Tables vs Layout Tables

[Ran-D]

Frustrated... First I read that most everyone is negative about Shared Borders. Then Layers are also on the unfavored list. Both were easy to use. Oh well, now I'm on to Includes and Tables.

The problem I'm having with tables is that I can not have a line border on 2 or 3 sides of a cell since FORMAT cells is not availble in a standard table. However, this option, and others, are available if I create a Layout Table. Layout Tables / Cells are a lot more work to set up. So what's the big advantage of tables? Hellllllp.
Thanks.

[MandyJay]

Hi,
If you (or I) were a webpage expert then we would be ditching FP and making all our pages using CSS virtually throughout.... but I am not that clever, haha , so I will not go down that route - also FrontPage couldlnt handle it as it is a HTML editor not a pure CSS editor. I only mention it as using pure CSS for layouts is apparently the most browser compatible, and the "purists" solution at the moment - however it still has limitations.

So with FrontPage ..... layers are not good for the reson they use absolute positioning, but they use that positioning inline. i.e. the code for that is on the page, some browsers read that wrong. The ideal way to use layers is to position them (as per my first para) via external CSS, which FrontPage doesnt do on its own, you would have to do 90% plus of the work which defeats even using FP.

So to position items tables are the next best and most widely used "thing" .... You can have a table within a table if you wish, though you dont want to have too many tables inside tables. Each table can have as many rows or columns as you like according to the layout you want on your page. Each cell can individually have their own alignment, both horizontally and vertically.

I have to agree I dont like the layout table option, but having said that some people just cannot get to grips with tables at all, so find it very helpful.

If you want borders only on three sides of a table then you need to use CSS. (layout tables will do it, but the coding is inline which isnt read by some browsers correctly).

Using external stylesheets (CSS = Cascading Style Sheets) is the easiest in the long run for you to use. They work like the Page Include. You put your styles on a Cascading Style Sheet (FP has those) and then get FP to link all the pages to it ..... the alternative is to have the styles dirctly in the head tags of each page, that you have to do manually for each page.

Now if you dont want all tables to have 3 borders then you need to give the Style a "class" name, then apply that "class" name to the tables you do want to have 3 borders.

File/new .... page ...... more page templates
and from the template box click on the tab for Styles
select the "normal" one. Save as say

styles

you will now have a page called "styles" with an extension of .css instead of .htm

Now with the styles page open click on Format/styles....

You will see the HTML tags, you can use those if you like, or in your instance where perhaps you dont want all tables to have three colored borders - click on the drop down box and select User Defined.

On the right click on the New button.
In the "name selector" type whatever you like, this is what YOU are going to know the style by, so maybe call it something you will recognise like

3borders

then go on to format your style, just the same as if you did it on your webpage. From the bottom Format button, select Borders ... and away you go. You will end up on your Styles page something like this - depending on your choices

.3border { border-left: 1px solid #008000; border-right: 1px solid #008000; border-bottom: 1px solid #008000 }

making sure you have saved the page ....

open up your webpage
in normal view click on Format/style sheet links
Browse to where you saved your style sheet and follow the prompts.

Now if you look at the head tags of your page you will see where FrontPage has linked your page to the stylesheet. You can link the stylesheet to all your pages, and any changes made to the stylesheet will show up on all your pages.

One more step to do. Becuase we do not want all tables to have three colored borders, we need to assign the name of the style to the tables that you do want to have three borders.

So open up your webpage, and inside the table right click, select Table Properties.
Bottom left is a button that says "style" click on it
Near the top is a box that says "class" - click on the drop down and you will see the name of the style you just created, highlight it and click ok to close the boxes down. Now your table should have three sides with colored borders. These will also be compatible in Firefox (the second most widely used browser) whereas using inline styles (as in layout tables) wont be.

If you had wanted ALL tables to have three colored borders, then instead of using User Defined, you would have used the HTML tags and highlighlighted "table" and instead of clicking on new, click on modify, then the rest is the same.

You can set the font family, size and color in your style sheet, page background color or image, virtually all formatting can be set via the style sheet. You can also set table dimensions and cell dimensions .. the list goes on .....but you do need to know what you are doing.

What will prevent the stylesheet from working is if on the webpage you use FP to format stuff, most formatting that is on the page will override any set on your style sheet.

This is a very good site to go to to learn about CSS (not as hard as it sounds) ... it also has Examples where you can interact and actually change the styless and see what result you would get. I am always referring to this site when my styles go haywire!!

http://www.w3schools.com/css/

Well I am bound to have explained something wrong, so please jump back in if need be to ask.... and I am sure people will correct me if they notice any ooops I have done.

Hope it helps some though
MJ

[Ran-D]

Thanks MJ for the detailed response. So if I am understanding correctly... Shared Borders are bad, Layers are bad, Layout Tables are bad, and Tables don't do what you want. I getting frustrated re-doing my site again and again since every new method appears to wrong for the real world. Gee, seems like FrontPage does a lot of things that will cause problems.

In my original post, my problem is with cell borders, not table borders. I don't know if that changes any of your last response.

Thanks,
RC

[MandyJay]

Shared borders are not bad, they do the job brilliantly that they are designed to do.

Layers are not compatible with all browsers, so are bad from that point of view.

Layout tables are long winded for people who know how to use tables, but for people who dont, then they are great.

You have to remember that FrontPage and similare WYSISYG editors are designed to help the user as much as possible. So from that point of view it supplies you with, and are easy to use ...depending on your requirements

built in Themes
Shared borders
FP navigation
Interactive buttons
Layout tables
Page includes
Discussion Board
Forms
Loads of layout templates to choose from (check your FP templates under File/new .....)

and other things expecialy if you are on a Windows server and can take advantage of all the things offered ......

Now, no editor can cater for all the browsers that are on the market, or all their versions .. heck Netscape had like 6 versions of its version 4!! Also standards change each year .... A lot of people still use older browsers, that were not designed to be able to view a lot of the things that can be done today, also each browser seemed to want to introduce its own specialities ... IE uses a marquee .. but only IE can see it ... IE uses the embed, NS used the object and so it went ..... over past couple years not only the top browsers but also web Editors have tried to come up with common ground if you like .....

using CSS is the safest way for most browsers to see a page as you intend it to be seen.

Now .... FrontPage does that, I have shown you how. So you can format all your text, your tables, your paras using CSS ...... external sheet ......

Now using layers you can get pixel perfect if you like, i.e. you can specify that a layer is absolutely positioned 25 pixels from the top of the page and 234 pixels from the left etc etc .... but you need to do that via the external style sheets.

CSS is changing all the time, some will no longer be used over the years and other stuff will .... this is not FrontPage's fault or any other editor's fault, it is the .. organizations that dictate what is right and what is wrong, and the purists try to do 100% exactly that.

Now IE used to hold the market in browsers with Netscape behind it ... that has changed over past couple years .. Netscape is way down the list and Firefox is second behind IE ..... IE is forgiving with code, if you make a mistake it will often recognise that and still view the page correctly .... but Firefox is more strict and prefers external style sheets to do the formatting rather than inline. So ... for your three borders to be seen - whether cell or table, as near as you want, you need to not use inline styles but styles either in the head of the page or external sheets.

FrontPage does what people tell it to do. Plain and simple. Unfortunately it leaves it up to you to decide how perfect or near perfect etc etc you want to be ...... I think it has to be remembered also, that FrontPage is aimed at not only the expert webmaster but also the little ol lady down the road who wants to upload her biography for her family to see .... and she couldnt care less whether layers are seen by the whole world or not, as long as her family can see the pages .... same applies to a lot of websites .. FP has tried to cater for a lot of differnt types.

I am not saying it is perfect, it is not, NO WYSISYG edit is, not even the expensive ones, they ALL make mistakes, but a lot of the mistakes are due to the user not pre planning their website or doing homework to find out the best route for the site they want. I know people who wouldnt use anything but the layout table option, they think it the best thing since sliced bread!!

I give lessons on webdesign to a local community center here, and one of the first things I teach them, is to plan .. plan ... plan .. plan ... that way there are far fewer remakes of sites ..... it is like decorating, if you dont plan and prepare ... the new wallpaper probably will soon fall down!

I do feel for you, as I know only too well what it is like to have to redo a site. My very first attempt at a website around 5/6 years ago, I did around 300 pages in frames.!! it took me around 2 months painfully trying to redo every page using Shared borders, only then to discover I really needed separate shared borders on some pages ... which you cant do, so had to redo this time using Page Include ..... the website is still running strong but I too learned the long route .....

FP is not perfect .... but tables and cells are the way to go when using it. Formatting the content with external style sheets is also the way to go. Front page can do both.

MJ

[Ran-D]

MJ,
Thanks again for all your time and insight. I've learned a lot about FP this last month. I do understand that 1 program will not be perfect for all situations. Why is that? Just kidding... It's a shame that a couple of FP's easier to use tools aren't quite the best fit.

I have planned, planned, and replanned my website. It's just the way I want it to look, but unfortunately used Shared Borders and Layers. None of the layers overlap and were used because it was the easiest way for a free flowing table layout and could be formatted easiely too. My shared borders were simple: the top contained a GIF and the left had 2 link bars. The positioning was perfect for me, inspite of the positioning limitation commented by many.

I have learned about Includes this week. OK, they can do approxiamtely the same as my Shared Borders... just takes a little more time and effect.

Now I'll read about and experiment with Style Sheets. Hopefully they can make the tables look how I'd like. I'd like to get all this figured out in my lifetime. I can't afford to pull any more hair out... not much left.

Thanks,
RC

[Ran-D]

MJ or anyone else,
OK, I've switched to Included Pages from Shared Borders and now dumping Layers, going back to Tables using CSS.

If my understanding is correct, CSS is just for the formatting the HTM pages. So, does that mean it's OK to place GIF's and text in table cells? The GIF's will also have be hyperlinked to other pages.

Thanks,
Randy

PS: A good week - learned Included Pages and CSS. Can a completed web site be far behind???

[MandyJay]

yes that is correct, but to point out just so you cant say "MJ you never told me that! lol ... " CSS can also be used to position certain items on a page and to give tables or pages a background image (not a normal image though) .... but in essence yes, stuff in text and images and flash and whatever ...... you can set your font size, color, family, table/cell background color ... borders for tables/cells ......check out that link I gave youy on css and if you havent already been there, this section you will fine very useful and fun
http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_examples.asp
MJ

[Ran-D]

Thanks MJ. I did check out the W3Schools site. I spent a good part of yesterday learning and experimenting with CSS. Great site. Tomorrow I start off on my site make-over. And I would never say MJ didn't tell so... lol. I'll shoot you the site when I get it posted for testing. Thanks for the pointing me in the left, oops, right direction. :jolly:
Ran-D