Trials and Tabulations
Exercises
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That's all you need to know about tables, at least until a few proper browsers appear on the market. But until then, try the following to learn more about creating tables that work with browsers and make sense at the same time:
HTML with Style Makeover
Go to the HTML with Style front page and download the source. You can remove the long scripts and CSS links at the top of the document. If you examine the document, you'll see that it is a set of nested DIV elements. CSS is used to create the layout you see on the browser.
Remove the DIV elements and replace them with a table that mimics this layout. Try different widths for the columns and see what happens when you resize your browser window.
Tabulating your Expenses
Take your latest bank statement and create a table with the data. Use as many of the elements as you can; use Internet Explorer to preview the table since it will recognize as many of the elements as possible.
Now categorize your expenses into various categories, and make appropriate TBODY sections for each. Now try inserting as much meta-data into the table as you can think of, using the scope and headers attributes generously. Try different methods of supplying this information: Which is best? Which conveys the most information? Which takes less typing? After you've gone over the top with meta-info, try trimming down the amount to only that which you think would be relevant in most circumstances. A good rule of thumb is to have the meta-data take up about a quarter of the space of the actual data. Now make your table render meaningfully (and, if possible, beautifully) on both Navigator and Explorer.
