I have found two options for the project that I am working on. I have only
done some preliminary exploration.
HTML has a <fieldset> tag that is supposed to render like a groupbox. I had
problems controlling its width in IE6. It always wanted to be 100% of the
page width, regardless of how I tried to manipulate the tag's properties. I
may try controlling this by putting inside a table, but I don't know if it
will work well for me.
The other option is creating a bunch of GIFs to use in the background of a
table to simulate the appearance of a groupbox. It is easier to control
their appearance and, since I am okay with bitmap editing, I can have a lot
more control over the appearance of the groupbox. I want a groupbox with a
border and an interior that is lighter that the exterior, so that that
controls inside it stand out more from the background. If I need to
dynamically change the appearance of the groupbox, I will have to load
different GIFs. The GIFs for the top, bottom, and sides will be really
small, as will the corners, really, so they shouldn't add a lot to download
time.
Something equivalent, but simpler and more widely used, are either
horizontal rules <hr> for vertical divisions or tables that have borders on
some cells and not others. You can't get the groupbox effect of the
title-in-the-border, but you can have it just inside the border.
Some web programmers would suggest avoiding trying to replicate windows
paradigms in a web app, but the interface is a lot richer, I think, and more
usable. Whether you have novice users that need to leap from windows to web,
or you just want something more attractive, I think it is worth some extra
work to make a web page look more like an app and less like hypertext.
David Alexander
