Jonathan

Jonathan,

> I'm making a site  and have already tried setting up the layout in CSS
> then moved to Tables because of problems with cross browser issues.

Yes, there are times when minimal tables are still needed. However, it is
better to use tables as little as possible. Use CSS where possible, and just
use a minimised table for the column layout:
<table><tr><td>...</td><td>...</td></tr></table>

There is no real need for multiple nested tables, but if that is the way you
want to go, then that is your choice.

> How to put image in table cell background without image repeating in IE ?

Use CSS. The 'no-repeat' is the important part. Note that I do not
particularly care for IE-centric pages. This will work in _all_ CSS
supporting browsers, not just IE.

td#someid {
  background: white url(image.jpg) scroll no-repeat left top;
}

> How to fill cell with flash

I really must advise against this. Your page is currently totally
inaccessible to me and search engines. I browse without Flash. When I looked
at your page, I saw a lot of content, but absolutely no navigation. There
was no way for me to find other pages. I am certainly not going to enable
Flash to look at your page, I (and many other users) will simply go
elsewhere instead.

Even if you do not feel the need to cater to users who cannot use Flash - or
those who choose not to, you will still need to cater to search engines.
Google cannot understand your Flash either, so your pages will not be
indexed.

> - couldn't figure out how to prosition everything and keep box shape as
> content extends length of page, so I moved to table setup.

Multi-column can be difficult with CSS. display:table is perfect for what
you are trying to do, but since IE has still not bothered to implement it,
that cannot be reliably used. There are still several ways to do what you
wanted though.

Generally the easiest is to use floats. Set float:left on the first column,
and then have an element at the bottom of the other column that has
clear:left set. Typically this would be a footer, as is used on my own site.

The border between the left and right columns is produced by carefully
applying a left margin to the right column to make space for the left
column, then applying borders; a border to the right side of the left
column, and a border to the left side of the right column. These are done so
that they overlap, meaning that the border appears no matter which column is
actually longer.

Still, this is a lot harder than display:table would have been, so many
authors will use a minimal table just for the columns (to be nice to IE),
then use CSS for everything else.

> Tables

A mess indeed :)


Mark 'Tarquin' Wilton-Jones - author of http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/