T-t-tables!

You might not believe it, but there's more to tables than meets the eye. After someone asked a tables-related question in ciwas, I digged out a few old examples and found out that, after a whole year, most browsers still can't handle the HTML table model. Ah well, here goes.

This very basic example uses the rules and frame attributes to define table borders, and a mild dose of CSS applied to the <COL> element to suggest different styles for the columns. I'm sure you can come up with more exciting tables, but don't hold your breath: most browsers can't handle even this basic example.

This is how your browser displays it:

A simple stylesheet-enhanced table
column one	column two	column three
one	two	three
one	two	three
one	two	three

And below is an image of how a table&stylesheet-capable browser might display it:

image of the above table in a good browser

I've been told that the GIF above does not show a correct rendering. Only a small subset of CSS properties may be applied to columns. Netscape 6 displays it correctly, Internet Explorer 5 doesn't.

Those who want to know more about HTML tables should check out http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html for all the gory details.

This table here uses styles on the colgroup instead of the col. Notice the difference?

A simple stylesheet-enhanced table
column one	column two	column three
one	two	three
one	two	three
one	two	three