Principles of Web Design with HTML Table Elements

1. Chapter 5Creating Page Templates

2. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Objectives • Understand how tables can enhance the display of your content • Use HTML table elements and attributes to customize page templates • Learn how to take a page design from concept to HTML code • Recognize and use basic page templates

3. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Using Table Elements • To build effective page templates, you must be familiar with the HTML table elements and attributes. • The <TABLE> element contains the table information, which consists of table row elements <TR>, and individual table data cells <TD>. These are the three elements you will use most frequently when you are building tables.

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5. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design A Basic Table Figure 5-2 shows a basic table that uses these three table elements.

6. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Basic Table Code <TABLE BORDER> <TR><TD>Stock Number</TD><TD>Description</TD><TD>List Price</TD></TR> <TR><TD>3476-AB</TD><TD>76mm Socket</TD><TD>45.00</TD></TR> <TR><TD>3478-AB</TD><TD>78mm Socket</TD><TD>47.50</TD></TR> <TR><TD>3480-AB</TD><TD>80mm Socket</TD><TD>50.00</TD></TR> </TABLE>

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8. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Captions and Table Header • <CAPTION> lets you add a caption to the top or bottom of the table. By default, captions display at the top of the table. You can use the ALIGN=BOTTOM attribute to align the caption at the bottom of the table. • The <TH> tag lets you create a table header cell that presents the cell content as bold and centered.

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10. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Spanning Columns • Table attributes let you further define a number of table characteristics. You can apply attributes at three levels of table structure: global, row-level, or cell-level.

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14. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Spanning Columns • The COLSPAN attribute lets you create cells that span multiple columns of a table. Column spans cells always span to the right.

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16. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Spanning Rows • The ROWSPAN attribute lets you create cells that span multiple rows of a table. Row spans always span down.

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18. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Relative or Absolute Widths • Set relative table widths as percentages in the table WIDTH attribute. If you choose relative table widths, your tables will resize based on the size of the browser window. • Set absolute table widths as pixel values in the table WIDTH attribute. Fixed tables remain constant regardless of the browser window size.

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21. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Calculating Table Widths • The most common width for page template tables is between 580 and 600 pixels. This width supports the current lowest common denominator: 640 x 480 screen resolution. • Internet Explorer displays tables slightly wider than Netscape, so you will find that 590 is an optimal fixed table width.

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23. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Default Table Spacing • Default spacing values are included in the table even when you don’t specify values for the table’s border, cell-padding, or cell-spacing attributes. • Depending on the browser, approximately two pixels are reserved for each of these values. • You can remove the default spacing by explicitly stating a zero value for each attribute.

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27. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Table Pointers • Write easy-to-read code - You can simplify your table creation and maintenance tasks by writing clean, commented code • Remove extra spaces - Always remove any leading or trailing spaces in your table cell content • Center tables - Centering a fixed table makes the table independent of resolution changes, because the table is always centered in the browser window

28. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Table Pointers • Stack tables - Because of the way browsers display tables, it’s best to build several smaller tables rather than one large one • Nest tables - You can nest tables by placing an entire table within a table cell

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32. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Creating a Page Template • In this example you’ll see how to take a design sketch for a Web page and build a template for the page layout. • Figure 5-15 shows a sketch of the desired layout. This layout is designed for a base screen resolution of 640 x 480, so the table will be fixed at a width of 590 pixels.

33. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Creating a Page Template • Notice that the basic structure of the table is 3 rows by 4 columns. Each column uses 25% of the total width of the template. Row spans and column spans break across the layout to provide visual interest.

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35. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Build the Basic Structure • Start by building the basic table structure, including all the cells and rows of the table. • As you customize the table you can remove extraneous cells as necessary. • The basic structure is a 3-row by 4-column table.

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37. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Setting a Fixed Width • One of the design characteristics of the template is a fixed width that is not dependent on the user’s browser size or screen resolution. • To accomplish this, use a pixel value in the global WIDTH attribute. Figure 5-17 shows the result of setting the width to 590 pixels.

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39. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Creating the Page Banner • The page banner cell is R1C1. This cell spans the four columns of the table using the COLSPAN attribute.

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41. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Creating the Feature Cell • The Feature cell in the layout is R2C2, and spans two columns. This column span requires the removal of one cell in row two to make room for the span.

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43. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Creating the Link Columns • The New Link and Linked Ads columns in the layout reside in cells R2C1 and R2C3 respectively. These cells span rows 2 and 3 of the table. The row spans require the removal of cells R3C1 and R3C4.

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45. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Creating the Page Banner • Column widths must be set in only one cell per column. • It’s also best to set the column widths in only one row of the table. • In the example template, no rows contain a cell in each column of the table. The best way to set the widths for the columns is to add a fourth row to the table. This row acts as a width “control row.” These cells contain the WIDTH attributes and no content.

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47. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Testing the Template • To verify that your template works properly, populate it with test content • Test the template in multiple browsers

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50. Chapter 5 Principles of Web Design Template Examples • The following templates cover a variety of page layout needs • You may choose to stack different templates on top of each other for more complex layouts