Web Professionalism

[Maljonic]

Going back to tables again... I think one thing about them is that they can't overlap each other, they also stay confined inside each other, which I know is not the done thing but you can see why people use them because of this. It's almost impossible to get a div to do the same thing on all browsers. Like divs seem to stay confined inside each other in IE width ways, but flow outside in an annoying fashion in Netscape, Firefox etc (as do tables in divs of course).

They also seem to overlap each other lengthways sometimes. I have noticed that putting fieldset tags around some things you want to keep seperate works fairly well, puts them in a nice box that doesn't get interfered with, but I'm not sure if fieldsets are meant to be used that way or not - seems to work though.

 

[Gef]

Ah, I was messing with it before Christmas and didn't fix it when I was done. That's a proof of my carelessness maintaining my own website, rather than CSS based design.

All i'm saying, as Mal is saying above too, is that CSS based design simply takes longer and requires a lot more attention than table based design. I think mainly because CSS is still half in the beta phase of its existance, hence the constant need for ugly hacks, and constant bug fixing. We also still get the odd complaint from Mac users still running OS9 and IE5, ever tried to get a pure CSS layout working on that? Its the stuff nightmares are made of..

Okay so tables may be 'wrong' but the web has grown up with tables, and they just work effortlessly across all browsers, I dont even bother testing cross browser compatability half the time, I just know intrinsically when something will work. When CSS reaches that level of compatability (hopefully with IE7) I think the web will sit up and take notice, and we'll see a huge number of the 'big sites' moving over.

 

[Maljonic]

It just occurred to me that Marquee is a good example of something that is really simple and easy to do for anyone, yet isn't a valid tag and is quite complicated to replicate validly - for someone who is only a hobby type web designer I mean.

 

[Gef]

Marquee should never have been a tag, its just something that Microshaft invented, no other browser supports it, much like half of their totally unstandardised CSS. They try and write the rules and the rest of the world generally tuts, then points and laughs.

 

[Maljonic]

Well yes it should never have been a tag, but it is. Just like tables should never have been used the way they are.

Marquee works in Netscape now, and Firefox and Opera - you just stick marquee tags at either and of a line of text and it scrolls across the screen, some people are really impressed with that (it's even incoperated into some message baords) and it doesn't get much simpler.

 

[Shovel]

God I hate <marquee>.

It was implemented into Gecko ages ago back when they needed to support a handful of IE features to make the initial marketshare grab.

The problem with it is that it's a highly inaccessible piece of presentation (which is why it was never adopted into any standard). Unlike some JavaScript based marquee scripts, whereby hovering the cursor on text could pause it, whereby dragging the text could move the marquee back and forth, the <marquee> element is just a sad gimmick.

When the behaviour of an element makes a web page harder to use for the able-bodied, 20/20 visioned amoung us, you know it probably shouldn't be there. It's unfortunate that a lot of people are drawn to it when they start out making pages, but it's still a bad relic of years gone.

On a related note you can disable both <marquee> and the horrid <blink> in Mozilla-based browsers by adding the following to your userContent.css files:

blink { text-decoration: none ! important; }
marquee { -moz-binding: none; }

 

[Penguin]

Same. Scrolling text? Ugh.

When you first see it it's quite cool but once you've seen it a few times it quickly gets boring, and irrortating for me atleast.

Reminds me of those silly clocks you can get to follow the mouse.

 

[Maljonic]

I think some people like scrolling text on their site if they're selling something. Kind of like it makes it look up-to-date and live, as if something is happening. It's not so bad if it's subtle.

 

[Shovel]

The trouble is that it prevents you from being able to read it all at once. Take a shop: Rather than be able to see a nice list of special offers, <marquee> is forcing me to sit and wait for the text to go round. It's not practical in any way at all.

 

[Will]

As a total non-professional, I think marquee looks shit. Its just tacky.

 

[Deadnala]

Both of my projects user interface are made with tables.
both the site's are validated, (not anymore after i inserted the adds by google)
At my end i try to vlidate em when i change something Both sites allso use css. i use dreamweaver in textmode becouse i like the editor and the project overview. allso the build in ftp is nice and the snipet thing to store your bits of code Graphics are done with photoshop. I try out my projects both on ms-ie and firefox and sometimes there are some isues even if the site is valid with w3c.
Here are my web's

http://template.innersphere.be/
http://www.innersphere.be/

 

[Maljonic]

I know, it's just as annoying when you see it on TV at the bottom of news reports when you just want to read the headline but you have to wait for it to come out. I think that's the thing though, the news programmes have been doing ot for so long that people connect scrolling text with news, being easily lead and influenced by such things as many people are.

 

[Maljonic]

Both of my projects user interface are made with tables.
both the site's are validated, (not anymore after i inserted the adds by google)
At my end i try to vlidate em when i change something Both sites allso use css. i use dreamweaver in textmode becouse i like the editor and the project overview. allso the build in ftp is nice and the snipet thing to store your bits of code Graphics are done with photoshop. I try out my projects both on ms-ie and firefox and sometimes there are some isues even if the site is valid with w3c.
Here are my web's

http://template.innersphere.be/
http://www.innersphere.be/

It's not too hard to get google ads to validate, for instance instead of doing this: border="0" alt="Google"> </img> just remove the </img> bit and change the first bit so it ends like this: border="0" alt="Google" /> with the / added.

The same with these: Innersphere.be"></input> etc...

See this page has google ads: http://www.maljonicsdreams.com/Dream_Dictionary/ and a google search at the bottom and validates XHTM Strict.

I would try and work on your designs though so they aren't bigger than the screen, making you scroll sideways to see the whole thing.

 

[Shovel]

It's not too hard to get google ads to validate, for instance instead of doing this: border="0" alt="Google"> </img> just remove the </img> bit and change the first bit so it ends like this: border="0" alt="Google" /> with the / added.

The same with these: Innersphere.be"></input> etc...

In the case of Deadnala's page, that isn't actually right as he's using an HTML 4 DOCTYPE (so converting <img> and <input> to self-closing XML tags is unnecessary). Based on the above, it it's actually only necessary to remove the "</img>" and "</input>" - you don't need to change the <img> or <input> tag.

Also Deadnala, it's been mentioned previously but the thread's getting long: Validation is a useful aid but it cannot tell you if you've used an element semantically or not, as it has no way of understanding the content of your page.

 

[Maljonic]

Oh yeah, sorry about that, didn't notice the HTML 4 DOCTYPE. Anyway google ads aren't a problem for validation.

I hate some ads though that use '&' instead of '&amp;' so that you have to change the code yourself before you can use it. I notice thgough that Dreaweaver 8 sometime changes that for you if you're pasting an address into the link box in design view, which is nice.

Also with validation again, many people think that it is a mark of all round greatness, which it isn't. It just means the code is valid HTML or whatever, the site can still be rubbish to look at and impossible to navigate if it's not done right. Valid code is a big leap in the right direction though and at least shows that the web designer is aware of what they're doing with the code, even if they have the taste and finesse of a caravan site/trailer park.

 

[Moo]

the way i see it, as long as you make a site which works, i couldn't care less how it was written.

For example, sites using layers and css heavy design are all very good but when you end up with something that could have been done with tables in 1/2 the time it's just retarded.

When i wanna design something that tables wont let me design i'll use css, otherwise css is relegated to controlling my fonts and links and thats it.

 

[fatbusinessman]

the way i see it, as long as you make a site which works, i couldn't care less how it was written.

Herein lies the problem: how do you define ‘works’? If you just want that particular version of your site to look alright in IE, Firefox and Safari then go ahead and use tables, spacer images and everything else us standards zealots tell you not to do. However, then what happens when you want to change the layout? You have to rewrite the entire site.

Then what happens when people come along who aren't using IE/Firefox/Safari in 800x600 or greater resolution with images enabled and all the trimmings you were expecting when you designed the site? There's blind and partially-sighted users (not very many of them, but they still need to be considered); there's people who want to quickly look up some information from a command prompt and only have Lynx available to them; there's Google; there's people using mobile phones.

As a rule, table-based layouts look like utter shite on a mobile phone browser: you have to scroll around like nobody's business to find what you want or even just to read a paragraph. Do you design an alternate site for partially-sighted users? Do you design an alternate text-only site? Do you design an alternate site for mobiles? Do you design an alternate site for Google to crawl?

Or do you use CSS to have a single site which is accessible to the blind, works without images, is a doddle for Google to check through and works fine on any mobile device you care to name?

 

[Shovel]

^^ What Fatty said.

Do you design an alternate site for Google to crawl?

I feel a slight duty to point out that doing this gets you banned from Google, in case anyone mistakes it for an ingenious marketing idea.

 

[Moo]

Herein lies the problem: how do you define ‘works’? If you just want that particular version of your site to look alright in IE, Firefox and Safari then go ahead and use tables, spacer images and everything else us standards zealots tell you not to do. However, then what happens when you want to change the layout? You have to rewrite the entire site.

Then what happens when people come along who aren't using IE/Firefox/Safari in 800x600 or greater resolution with images enabled and all the trimmings you were expecting when you designed the site? There's blind and partially-sighted users (not very many of them, but they still need to be considered); there's people who want to quickly look up some information from a command prompt and only have Lynx available to them; there's Google; there's people using mobile phones.

As a rule, table-based layouts look like utter shite on a mobile phone browser: you have to scroll around like nobody's business to find what you want or even just to read a paragraph. Do you design an alternate site for partially-sighted users? Do you design an alternate text-only site? Do you design an alternate site for mobiles? Do you design an alternate site for Google to crawl?

Or do you use CSS to have a single site which is accessible to the blind, works without images, is a doddle for Google to check through and works fine on any mobile device you care to name?

Oh i get AND agree with everything you've said, however in my experiance most clients are happy with something that will work in the top 3 browsers, often even just the top 2 - since that fills the demands of probably 98% of their users for significantly less cost overall than writing some dynamic beauty in css based design.

Plus it may seem heartless but a lot of companies just dont care enough about disabled users in order to warrant the extra expense of making their site disabled-friendly.

Certainly if time wasn't an issue and I was pretty certain that I might want to change the design later on without re-writing the whole site and I wanted to give maximum access to multiple platforms, browsers, technology and for disabled people - then yea it's css time. However you just can't beat a table design for something quick, cheap and cheerful which WILL work for more than 95% of anyone who hits your site.


edit: Plus I don't really see what problem a table based site would have with googlebots.

 

[Maljonic]

I guess there isn't a massive problem with googlebot, I could be wrong, but I'm thinking if the way your content is read is important to you from a SEO point of view you'd want your site top be near the top of searches for the right reasons, or the right searches. I think with tables your site gets read in a completely different way by search bots than humans. Like reading all the rows in order: say if you had a table with headings like brushes; paints; Dog Collars; Underwear; with the relevant information underneath them, a human would read Brushes then look down and see the description of the brushes underneath and perhaps a price in the cell under that - but a search engine might read, and more importantly display in results, brushes; paints; Dog Collars; Underwear; then the brush description so that what you get doesn't make a lot of sense and might not persuade someone to click your link.

That's just an idea, might be looking at it quite wrong, but I think your info will get messed up in some similar way and not be read in the way you'd like it to be as the site owner. I think it's sometimes a lot worse than that too, depending on how heavily tables are used to layout a site.

Thinking about this I guess we could have a whole thread just about tables. No one has mentioned yet, or at least not given any examples of, the correct use of tables. Or is it now thought that they are completely uneeded?

For instance do message boards need to be in tables, would they be better if they weren't?

On my dating sites page http://www.maljonicsdreams.com/love_dating/ the table there displays data, but I could write it another way that doesn't use tables (thinking that I will); is this how they should be used?

I'm hoping to get rid of all tables on this site: http://www.driverskills.com/Driverskills_Advanced_Driving.htm but it means convincing the owner of the importance of doing so, it could take 10 or 15 hours to do the job which is quite a lot of money. I linked to that page to show the driving courses in their little tables and wonder if that can be called data if only in the eyes of a client?

Or is table data strictly numbers and information layed out like and excel spreadsheet?

Just thought we ought to clarify this for people that may read this thread in future and wonder what tables are for.

 

[Shovel]

I guess there isn't a massive problem with googlebot, I could be wrong, but I'm thinking if the way your content is read is important to you from a SEO point of view you'd want your site top be near the top of searches for the right reasons, or the right searches. I think with tables your site gets read in a completely different way by search bots than humans. Like reading all the rows in order

Pretty much. Humans obviously have the ability to read content in the manner dictated by the design. However, if you've got a left-hand navigation column done with tables then the navigation is coming *before* the content in the source code. Search Engines generally treat the content that comes first in the source code as more important than what's at the bottom, so the left navigation can be treated as more important than the actual unique page content.

It's obviously a lot more complicated in reality as I _guess_ search engines will try and compensate for table layouts to some degree. But frankly, there's only so much they're going to do though: The net is a rather large place to index and you can't afford to spend too long reanalysing the bad pages out of sympathy.

Also, search engines only read the first n kiliobytes of each page. I think the n number is fairly high, but by having navigation come before real content you do run a risk of having all of your navigation indexed and content chopped off. Especially on some larger sites with insanity factor five navigation.

Thinking about this I guess we could have a whole thread just about tables. No one has mentioned yet, or at least not given any examples of, the correct use of tables. Or is it now thought that they are completely uneeded?

Tables are for data. A lot of 'consumer sites' don't really have need for them but consider something like Product Comparisons. Tabulated Data. Specification sheets, too. There're plenty of uses for them really. There're a number of very written articles on how to use tables properly, with emphasis on the elements people have forgotten about since using them for layout: header cells, head, body and footer sections, captions, summaries, column groups. Lots of really quite clever HTML for representing data that people generally don't know very much about. I'll hunt out the links for you later and start a new thread on it.

For instance do message boards need to be in tables, would they be better if they weren't?

Generally, most message board software uses tables for layout. But there are parts of MB software that legitimately uses them, sure. Members pages tabulate usernames, real names, contact details and post counts.

However, actual thread display isn't tabulated data at all. Check out PunBB which is an excellent lightweight message board that uses semantic mark-up and CSS layout.

On my dating sites page http://www.maljonicsdreams.com/love_dating/ the table there displays data, but I could write it another way that doesn't use tables (thinking that I will); is this how they should be used?

That's a perfectly legitimate use of a table. In practice, it would be perfectly desirable to sort that table by the service name or by 'views' - definately table functionality.

You *could* write it a different way, which opens up new ways of displaying the data in Internet Explorer, but what you've got is correct.

Regarding that IE remark: Firefox, Opera and Safari all use CSS to render tables and as such you can happily change the display type of table rows and cells in those browsers allowing you to have a far more flexible and interesting rendering of table rows. For example, if you could rearrange your rows so that the "Dating Site" and "Description" columns actually stacking one on top of the other, with "Views" still on the right-hand side. However, Internet Explorer doesn't support doing this, so when redisplaying tables is *vital* in IE, you have to choose a different mark-up structure.

I'm hoping to get rid of all tables on this site: http://www.driverskills.com/Driverskills_Advanced_Driving.htm but it means convincing the owner of the importance of doing so, it could take 10 or 15 hours to do the job which is quite a lot of money. I linked to that page to show the driving courses in their little tables and wonder if that can be called data if only in the eyes of a client?

I would say that on that front page, there's not legit use of a table. The three different experiences should probably wraped in a <div> each and then floated to fit horizontally like that. Then they'll wrap quite nicely if you make the browser window smaller display more logically without CSS enabled.

I wouldn't be too concerned rushing to change it though. If the job is done then I would probably wait for the client to come back asking for proper redesign before undertaking changes on that scale.

Or is table data strictly numbers and information layed out like and excel spreadsheet?

I don't know about strictly, but I would consider the use like this: Tables allow you to compare data easily. If the information is such that comparison is desirable then a table is the way to go. In the case of your driving school, you could argue that you'd want to compare the prices of each course... but most of those blocks are made up of the picture and a description, which isn't really comparison data in the same way.

With only one field really 'comparable', it doesn't make much sense to tabulate it (plus you're presenting it as content, rather than data).

Just thought we ought to clarify this for people that may read this thread in future and wonder what tables are for.

Absolutely. I think pretty much all of us standards enthusiasts have 'gone too far' at some point. In fact, I have an old site called Students Social which was probably the first site I did with CSS layout. When I first made it, I purged all the tables out of PHP-Nuke (which is shite, by the way). A few weeks later I had to add some back in again (such as the content archive which ended up in a list with an ugly combination of different bracket types containing the other, retrospectively obvious columns.

 

[DaGaffer]

Oh i get AND agree with everything you've said, however in my experiance most clients are happy with something that will work in the top 3 browsers, often even just the top 2 - since that fills the demands of probably 98% of their users for significantly less cost overall than writing some dynamic beauty in css based design.

Plus it may seem heartless but a lot of companies just dont care enough about disabled users in order to warrant the extra expense of making their site disabled-friendly.

Certainly if time wasn't an issue and I was pretty certain that I might want to change the design later on without re-writing the whole site and I wanted to give maximum access to multiple platforms, browsers, technology and for disabled people - then yea it's css time. However you just can't beat a table design for something quick, cheap and cheerful which WILL work for more than 95% of anyone who hits your site.


edit: Plus I don't really see what problem a table based site would have with googlebots.

Y'see, I don't get that argument; it's very short-sighted. When I specify what I want for a website I'm always looking at what will future-proof the site as much as possible, designing for IE only or even IE/FF is a false economy in the long run. I have accepted IE only components in the past (like the game.net toolbar) but, I was never happy with it and knew it would have to be resolved long-term.

As for your comment about disabilities, you're absolutely correct that businesses don't care about disabilities compliance; this is partly because true compliance to the letter of the law is incredibly difficult, but also because until quite recently, the penalties for not being compliant were worth the risk. This isn't the case anymore, and I expect the first high-profile cases under the Disabilities Act will be along shortly, and there are some big names in the firing line (hardly anyone is completely compliant, because it's very onerous, but some are a lot more compliant than others).

 

[Chilly]

I think the only sites that should be forced to be compliant with all this HTML pedantry bollocks are publicly funded websites. If a site is privately funded (be it personally or corporately) then I see no reason why they cant do what the hell they like with the site.

I'm sick of all this html validation bollocks, none of the sites I've written validate because of some minor error that might affect some nutscrape 4 user - well it's their own stupid fault for using such a shite browser. I test my pages in ie5,6 and a couple FF versions. I cba to check with safari and opera cos a) I dont have a mac, and b) I dont have opera and cba getting it.

I tend to agree with most of what moo says here, if a site looks ok in the top few browsers then itl do.

And if I ever have a complaint from a blind person trying to look at my website I will print it and hang it on my wall.

 

[Maljonic]

... If a site is privately funded (be it personally or corporately) then I see no reason why they cant do what the hell they like with the site...

I think that's sort of the same angle people argue from when you talk about banning smoking in public, well only sort of...

I don't think "they" should force you to do anything about your site per se, just make it so the better written sites are given more favourable results in seaches and opinions and combine this with phasing out incorrect/bad code so that sites using it eventually no longer work, becoming unlistable on the internet through their code being unsupported - or something.


I think that was a good post on tables by the way Shovel.

 

[Shovel]

What the world probably needs (and at present is lacking) is a decent WYSYWG editor-cum-CMS that does standards right. Build an application that does that (ideally within the GPL) and anyone that can't work HTML+CSS by hand (as you currently need to) is suddenly empowered. Trouble is, WYSIWYG editors are not easy things to write from scratch, and you need to get the presentation and UI right. Even from the little things you need to present it as an "HTML Editor", rather than a Wordprocessor like Dreamweaver somewhat does ("B" and "I" buttons can actually control emphasis, which is frankly wrong and only serves to encourage the purely presentational thinking that holds back some of the uses for HTML).

At the moment Dreamweaver is much improved, but not all the way there yet. It probably needs someone with a deep understanding of HTML and CSS, working with a deep understanding of intuitive application design.

It would also help if people stopped teaching crap and stayed up-to-date with the technology they're preaching. But hey.

I'm sick of all this html validation bollocks, none of the sites I've written validate because of some minor error that might affect some nutscrape 4 user

OK, this grinds me a bit 'cause this thread has been rolling along quite happily as a well mannered discussion for a while. Nowhere in the past 50-odd posts has anyone said "Rah, you must validate". In fact, as the most vocal 'HTML pedant' here, I've explicitly said that validation is not the point of all this.

Building an accessible internet is far more subtle than getting a fucking orange badge in the footer of your pages and I'd appreciate it if you'd put the effort into reading the thread as others have in contributing to it, rather than dismiss the whole lot as some pedantic quest for validation.

Furthermore, validation is no guarantee that sites will work in any browser. It's a syntax check, nothing more.

 

[Padwah]

I think the only sites that should be forced to be compliant with all this HTML pedantry bollocks are publicly funded websites. If a site is privately funded (be it personally or corporately) then I see no reason why they cant do what the hell they like with the site.

I'm sick of all this html validation bollocks, none of the sites I've written validate because of some minor error that might affect some nutscrape 4 user - well it's their own stupid fault for using such a shite browser. I test my pages in ie5,6 and a couple FF versions. I cba to check with safari and opera cos a) I dont have a mac, and b) I dont have opera and cba getting it.

I tend to agree with most of what moo says here, if a site looks ok in the top few browsers then itl do.

And if I ever have a complaint from a blind person trying to look at my website I will print it and hang it on my wall.

That is pretty much how it works, it's only big businesses that would be in any danger for not afhering to any accessibility guidelines, someones personall blog or non-business website would be exempt.

The way I see it is that it doesn't really take any more work to make a site accessible when you're making it from scratch so why not do it? Surely you want as many people to visit your site so why would you shut the door on some people when it's so simple to fix?

The same with code validation. No it's not the be all and end all and no it won't make your website look any better or even ensure that it will work across various browsers but it does make more readable and understandable code. And, if you are coding a site from scratch making it compliant to which ever standard you choose should be simple.

Unless you're coding your sites purely within a WYSIWIG view then there isn't really any reason not to take compliance and accessibility in to account.

 

[Moo]

I think the point before about the bbc website and etc, using tables just goes to show this whole argument is pretty pointless imo, in the end it's all about content. If you use tables or css you can end up with pretty much the same thing - so why not use what's easiest/cheapest for you and spend the rest of your time/money on more usefull things such as content


There are far too many websites out there already that are all design and no content, bbc's site aint one of them - you can tell they spent time on design, of course you do to make your site user friendly and etc, but its certainly no design marvel - thats because the content is more important.


so to re-iterate, it's all about content fellas!

 

[JingleBells]

I think the point before about the bbc website and etc, using tables just goes to show this whole argument is pretty pointless imo, in the end it's all about content. If you use tables or css you can end up with pretty much the same thing - so why not use what's easiest/cheapest for you and spend the rest of your time/money on more usefull things such as content

The BBC only use tables for the main structure, disable style sheets and you'll see how much is actually done using CSS. A colleague on placement said it was the "hybrid" approach, use tables for main structure, CSS for everything else.

I also would imagine that the BBC look at their user agents stats to see whether it would be adequate to switch to a CSS layout, it would certainly save them one hell of a lot of bandwidth. I think that some people obv still use nutscrape, and quite a few corporates probably still use IE5 and IE5.5, so switching to CSS + semantic only would mess up for quite a few users.

If you see that most of your visitors are using capable browsers, there should be no excuse not to use CSS and semantic based design.

 

[Maljonic]

Well yes the content is paramount I guess, but from a professional point of view - if you're designing a site for someone else - the content is usually something that happens after your job has finished.

But I agree some sites can be over-designed with bugger all on them, which is also a waste of time. The BBC site is massive, with lots of subsites in different folders, and I think parts of it are being updated with the topic discussed here in mind. The BBC website has been around for years, about 10 I think, before anyone had the ability to do things the way they'd like to have done them if they could, there just weren't that many people around who could do things any other way than using tables etc.

It's not just about tables though I guess, it's just like any job or trade really. Like you'll get master craftsmen joiners who make perfect furniture with all the joints fitting just right and, if you look at their work closely, it stands up to scrutiny as a good job. But you also get the weekend DIYers who can bodge a few shelves up that look pretty much the same as the craftsmen's work, probably at a fraction of the cost too, but are all higgledy piggledy joints banged together with bent nails and PVA glue that will come crashing down eventually when it's overloaded with books or whatever. Same with mechanics, decorators, artists or what have you.

Of course that doesn't really matter if it's just a hobby, but if you do shabby work for someone that looks good at first but turns out to be pretty crap on closer inspection they're going to come back wanting to know why you didn't do it right in the first place - unless they made you do the work that way, in which case you can laugh at them when they have to pay you twice for doing the same job.

Some people are bound to notice, or someone will tell them, that they've got all this on their page to make a little box:

<table class="txtbox" width="100%" height="400" border="1" align="center" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2">
  <tr>
    <td></td>
  </tr>
</table>

and someone else has the same box with only this:

<div class="txtbox"></div>

Times that by a few thousand occurances if you have a big website with a few thousand pages you're talking about a lot of wasted server space if nothing else.

I know my explanation above is a little too abstract perhaps but it's how I see things anyway, not just with website development but with everything that involved being paid to do a job.

 

[Shovel]

I know my explanation above is a little too abstract perhaps…

I've got no idea if it's too abstract or not. I guess we'll find out in a few posts time. I thought it was bloody brilliant though.