BBC News Rebrand - This Monday

Depends... I find CSS is much easier to use and tables were definately not created for design purposes. There are many more design options available for CSS than tables (though you can combine them...). Tables are simpler because CSS has many more options.

Personally I have no problem with anyone using tables - and in regards to accessability issues the BBC has accessibility pages with design stripped off, and many websites provide special mobile sites. At the end of the day for the majority of people it's about how it looks and how it works, and if tables get them that then so be it.

It matters a great deal actually. Good coding mean that the site loads slightly quicker, saving bandwidth. On high traffic sites like this, good coding will save a lot of money. It also saves time when it comes to tweaking the site in future.

Once all the pages are using the new layout, then I am sure they can ditch the tables, unless of course it is there to facilitate IE5 and lower support...

Yeh, although the more systems you have (e.g. CSS, Tables) the bigger stylesheets get and more complicated everything gets, and if tables are in the current pages they'd [I imagine] have to be manually replaced with CSS. With all the current cost savings, I cannot imagine the beeb doing something so big. Much easier to change the width or colours than how a page is physically built.

Were they really? Which day was that? I took a photo when i was leaving the other day cos they'd taken some letters off and I was quite concerned that i'd turn up on monday to pile of rubble...

It isn't a manual process, as the core HTML is generated automatically by CPS and then assembled with SSIs to create the full page. So CPS could be changed then the relevent pages republished. However BBC News rebrandings have never been retrospective before - you can find 10 year old pages on the news site that are still in their original look.


Which I think may have been done. The table layouts do look the same, just different cell contents. I was hopeing to see some new layouts myself, maybe these are getting held back until the TV rebrand happens on

Breaking news gfx on BBC website includes use of what appears to be a narrow / slightly condensed Gill Sans:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44525000/gif/_44525718_breakingnews_226x170.gif

See page 87 for more Alexia.

The Gill Sans isn't the only resurrection from bygone days.. difficult as it may be to palate, the Lambie-Nairn box is back too...

Lambie-Nairn box?

Yep. Keep your eyes peeled for our red four-sided friend playing a rather prominent role in the new titles.