13 October 2003

Web Page Layout

Most of the web design principles we’ve talked about assume that you can control the placement of elements on your page. However, basic HTML doesn’t give you much control over page layout.

Today we’ll talk about the use of tables for layout of web pages. Until fairly recently, this was the standard tool web developers used to control placement of elements on pages.

As CSS has become more powerful, and better supported, it has become a better solution for controlling layout on web pages. However, use of CSS for positioning elements is beyond the scope of this class, so we’ll limit our class discussion to the use of tables.

Readings for Web Page Layout

Required: Chapter 14 of the XHTML book (Tables)

Optional: Chapter 11 of the XHTML book (Layout With Styles)