Too-fancy table example

People use many different programs to surf the web!

If you create a document with one browser in mind, you may inadvertently prevent others from accessing your information. For example, while Netscape supports tables with inline graphics and hyperlinks, XMosaic ignores table entries that contain hypertext! The following table:

NASA	USGS
NOAA	ESA

will look lovely in Netscape: [Nice Table]

but will be empty in X Mosaic: [Empty Table!]

and may not even appear in a text-only browser!

You need not limit yourself to using the simplest hypertext. You can (and should!) go ahead and use the latest features: but provide other ways to get to the information too!

All is not lost

Although Netscape-style tables with hypertext don't work in XMosaic, if you're careful you can at least make sure that text will be displayed (sorry, images won't work at all). Just remember these two tips:

Add an explicit <br> after each row in your table

Do not put any whitespace after the <td> table entry tag:

	<table border=10><tr>
	<td> <a href="empty.html">This is bad</a>
	<td><a href="empty.html">This is good</a>
	</tr></table>

Here's what it looks like in your browser:

This is bad

This is good

mwm@cs.cmu.edu