I delved into css just last week, and so far I have been really impressed. Still I have a problem. I am currently desiging a template for a webpage that will use a layout similar to the video results page on youtube (boxes stacked on top of one another - inside there's a screenshot and video description. It seems to me like using tables would be the best option to acheive this. That way when I edit the template page I can always add more boxes should I need them for a particular page just by pressing the return key on dreamweaver. If I use divs layered inside one another to make a "div table", I would have to keep it saved as a library item and bring it in each time I need an extra box. And this seems too impractical.

If I use a large div as the main container for my webpage and also use additonal divs inside the main one to hold the banner and navigation but use tables for the body, would this be considered good webdesign according to standards? Good in terms of searh engine scanability, load time, etc. as when compared to a website that uses no tables.

It makes absolutely no difference to search engines whether you use tables or divs. Load time only depends on the amount of markup on the page, and is usually not very significant.

Without looking at your design, I would say, that if the section of information takes on a form that is like tabular data, even if there is images or video inside of it also, then there is nothing wrong with using a table to display it.

You only should use tables where they made for. Use tables for listings of data. Use DIV for layout your site.

hi

Read the comment post by the diff user for this post.
http://www.imarc.net/communique/view...ble_battle_2k6

thanks

You could use definition lists instead of nested divs for the video screen shots and descriptions. Here is a good tutorial about definition lists. It also has some links at the end of the article that show you how to use CSS to style definition lists to achieve different results.
Once you learn more about using CSS instead of tables for layouts, you will really start to prefer CSS. It is so much more flexible.

Don't use tables. Tables are amateurish. They clutter your code. Nothing beats a pure CSS layout. Avoid tables at all cost.