In chapter 6 we learned how to make tables in our website. The author of our book, Ian Lloyd, begins the chapter by explaining that in the olden days before CSS, tables were commonly used to layout pages. This, however, is not a good practise. It is very limiting and especially hard to adapt to handicapped users. CSS functions much much better and has (or should have) completely taken the place of tables as a page layout mechanism.This does not mean, however, that tables no longer have a place in web design. They belong, as always, in a web developers toolbox, specifically for organizing data.
The rest of the chapter discussed the logistics of creating tables and demonstrated such, as I have also demonstrated below. As you can see, the information is neatly organized into rows and columns. I have also used a style sheet to clean up the resulting table. Some of the things this style sheet does are, create borderlines inbetween the various segments of the chart and distinguish the header information from the table data using color. Less noticably, I also adjusted the font sizes and the padding of various cells. I utilized the column span and row span elements to more clearly define my various column information, and I used the scope element to make the table easier for a screen-reader to interpret accuately.
| Dates | Room Assignments | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Living Room | Kitchen | Stairs/Hall/Vanity | Bathroom | |
| Jan 15th | Britney | Amy | Carolina | Ashley |
| Jan 29th | Amy | Carolina | Ashley | Britney |
| Feb 12th | Carolina | Ashley | Britney | Amy |
| Feb 26th | Ashley | Britney | Amy | Carolina |
| Mar 11th | Britney | Amy | Carolina | Ashley |
| Mar 25th | Amy | Carolina | Ashley | Britney |