Design the layout of a table by styling alternating columns and using colspan cells

Question

Design the layout of a table by styling alternating columns and using colspan cells

For a project, I need to create a table with alternating column background colors. However, there are certain rows that need to span multiple columns while maintaining the correct background color for each cell.

You can view the code on this jsfiddle link, or check out the CSS:

body {
    font-family:Calibri, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif;
}
table {
    border:1px solid #444;
    text-align:center;
}
th, td {
    width:200px;
    padding:2px;
}
.lg {
    background-color:#eee;
}
.dg {
    background-color:#ddd;
}
}

Here is the corresponding HTML:

<table>
    <tr>
        <th>Fruits</th>
        <td class="lg">Peach</td>
        <td class="dg">Blueberry</td>
        <td class="lg">Apple</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <th>Chocolate</th>
        <td class="lg">Chocolate-Chip</td>
        <td class="dg">Double Chocolate</td>
        <td class="lg">Turtle</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <th>Peanut Butter</th>
            <td colspan="3">Peanut Butter Swirl and a long list of items</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <th>Classics</th>
        <td class="lg">Chocolate</td>
        <td class="dg">Vanilla</td>
        <td class="lg">Strawberry</td>
    </tr>
</table>

I currently have a background image in place to mimic the effect of spanning columns. However, it doesn't align perfectly no matter what I try, especially in Opera as it looks completely off. This is a fixed-width table. Is there a reliable way to achieve this consistently?

html css html-table

Answer 1

Answer №1

This particular challenge poses quite the dilemma. Here's a unique solution that thinks outside the box, which may or may not suit your needs. It utilizes a linear "gradient" on the colspan3 cells, but necessitates:

A specified width for columns (as seen in your provided code snippet at 200px)
A table capable of accommodating said width (like my example with a min-width of 800px)
The decision to either factor cell paddings into the gradients or remove them altogether (as demonstrated in my example)

To enhance your html, I made a slight modification by adding a class to the colspan-cell:

<td class="fullspan" colspan="3">Peanut Butter Swirl and a long list of items</td>

Additionally, I included this CSS snippet utilizing the Gradient Generator:

.fullspan {
    background: #eee; /* Old browsers */
    background: -moz-linear-gradient(left,  #eee 0%, #eee 200px, #ddd 200px, #ddd 400px, #eee 400px); /* FF3.6+ */
    background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, right top, color-stop(0%,#eee), color-stop(200px,#eee), color-stop(200px,#ddd), color-stop(400px,#ddd), color-stop(400px,#eee)); /* Chrome,Safari4+ */
    background: -webkit-linear-gradient(left,  #eee 0%,#eee 200px,#ddd 200px,#ddd 400px,#eee 400px); /* Chrome10+,Safari5.1+ */
    background: -o-linear-gradient(left,  #eee 0%,#eee 200px,#ddd 200px,#ddd 400px,#eee 400px); /* Opera 11.10+ */
    background: -ms-linear-gradient(left,  #eee 0%,#eee 200px,#ddd 200px,#ddd 400px,#eee 400px); /* IE10+ */
    background: linear-gradient(to right,  #eee 0%,#eee 200px,#ddd 200px,#ddd 400px,#eee 400px); /* W3C */
    filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#eee', endColorstr='#eee',GradientType=1 ); /* IE6-9 */
}

Resulting in this visually enhanced look in modern browsers, including Opera:

Answer 2

This particular challenge poses quite the dilemma. Here's a unique solution that thinks outside the box, which may or may not suit your needs. It utilizes a linear "gradient" on the colspan3 cells, but necessitates:

A specified width for columns (as seen in your provided code snippet at 200px)
A table capable of accommodating said width (like my example with a min-width of 800px)
The decision to either factor cell paddings into the gradients or remove them altogether (as demonstrated in my example)

To enhance your html, I made a slight modification by adding a class to the colspan-cell:

<td class="fullspan" colspan="3">Peanut Butter Swirl and a long list of items</td>

Additionally, I included this CSS snippet utilizing the Gradient Generator:

.fullspan {
    background: #eee; /* Old browsers */
    background: -moz-linear-gradient(left,  #eee 0%, #eee 200px, #ddd 200px, #ddd 400px, #eee 400px); /* FF3.6+ */
    background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, right top, color-stop(0%,#eee), color-stop(200px,#eee), color-stop(200px,#ddd), color-stop(400px,#ddd), color-stop(400px,#eee)); /* Chrome,Safari4+ */
    background: -webkit-linear-gradient(left,  #eee 0%,#eee 200px,#ddd 200px,#ddd 400px,#eee 400px); /* Chrome10+,Safari5.1+ */
    background: -o-linear-gradient(left,  #eee 0%,#eee 200px,#ddd 200px,#ddd 400px,#eee 400px); /* Opera 11.10+ */
    background: -ms-linear-gradient(left,  #eee 0%,#eee 200px,#ddd 200px,#ddd 400px,#eee 400px); /* IE10+ */
    background: linear-gradient(to right,  #eee 0%,#eee 200px,#ddd 200px,#ddd 400px,#eee 400px); /* W3C */
    filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#eee', endColorstr='#eee',GradientType=1 ); /* IE6-9 */
}

Resulting in this visually enhanced look in modern browsers, including Opera:

Design the layout of a table by styling alternating columns and using colspan cells

Answer №1

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