Lesson 10

Framing your table

In Lesson 9, we populated our scene by placing an image on an image with a nested table. In this lesson, we will use the same technique to frame our scene.

I'll use wood for my frame, but feel free to use another texture if you like.

Let's see. We have a table with a scene. We have a table inside with an item. All we have to do is wrap a table around the whole thing. A simple copy and paste will do the trick, then add a background to the first table. There may be more efficient ways of doing the same thing, but this is a simple approach and it gives us some flexiblity for matting.

I have a few wood samples handy, since I went shopping for textures back in Lesson 8.

I'll use the last one and add it to my outside table:
background="http://www.htmlcookbook.com/bg/wood7.jpg">

Now you have a decision to make. You can make the wood appear on WebTV with either cellspacing="?" or border="?"

Cellspacing will work on all browsers, so that is what I recommend. It will look the same on both WebTV and PC's. It looks kind of flat, but it is fairly consistent.

Border will only show the background (wood) image on WebTV. It will look 3-dimensional, so it is more "dramatic" than cellspacing. PC's will see the border, but it will be gray.

Your choice should depend on your intended audience.


Cellspacing frame




Border frame

Homework Assignment

• Copy your table from Lesson 9 (or make another)
• Frame your scene
• Post your table
• Show your work