[whatwg] Scrollable Tables and HTML5

[Ian Hickson]

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010, Schalk Neethling wrote:
> 
> I have been working on getting scrollable tables working across all 
> browsers. While there exists jQuery plugins that does the job for the 
> most part, I have to find one that works 100% and works at all in 
> Chrome. The reason I am putting this to the HTML5 list is because I am 
> wondering whether there is something in the HTML5 spec that is going to 
> aid in this regard.
> 
> In the current HTML 4 spec 
> (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/tables.html#h-11.2.3) it is 
> stated that:
> 
> "Table rows may be grouped into a table head, table foot, and one or 
> more table body sections, using the THEAD 
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/tables.html#edef-THEAD> , TFOOT 
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/tables.html#edef-TFOOT> and 
> TBODY <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/tables.html#edef-TBODY> 
> elements, respectively. This division enables user agents to support 
> scrolling of table bodies independently of the table head and foot."
> 
> The only browser, including the IE9 previews, that has implemented this 
> behavior is Firefox. For the rest it is quite a terrible hack with 
> JavaScript to get similar behavior.  Is there any work being done get 
> UA's to implement this as a standard? Is there work being done by other 
> working groups, maybe ARIA, in this regard? Looking forward to your 
> feedback.

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010, Boris Zbarsky wrote:
> 
> Note that the Firefox implementation was removed, because it violated 
> the CSS2.1 spec, caused compatibility problems for other browsers, and 
> was buggy to the point that it wasn't worth the effort needed to 
> maintain it (esp. given the other strikes against it).

This seems like a CSS issue -- nothing in HTML prevents browsers from 
implementing this in theory, and I don't think there's much we could do 
to help make it implementable in practice.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'