Table structure to render forms in VB/HTML

[Exie]

Hi,

I'm looking to re-develop a really old application which is basically a batch job processing front end.

The current app. has a table which contains the criteia & layout required for each job. It's formatted something like:

Layout No., Eg. 10
Item, Eg. Text Box or Caption or Frame
Top, Eg. 100
Left, Eg. 75
Name, Eg. Text1
Required, Eg. Yes
Type, Eg. Alpha
....etc. etc.

This works find when rendering a form in VB. The catch is, if I try and render this in HTML, I do not have the same level of control for placement.

I can certianly place x number of textboxes on the screen, but I cant line them up or anything.

Can anyone suggest a good table format that would allow for this ?

... or does anyone know any systems that do this sort of thing already ?

 

[ESquared]

DIVs, DHTML, and floating elements would give what you want.

But then, you'd be tied exclusively to Internet Explorer. If that's not a problem, go ahead.

FYI, you can line things up by using tables... maybe not the best way in the world (someone who knows this, tell me!) but it would work. You'd just have to do some interesting math to get the cell spanning correct (I've seen it done as a compatible-with-most-browsers-method of positioning elements).