starters (Note to mods: this is not a personal URL - it's a good bit of reading - please don't edit it out).

[faltered]

Excuse me for nosing in here, but BonRouge- why would using tables for laying out your page be a bad thing? I would think using tables would be preferred over layers because they would be interpreted better by other types of broswers. Or do I have this all backwards?

Is it preferred to use tables instead of layers, or vice-versa?

[benihana]

i assume the references to layers are actually meaning divs.

I personally prefer to seperate presentation from structure as much as i possibly can, and therefore use divs and css to format my pages. many others feel differently.

this has been discussed to death on this site and others, and will conitune to do so for a few years yet.
css vs tables [google.com]

in response to the original poster - talk to your boss about their preffered method, and work with that for now.

[BonRouge]

Faltered - yes, you seem to have it backward.

Please follow the link I posted and read it - it's a great explanation.

[edited by: BonRouge at 4:30 pm (utc) on Nov. 5, 2004]

[faltered]

beni: thanks for the link. Interesting reads.

[sai digitalle]

Please read the link Bon posted. And after reading it, ask yourself what the structure of yoursite will be like. if you're like me, and you have a one window navigated site with an iframe, and the iframe is src'ing to html docs with no tables, then the one table you're using on the main page is not a hassle at all. But if you're site has multple pages based on tables the YES you should go with layer styles.

[sonjay]

benihana has the right idea: Find out the preferred coding method. There may well be reasons that you should structure your pages the same way as the other designers. For starters, if more than one person works on a site, and if the others don't know how to code by positioning divs with css, you may well have to stick with tables. Or if most or all of the designers are using an older version of Dreamweaver, which handles css positioning poorly, it may be a bad idea to start using that method.

Or or or .... the head boss guy in charge hates css positioning and divs with a passion.... They had a really bad experience with a client using NN4.x where their carefully designed css pages blew up....their clients want tables used because the clients sometimes do their own editing and that's what they're used to. There are many reasons that you need to find out how you're expected to code before you go off and start using different methods from what they're already using.

Don't ask us here.... Go ask your boss.

[DevelopsWebs]

Thanks to all for the great replies. I did not want to look like an amatuer by asking questions of the boss how to write pages, but the respondants make alot of sense and I believe that the most "professional" thing to do is ask how they want things done and then comply with that.

Thanks Again.

[mikec]

--begin rant--

ok, i see soo many people ranting and raving about divs and css layouts. the bottom line though is that sometimes it's not practical.. sometimes when you have tight deadlines it's simply not practical. there are so many compatibility issues. sometimes it's just not efficient to spend hours hacking your css so that it displays correctly on all the major browsers. on some projects, when u have the time, yes i think divs are definately preferred because they allow you to structure your code how you want it. sometimes though it is not the best solution. you can't deny the cross browser stability of tables. plus it takes all of about 10-15 minutes to pump out a table based layout, whereas a div based layout can take hours to debug so that it works correctly on opera, firefox and msie.

it is for the reason of compatibility and stability that most big places are still hanging on to table based layouts. as long as you keep the styling all in your css file, the table based design can still be very clean.