Tables

[zaluzianskya]

I've been wondering about this for a while, and just now decided to ask...

Why are tables broken so badly on Dreamwidth? I get that it's for accessibility, but how does removing borders help? How does screwing up the alignment of cells only when one of them contains an image help? (Example: This becomes this [not my entry], but the cells on this entry are aligned just fine.) Edit: That goes for font styling, also. I know <font> is deprecated, but it's hard to get used to using proper CSS on sites where the stylesheets aren't mine to control (not that that's a bad thing, but there's my reason).

I've tried having a screenreader read an ordinary table and then the version of the table that Dreamwidth "fixed" and noticed no difference. So... what exactly is the reason?

Comments

[zaluzianskya]

I went to try that, but all it did was move the text alignment up to above the top of the cell. It did it for text-valign:top, also. And that still wouldn't explain why it doesn't screw up vertical alignment or font styling (which I forgot to mention in the post, but if you look at the links that's an issue also) in tables without images.

[brownbetty]

Okay, but, and this is a horrible thing for me to tell you, most of your html is deprecated. Support is being dropped for things like <font>, <center>, and even things like cellspacing and cellpadding declared inside the tag. I've put together a (un-beautiful) table that maybe at least illustrates what's possible, view source to see its internals.

Words words Words go here. \o/

[zaluzianskya]

I know it's deprecated, but it's really hard to get used to proper CSS since the stylesheets are set in stone on site-scheme pages, y'know?

Thank you! Saving that code so I can study it.