Originally Posted by Jakez

Let's say you want to GENERATE the following type of structure from 12 rows of MySQL data using PHP and a horizontal columns number that can be changed by the webmaster (set to 4 here):



CSS
1: As far as I know, you'd need to know the exact px width of the 'container' and then divide that by the amount of box's (columns) that are set, as well as subtracting paddings, borders, etc., which sounds really messy IMO. Uh oh, what if the person set it to 5 instead of 4? Do a bunch of math in PHP to figure out the new correct width? But then how do you set the 'container' width in your .css file to match the new width?

2: Don't use a 'container' and just spit out 12 <div>'s one after another, use PHP to put a <br> after every 4 columns, or 5, whatever is set? But you have to eventually place this into some kind of 'container' in your layout which is going to have a set width. Fuck.

Tables
1: First lay down <table><tr>, then loop through the 12 rows of MySQL data placing </tr><tr> after every 4 or 5, then put </tr></table> after all that is done. Except if you check the source of the page you will have an empty <tr></tr> at the end.

And then both of these become a LOT more confusing when you try to implement a template system. How do you know whether to use <br> or </tr><tr> since you don't know whether the persons page is created with CSS or Tables?