Need help making tables/formatting output in php

[Mary_z]

Hi guys..

I currently have a php file that will take information from my phpbb forum and post it on the main section of my joomla website. What I want it to do, works. I just can't get it to look the way I want it to.

Here's the code:

{
echo "</a><li><strong>Forum</strong> <a href=\"".$urlPath."/viewforum.php?f=".$row['forum_id']."\">".$row["forum_name"]."</a><strong>
Thread</strong> <a href=\"".$urlPath."/viewtopic.php?p=".$row['post_id']."#".$row['post_id']."\">".$row["topic_title"]."</a> by <a href=\"".$urlPath."/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=".$row['user_id']."\">".$row['username']."</li>";

}

it currently looks like this:



as you see, I would like FORUM to be in one column, THREAD in another, and author in another column. Aligned to center.

I was hoping to get something like this: it's in spanish but I guess you can get the idea.
Mainly I would love to have the php output in columns, that's my main concern. But it would be nice to have the different kind of colors for each line. Like Dark gray, next light gray, etc.



Well anyways.. If somebody knows how to do this and is willing to help me out, I'd very much appreciate it

[C. Ankerstjerne]

You are trying to use a list to show the subjects, where you should be using a table. You can use display:inline-block and then apply a width for each element, which is standard CSS, but it won't work in FireFox. Better to just use a table.

[Kravvitz]

That looks like a table to me, so it should be marked up as one.

I suggest you learn how semantics apply to X/HTML. Semantics is really a very important subject when it comes to X/HTML.

You can use display:inline-block and then apply a width for each element, which is standard CSS, but it won't work in FireFox.

True. Firefox 2 does not support display:inline-block. Firefox 3 will though.

[C. Ankerstjerne]

True. Firefox 2 does not support display:inline-block. Firefox 3 will though.

That's too bad. I usually throw this in the face of those people who can't stop talking about how superior FireFox is to Internet Explorer

[Mary_z]

Hi there again guys!
I've updated the code so for and got the following results:

echo "<table>";
while(...)
{
    echo "<tr></a><td>
<strong>Forum</strong> <a href=\"".$urlPath."/viewforum.php?f=".$row['forum_id']."\">".$row["forum_name"]."</td><td></a><strong>   
 Thread</strong> <a href=\"".$urlPath."/viewtopic.php?p=".$row['post_id']."#".$row['post_id']."\">".$row["topic_title"]."</td><td></a> by <a href=\"".$urlPath."/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=".$row['user_id']."\">".$row['username']."</td> </tr>";
}
echo "</table>"; 

since this is a loop. I would now like to make each line a different color, as the example I posted before.

Putting html in php is tricking.. I can''t used numbers or anything since I get an error when executing the script.
for example: I tried using a bg color for the tables and a fixed width. They always come up with an error that there is a missing ',' somewhere.

[C. Ankerstjerne]

Your HTML-syntax is wrong - you are ending the link after you have ended the table cell. The below code should do the trick.

echo "<table>\n";
$a = 0;
while(...) {
  if($a&1) {
    $b = "bbbbbb;";
  }
  else {
    $b = "000000;";
  }
  echo " <tr>\n";
  echo "  <td style=\"background-color:#$b\"><strong>Forum:</strong> <a href=\"$urlPath/viewforum.php?f=$row['forum_id']\">$row['forum_name']</a></td>\n";
  echo "  <td style=\"background-color:#$b\"><strong>Thread:</strong> <a href=\"$urlPath/viewtopic.php?p=$row['post_id']#$row['post_id']\">$row['topic_title']</a></td>\n";
  echo "  <td style=\"background-color:#$b\">by <a href=\"$urlPath/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=$row['user_id']\">$row['username']</a></td>\n";
  echo " </tr>\n";
  $a++;
}
echo "</table>\n"; 

You can replace the calues of $b with other colours, but it's better to replace that part of the code with a class.