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My website is infested with tables :(

bug_girl

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So, I've inherited a website (and a ton of political infighting over it) in my new job.
It turns out the ENTIRE website is tables, tables, and more tables. Side menus, text, everything. Anytime they want to indent a paragraph, they stick a table box in.

Ugh. Not the nice CSS layout that one would hope for.

Complicating matters is that the site content is produced by about 20 non-html savvy folks that use Contribute.
Now, as a way to keep people from farting up your design, Contribute has it's good points.
But, can you manage a completely CSS layout via contribute?
Anyone have experience with this?

Oh, and just to make things interesting--NO ONE knows the contribute admin password, so the only way I can become the new admin is to delete the old roles sheet, and reassign everyone a second time. *beats head on desk*

(BTW, they do use style sheets, but only to manage colors and fonts.)
 
I strongly suggest a design/code manual, with templates and all.

Don't jump into CSS before you have done that.
 
Claus. I know CSS. I've handcoded HTML since the early 90s.

I am just wondering if Contribute will fart everything up, since it's the only content management system that they have installed on everyone's computer.
That's the new bit of the system.
 
Putting a complex system on top of messed-up code? You like to live dangerously.... :D
 
No, I'm want to know if it's even worth my time to bother trying to rewrite the crappy tables code into CSS. if I can't then have my html-ignert people edit the content with Contribute, it isn't going to matter anyway.
There's no point in my cleaning things up if it isn't going to work anyway.

I'm suspecting the table layout is related to Contribute, but I really hate Contribute, so have avoided it thus far. I am hoping someone else has administered a Contribute site.

Have you worked with Contribute Claus?
Do you have anything actually to add here?
 
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I've never used Contribute, and the very idea of giving users the ability to edit parts of a website gives me the fear, but everything I've read gives me the impression that you can design a site any way you want (e.g. properly, with css) and control everything about it. The users only edit from the templates, and the administrator sets up the templates. I understand that the templates are supposed to be set up in Dreamweaver, but you should be able to edit them however you want.

I think I'd recommend setting up a small parallel site, invisible to users, and test using that before doing anything major. Set yourself up separately as a basic user as well, so you can make sure you're editing the way other users do. Either way, I can say from experience (and I suspect you already know this) that redesigning an entire site to operate from stylesheets rather than tables is a potentially huge and Sisyphean job, so test everything before you make it public.
 
bug_girl said:
No, I'm want to know if it's even worth my time to bother trying to rewrite the crappy tables code into CSS. if I can't then have my html-ignert people edit the content with Contribute, it isn't going to matter anyway.
There's no point in my cleaning things up if it isn't going to work anyway.

I'm suspecting the table layout is related to Contribute, but I really hate Contribute, so have avoided it thus far. I am hoping someone else has administered a Contribute site.

Have you worked with Contribute Claus?
Do you have anything actually to add here?
Click to expand...

No, I haven't worked with Contribute, because I share your sentiment. E.g., I don't like it when non-design savvy content providers begin to get too able with how the page looks. Templates are unfortunately not always enough to keep people from fiddling with things they shouldn't fiddle with. Content providers should focus on writing the text and finding the illustrations. The actual data insertion and proofing should be done by people who know how to design. Think of ye olde typographers: They knew what they were doing.

I did add my concern for using such a product, especially if the code is such spaghetti. At some point, you will run into serious problems - usually when you can least afford it.
 
Rat said:
...I can say from experience (and I suspect you already know this) that redesigning an entire site to operate from stylesheets rather than tables is a potentially huge and Sisyphean job....
Click to expand...

EXACTLY.
Which is why I'm seriously thinking of just leaving the tables as is.
It just bugs me to have such crappy design, though.
:(
 
Dreamweaver should allow one to convert tables into CSS (and back).

Other, cheaper software exists, but I have no experience with it. I found links to several by googling "convert HTML tables to CSS" just now.
 
Yes, but all they'll do (including Dreamweaver, in my limited experience) is to convert table cells directly to divs, often applying low-level css to each div separately. This is really not much better than tables, albeit that it's a step in the right direction.
 
Yeah, I decided to do nothing other than to merge the tables into just one row--that at least is slightly less disorienting to screen readers.
Slightly.

I am focusing on improving our the side navigation--which turns out to have another whole set of issues. They wrote a whole bunch of code to control what part of the menu shows up on any given spot on the website.
A lot of code.
Sigh.
 
The biggest problem is getting anyone to *let* me make changes--there are a lot of ownership issues.

Despite the fact that it clearly says in my job description I'm supposed to manage the website, I can't get some people to let go of it.

And telling the faculty I want to move them lower in the navigation hierarchy because other sections get more traffic and need to go above them--that's going to go over real big.
:boggled:
 
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