Height=100% - Help

[wms]

Hi,

I found this in another post somewhere:
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Create a new template is CMS.  Paste the HTML of your current template into the box.  Replace the body of it (Read the following before...  etc) with a {content} tag.  Replace the menu section (Home, Contact, Link to Us) with {bulletmenu} or {cms_module module='phplayers'}.  Put a {stylesheet} tag somewhere in between the tags.  Maybe put {title} in between the tags.

Then set all your content pages to use that new template you just created.
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Ok, I did that.  But I cannot make my pages expand to the full height of the browser window.  I'm using a table for the whole page that is seperated into a Header, Left Nav, Body, and Footer [nested tables].

I also read somewhere [in the forums] quickly that using tables is not the best choice.  Can someone explain that to me as well.

I'm just lost at the moment, so this is why I'm using tables.

Thanks for any help

[jelle]

Using tables for layout is not wise because it violates the separation of content and layout/design. Your html will quickly look like tagsoup instead of the content with some tags. A table stucture is intended for table like data, and should be used only for that purpose. Ideally, your html only contains markup that explains what it is, not how it looks. The looks are defined in the css. 

Ok so far the theory. In theory this should be the same in practice, but in practice it usually is not. With cmsms, you can violate this separation without to much consequence because you have an extra layer with the templating stuff. So you don't have to edit the tagsoup directly but have it separated out in the system.  The only penalty you pay is that the design is sent along with the page for each request, Css is usually cached by the browser.

If you make the effort to learn css, I think you will appreciate it. There are some things with it that are a bit harder to accomplish, like vertical positioning, but usually those problems arise when you try to apply a table/tagsoup/slice 'n dice idiom to css.

As for your problem with height, if you don't incluse a {stylesheet} in your template, you should just get normal table tagsoup. Just look at the html source and deduce your solution from that. Then try to rework it back into the template.

[wms]

And as always Jelle....thank you very much...time to really learn some CSS.

Thanks,