Joomla! Discussion Forums

I had been looking forward to using J 1.5 for a while....didn't want to jump the gun while it was in beta version and waited for the stable release.
Then it comes out and I realize that no matter how standards compliant, valid XHTML 1, valid CSS 2.1 my template/design is, when it's used with Joomla the resulting code will always have tables all over the place and the modules will most likely cause validation problems.
I truly hoped that by now the Joomla core developers and the ones developing cool/OS/useful components/modules/plugins would have embraced CSS-P and stopped using outdated code.
Like the main menu that instead of a simple list, uses tables even when we use components like SWMenuFree (awesome component, just outdated output).
Is there any plan in the road map to convert the entire Joomla code to xhtml/css 2 standards compliant code? Stop using tables?

Thanks in advance,

FayeC

Have you seen: viewforum.php?f=500 ? You were invited to participate a while ago in helping to shape the future of Joomla.

BTW I am moving this thread to a more appropriate forum. The "JoomlaCode.org - Feedback/Information" is for feedback or information on the http://www.joomlacode.org website.

Check out the Beez template, it's tableless. Also with the template overrides you can output content in any way you like.

As I said, my template is tableless. But the core components still use tables. That means that any page with dynamic content (and that included menus, etc. will have tables throughout.
I do understand that I can override each component and module but then what's the point of doing that? It will make using Joomla way too time consuming.
I believe the wishlist is full of requests for tableless core components.

FayeC

I think your misunderstanding what everyone here is saying. First off look at beez.....its completely tableless, components too. The strength in the joomla core is that the MVC strucutre supports making templates for the component outupt and you dont have to hack the core components. Joomla can use as much css as you want or as little. If you don't understand search or ask!

I think you didn't understand my post.
I am talking about the tables used in the core components output.
I do know how to create tableless templates. My own template is tableless but the components/modules still output code in tables.
I also mentioned that I do know how to use overrides. I just don't feel like it's fair that Joomla can be clean for those who can modify every single component/module/plugin by using overrides and a code soup for those who are looking for an easy and friendly way to have a CMS running but can't go into the code to do it.
If you had done a quick search you would have seen that I do ask when I need answers.

FayeC

FayeC, I think you'll agree what the others are saying is fairly simple if you give it a try. You can pretty much use the overrides from Beez to make the output more semantic/div based. You'll even get heading tags to surround your article titles. All you have to do is copy the HTML folder from Beez to your template's parent folder and all will be like magic. If you already have an HTML folder in your template (you would have created it), just drag the files from the Beez HTML into your's...

There are a few small quirks you may or may not notice, but if you know how to design a Joomla template, it's just a matter of going into the HTML folder, opening up the right override and making an adjustment to fix it however you like. If for some reason you're unhappy, you can always just delete the HTML folder and everything will snap back into place.

We were having a discussion about this in the White Paper board, and even though it's pretty easy to do yourself...my hope is also to make it one of the priorities for the core.

We are aware that the core output does produce tables in the output. This was done for backwards compatibility reasons. The above posters suggestion of using the html folder from Beez is the way to go, IMO.

You don't have to produce your own overrides - they are there already.

Ian

I can perhaps see why this was done, and I'm sure there's been discussion on this before, but should Joomla! not output semantically accurate XHTML as standard, allowing users to have a backwards compatible mode/setting, if required?

Afterall, if people are not technically minded and use Joomla! 1.5 for the first time, they'll end up being penalised for historic reasons.

The HTML over-ride system (which is fantastic) would still provide developers with the ability to choose their own output if they didn't like the default, this is 2008 and we should be using <div>s, classes, IDs, headers and paragraph tags, not tables.

There's been lots of discussion on this... template compatibility was a significant design goal when development started (which was in 2005 btw). Anyhow, questions can't change the past. Future releases will have table free (except where we really need tables) output. That's about all that can be done atm.

Ian

Thanks for the explanation and reply.

It's good to know that the subject was debated as this is something I'm very keen on, roll on Joomla! 1.5 future releases. Oh, I see 1.5.3 is out today too, good stuff.