Developer forum

I might not be doctor Dr. Nick but I can give you a few pointers.

Almost any module can be done with out tables. But there are a few of the old ones that's a bit buggy on this subject.

The old ones include the following: Forms, Productcatalog, Mediadatabase, Tagwall, Calendar, Extranet/Intranet (Extended), Fact Boxes, FAQ, Forum, Image Gallery, Newsletter, Poll and Sitemap.

I think this is the list.

Remember, there is nothing wrong in using tables, as long as they're used correctly.

To display tabular data.

// Sebastian

It's not mandatory to place @DwContent in a table structure.  But if you don't, you have to create new templates for paragraphs.

Actually it should be possible with 3 tableless templates that could do it for the 16 with tables that we have today.

// Sebastian

I'm pretty sure we've done both Image Gallery and Sitemap without tables. Image Gallery combined with Thickbox or something like that works great.

Using Dynamicweb without tables (except for tabular data) is much easier to maintain and faster to develop, if you're used to tableless html-coding.

And as Sebastian points out, the number of paragraph templates decreases drastically. Yes, there are still some old shitty modules where you can't get rid of the tables all together (the Form-module bugs the hell out of me every time), but with the new loop-dwtags in newer templates everything is much smoother (e.g. all the Ecom-templates).

The downside is, that many built-in functions in the Stylesheets-section stop working, but I promise you - you won't miss'em.

Remember that a CMS is basically a database, an engine and some templates. The more templates you can access, the more you can tweak your code. Dw seem too have realized, that moving the html away from the engine and the database is the way to go. This means you can create your html and css the way it's supposed to be: Lean and semantic.

Look at the default-templates. Learn what the templatetags do. Laugh at the old school html, make fun of it for a few moments and then get rid of it.

Most of the stuff in the master-templates and the page-templates is useless. Including the antique 12-column table-mumbo-jumbo. Just say no. Get rid of it. It was clever and flexible once, but isn't any more.

You can even clean out the awkward paragraph with   the editor throws at you, when you want a hard return.

So, get your hands dirty, and start every new project by cleaning out the meaningless code and obsolete settings. If you do this, Dynamicweb is a great, flexible and easy to use CMS.

If you need inspiration on going tableless, here's a few links from our portfolio:

http://www.zirena.dk/

http://www.struerkajak.com/

http://www.vinbolig.dk/ (implementation only, not designed by us)

http://boelliving.dk/  (still some tables in the paragraphs)

http://www.salescorp.dk/

http://www.deltagrafisk.dk/

http://www.carnitech.com/ (still some tables in the paragraphs)

Thanks for the great positng Martin.

It's correct that if you set the Mediadatabase/Gallery to display in 1 column, you can float your images to the left and avoid the table structure.

To generate a sitemap without tables, I would recommend Sitemap V2 which can completely be controlled with XSLT.

// Sebastian

I found an unwanted table around the ParagraphImage on this page: http://medicsport.net.dynamicweb.dk/Default.aspx?ID=17 (they're all paragraph images and all of them have a table around)

How does one remove that?

Hi Martin

Yeah ... this is the last remains of tables.

In december i feature will be released which allows you to disable this table on a paragraph.

The table is used to control the position og ImageText on a paragraphimage.

// Sebastian

msn wrote:

I found an unwanted table around the ParagraphImage on this page: http://medicsport.net.dynamicweb.dk/Default.aspx?ID=17 (they're all paragraph images and all of them have a table around)

 

How does one remove that?

I have created a set of tableless templates for our website, and the basic layout works great. One problem I've discovered however, it is hard to split the layout up with an extra ParagraphSetup template.

I'd better explain what I mean :)

We have a "normal" three column layout made in CSS (I followed a quick guide Sebastian posted on his Weblog). As long as we only have these three colums then everything is dandy. However, I am having problems if I want to divide the center column up into two columns on some pages - but still have paragraphs that span the entire center column.

The first idea I had was to simply make a new ParagraphSetup template that consisted of 5 columns - but how do I then make some paragrahps span two columns?

Also, if I tell my main ParagraphSetup template to contain all 200 paragraphs it doesnt seem to work if I make a second ParagraphSetup somewhere on the page, that only controls two paragraphs.

Anyone have some advise?