Design: Positioning

The DAC website's layout is implemented with HTML tables because (unlike Cascading Style Sheet, or CSS, positioning) they're well supported by most browsers at this time. The site uses CSS wherever possible in ways that don't break too badly in older browsers used by some of the site's visitors, but we're awaiting more ubiquitous and consistent CSS rendering in more of our users' browsers before moving to wholly style-sheet-based formatting (or to any CSS positioning at all).

As we eventually move more completely away from using certain workarounds to relying fundamentally on CSS as the preferred means of affecting most page rendering, users of older (version 4.X and earlier) browsers may see some layout anomalies, but should still have full access to the site's content. For some time, however, continued reliance on HTML tables to control positioning will be a necessary means of enabling many users to access the information (both image- and text-based) offered on the site.

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