OT: a bit cheeky..

[Unknown W. Brackets]

Okay.  I would suggest putting a class on both tables, and then applying 
two rules at the same precedence:

table.visible td
table.notvisible td

Then they won't conflict.  Just don't use !important.  Or you could just 
do this with tables that are nested inside .visible tables.

Another option is to use IE7.  http://dean.edwards.name/IE7. 
Unfortunately, while it's amazing and great, your IE users will notice a 
slight increase in load time.  Some would say that's a good thing :P.

Also, I'm sorry, I have to say it - and here I disagree with most CSS 
zealots, but - tables are not evil.  If you're nesting tables, that's 
almost always wrong... but please for the love of goodness don't use 
divs for tabular data!

Does that help, or is that not really what you're looking for?

-[Unknown]


> This is a bit cheeky but I was wondering if either of you have a 
> solution to a problem I am having... (Feel free to ignore this post if 
> you don't have the time or inclination, I won't mind, any help I get is 
> a bonus)
> 
> The problem is this. We have an old set of pages, using html, using 
> tables. The objective is to remove the html formatting and produce CSS 
> that causes the pages to display exactly as they currently do. Thus far 
> I have removed all the border="0" etc from the tables and other elements 
> and added class="x" where I need to add formatting etc.
> 
> This all worked wonderfully except in one case:
> 
> //css file
> table {
> }
> 
> table.visible {
>   background-color: ..etc..
>   border: ..etc..
> }
> 
> table.visible > tbody > tr > td {
>   border: ..etc..
> }
> 
> //html file
> <table>
>   <tr>
>     <td><table class="visible">
>       <tr>
>         <td>A</td>
>       </tr>
>     </td>
>   </tr>
> </table>
> 
> As you probably know IE does not support the child selector ">", so, the 
> rules to add borders to the internal table cells do not apply in IE, but 
> do apply in opera, mozilla, etc. Further, if you use the descendant 
> selector (a space) then they apply where they shouldn't in the reverse 
> case (normal table inside table.visible) eg.
> 
> //CSS file
> table.visible td {
>   border: ..etc..
> }
> 
> //HTML file
> <table class="visible">
>   <tr>
>     <td><table>
>       <tr>
>         <td>A</td>
>       </tr>
>     </td>
>   </tr>
> </table>
> 
> I know the general consensus is that we shoudn't be using tables, and 
> for new pages we don't. In this case we just want to be able to apply 
> different styling to one old set of pages (without making too many 
> changes to them) if coming to them from different locations.
> 
> Adding class="visible" to all the tr, td and th's seems heavy handed to me.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> Regan