Now if only browsers supported CSS properly!
There was a time when Hn elements were abused to control font size (proba=
bly
still happens). FONT elements were only slightly better (but at least you
said what you meant).
Then we got the table hacks:
* tables to do margins (multiple ULs were used for this too but it
didn't work on IE), particularly when you had a background with some colo=
ur
or pattern on the lefthand side.
* tables to do columns and/or side navigation bars (I admit, I'm
guilty)
* tables to do background colours (I remember using this with a be=
ta
of Netscape 3 for a presentation I gave while working at Sun Labs in earl=
y
1996. Everyone asked me afterwards how I did the background colours. I'm
still guilty of this, though I generally use CSS for it now).
I resolved a little while ago to do (almost) everything with CSS (and now
XML+XSL->HTML+CSS).
Inspired by Jakob (who I notice is CCed on this thread now=97hi Jakob!) I=
now
do entirely *text* navbars and encourage my students to do so too (I run =
an
undergraduate and graduate course in website management).
Table hacks for columns and side navbars are about all that remains. I ca=
n't
wait until I can ditch them for CSS2.
James
-- James Tauber / jtauber@jtauber.com / www.jtauber.com Associate Researcher, Electronic Commerce Network Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western AustraliaFull-day XML Tutorial @ WWW8 : http://www8.org/
Maintainer of : www.xmlinfo.com, www.xmlsoftware.com and www.schema.net