Dreamweaver and photoshop template problem?

skelliser

I built my template in photoshop, sliced it and exported it into dreamweaver.
When i open dreamweaver it looks fine in the design view but when i check the code its all in tables!!
Am i doing something wrong or am i stuck with tables?
How can i switch to css?

cheers

p

There's no tools out there that can automatically export a nice CSS layout. If you want a CSS layout, that uses web standards, you kinda need to hand code it, or use some of Dreamweavers built in layout templates.

skelliser

damn! i figured as much! i thought there was a magic button to make does nasty tables go away. GOD I HATE TABLES!
when will we be rid of this outdated and annoying paradigm?

thanks for the quick reply

Liam Byrne

It's a catch 22......tables are limited and predictable; CSS allows flexiblity.

And because of the flexibility, it's hard to do a comprehensive export.

seamus

Auto-generated CSS is often horrendous and relies strongly on absolute positioning. Crystal Reports does it and it's a nightmare to work with and embed in an existing page.

skelliser

its not so much the css but the divs im after.
i understand that css can be "difficult" and i wasnt expecting dreamweaver to do all the
work for me but i dont understand why they chose tables over divs.

p

skelliser wrote: »

its not so much the css but the divs im after.

What do you mean by that? Maybe there's another way to help you out.

skelliser wrote: »

i understand that css can be "difficult" and i wasnt expecting dreamweaver to do all the
work for me but i dont understand why they chose tables over divs.

It's just old. Tables used to be the way of doing things. I know Fireworks has a CSS export that is semi good and there is a plug-in for PS called Site Grinder, but ultimately I find all these to be more of a pain than a help if you're getting into web design seriously.
http://www.medialab.com/sitegrinder/

skelliser

ok maybe i didnt explain myself correctly, sorry!

Basically when i exported my site into dreamweaver i was expecting it to be in div format as opposed to tables.
I had assumed it would be in divs with an associated basic css file for the images.
Il have a look at site grinder, cheers

Dades

skelliser wrote: »

Basically when i exported my site into dreamweaver i was expecting it to be in div format as opposed to tables.
I had assumed it would be in divs with an associated basic css file for the images.

A div must have every required property defined by CSS though, so the stylesheet would not just have image classes it would have to control the whole look and position of everything on the page. And as alluded to above, Adobe doesn't quite have an interface out there yet that will build you a entire page in pure CSS.