The problem with TABLES.

TABLE is probably the most useful tag for a designer. Any serious design has tables and so will probably yours. But what you might never realise is that tables are only displayed when they are completely loaded.

So a user will have to wait until everything between <TABLE> and </TABLE> tags is downloaded and he/she might not even know why the screen is blank for such a long time, so user might mistakenly assume that there is something wrong with the server and will stop loading.

Why cannot browsers display tables while loading, gradually filling them with information? Well, it is because tables borders can be loosely defined and for browser to calcualte the exact position and size of each cell it has to have all the information. If you think about it, it is quite logical.

But question is, what can you do about it. If your page is just a large table, a surfer would have to spend 5 minutes without seeing anything (!), so he or she might decide to go and look somewhere else. Even if user knows that there is nothing wrong with your server, he or she might get annoyed by the fact that there is nothing to look at while the page is loading and you will be losing prospective clients.

But the solution to this problem is quite simple. Just divide your table into several small tables, like in the example that follows and you will achieve the "see while it loads" effect, similar to how the standard HTML docuemnts are treated by browsers.

This is your original big table

This is your big table divided into two

Explanations:

Well, I believe that the code is self-explanatory, if not, you should brush up on your TABLES. The main point is that you have to divide the tables horizontally. And it is quite easy to do. Another point is to find an optimal number of tables. It is better to divide the table where it has a logical division, e.g. new paragraph, new chapter, new picture, and so on. But do not make a table out of each separate line, because it will slow down the whole loading process.