Borders For Tables Hack

H

Hostile17

I've been trying to figure out a good way to make a CSS layout with
nice-looking 1-pixel borders around the table cells.

The only broadly compatible way to do this I know of is to have

* the border of the table set to zero
* the cellspacing of the table set to one
* the background color set to black
* the table cell background color set to white

which looks nice in most modern browsers.

However in Netscape four, the table has no borders at all, making it a
little awkward for users to understand columns, rows etc.

So here's my workaround:

<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css" >
table
{
background: black;
border-width: 0px;
border-style: none;
}
td
{
background: white;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table border="1" bordercolor="#ffffff" cellspacing="1"
cellpadding="5">
<tr>
<td> blah </td>
<td> blah </td>
<td> blah </td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

This is kind of a hack, but it means that IE sees one-pixel borders
and Netscape four and older see old-fashioned raised-type gray
borders.

It doesn't look so great in Netscape 7/Mozilla though, because they
don't recognise the bordercolor thing.

Also, bordercolor is not valid HTML.

Does anyone know a good way to achieve 1-pixel borders which works in
Netscape 4 and recent CSS-compatible browsers? I'd be interested to
see any other approaches -- I've been juggling different style sheets
and HTML combinations for a while now...

The only other way I know is the way they do it at Salon, which
involves lots of empty table cells with spacers in them and that's
just overkill.
 
D

DU

Hostile17 said:
I've been trying to figure out a good way to make a CSS layout with
nice-looking 1-pixel borders around the table cells.

The only broadly compatible way to do this I know of is to have

* the border of the table set to zero
* the cellspacing of the table set to one
* the background color set to black
* the table cell background color set to white

which looks nice in most modern browsers.

However in Netscape four, the table has no borders at all, making it a
little awkward for users to understand columns, rows etc.

So here's my workaround:

<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css" >
table
{
background: black;
border-width: 0px;
border-style: none;
}
td
{
background: white;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table border="1" bordercolor="#ffffff" cellspacing="1"
cellpadding="5">
<tr>
<td> blah </td>
<td> blah </td>
<td> blah </td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

This is kind of a hack, but it means that IE sees one-pixel borders
and Netscape four and older see old-fashioned raised-type gray
borders.

It doesn't look so great in Netscape 7/Mozilla though, because they
don't recognise the bordercolor thing.

Also, bordercolor is not valid HTML.

Does anyone know a good way to achieve 1-pixel borders which works in
Netscape 4 and recent CSS-compatible browsers? I'd be interested to
see any other approaches -- I've been juggling different style sheets
and HTML combinations for a while now...

The only other way I know is the way they do it at Salon, which
involves lots of empty table cells with spacers in them and that's
just overkill.

The nr 1 problem with your request is NS 4.x. People are switching to NS
7.1 or to Mozilla-Firebird you know and a large majority of them are not
reverting back. Trying to control layout and rendering on old and
non-compliant browsers is a bad idea. As long as content is accessible
on such old and non-compliant browsers, I do not recommend trying to do
anything more.

FWIW, Dynamic table formatting for DOM 1 browsers:
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/HTMLJavascriptCSS/DynamicTableFormatting.html

DU
--
Javascript and Browser bugs:
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/
- Resources, help and tips for Netscape 7.x users and Composer
- Interactive demos on Popup windows, music (audio/midi) in Netscape 7.x
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Netscape7Section.html
 
P

Philipp Lenssen

Hostile17 said:
I've been trying to figure out a good way to make a CSS layout with
nice-looking 1-pixel borders around the table cells.

The only broadly compatible way to do this I know of is to have

* the border of the table set to zero
* the cellspacing of the table set to one
* the background color set to black
* the table cell background color set to white

How about:

table { border-collapse: collapse; }
th, td { border: 1px solid black; }
However in Netscape four

Hmm, did you say Netscape 4... that's no fun.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
473,997
Messages
2,570,241
Members
46,831
Latest member
RusselWill

Latest Threads

Top