HTML rowspans and colspans...good or bad?

Question

Okay, so I gathered pretty early on that the layout mode in
Dreamweaver was messy...however I never really understood why.
My HTML theory was learned through Dreamweaver not old school
hard coding.
Then I found a nice little posting on the use of Spans:
http://apptools.com/rants/spans.php
I believe this is the major flaw in the use of the Layout
mode, am I correct in this summation?
The poster suggests using nested Tables to securely lock down
the width and height of your tables/cells.
My question is, which poses the greater problems: having Rows
explode or Columns? I always thought HTML likes to "grow"
horizontally if it needs to, and that height could be "locked" down
fairly easily.
Secondly, should the merge/split cell feature in standard
mode be avoided as well? I gather this introduces the same issues
with Rowspan and Colspan.
So finally, is it ever wise to use Rowspan and Colspan? One
can overdue it with nested tables as well I imagine?

Answer 1

> I believe this is the major flaw in the use of the
Layout mode, am I
> correct
> in this summation?
Yes.
> My question is, which poses the greater problems: having
Rows explode or
> Columns? I always thought HTML likes to "grow"
horizontally if it needs
> to, and
> that height could be "locked" down fairly easily.
That's incorrect. Table height is invalid HTML - always has
been.
> Secondly, should the merge/split cell feature in
standard mode be avoided
> as
> well?
Yes, unless it's used very sparingly to accomplish a specific
task.
> So finally, is it ever wise to use Rowspan and Colspan?
I could say no, but there are times were merging adjacent
cells can be
useful. However, I generally say this -
Instead of merging cells horizontally, terminate your table
and start a new
one. Instead of splitting cells horizontally/vertically, nest
a new table
with the desired structure.
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
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==================
"stickers11" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:[email protected]...
> Okay, so I gathered pretty early on that the layout mode
in Dreamweaver
> was
> messy...however I never really understood why.
> My HTML theory was learned through Dreamweaver not old
school hard coding.
> Then I found a nice little posting on the use of Spans:
>
http://apptools.com/rants/spans.php
> I believe this is the major flaw in the use of the
Layout mode, am I
> correct
> in this summation?
> The poster suggests using nested Tables to securely lock
down the width
> and
> height of your tables/cells.
> My question is, which poses the greater problems: having
Rows explode or
> Columns? I always thought HTML likes to "grow"
horizontally if it needs
> to, and
> that height could be "locked" down fairly easily.
> Secondly, should the merge/split cell feature in
standard mode be avoided
> as
> well? I gather this introduces the same issues with
Rowspan and Colspan.
> So finally, is it ever wise to use Rowspan and Colspan?
One can overdue it
> with nested tables as well I imagine?
>
>