Floats Or Absolutes?

[espmartin]

For you CSS designers out there, I'd like to ask if you had a web design that
you would prefer to be laid out a certain way - do you prefer floats or positioning?

Both have their benefits and drawbacks, but both can do the job for specific
layouts. I actually love using both. I'll do floats on one site, then do AP
(Absolute Positioning) on another. They are - unless you have a specific layout
that only can be achieved by AP - interchangeable at times.

[SkinnerW]

Most of the time you need combination of both to achieve the best (or desired) result

[xhan]

I used to use absolute all the time but thats only cos I didn't know about floats - now I always float - its amazing what you can do with margin!

[smeagain]

There are good reason to use both in the right places.

Float Example
float:left is extremely useful for step and repeat in CMS when horizontal rows have more than one output. By this I mean say a div 250x250 containing a product pulled from the Database by a qualifued query which needs to appear in 3 rows of 3.That is something that is verrrrry difficult to achieve reliably any other way.

Absolute Example
Absolute is the only way to pin a Graphic Banner to the top of your page while putting it last in the HTML running order to allow the H1 tag to be first in the body.

The question Absolute or float is simmilar to the age old question "Tables or CSS" there is no absolute answer, excuse the pun. Both have their uses and trying to work a table free design when part of the page is crying out for a table is often a source of quirky CSS sometimes requiring Browser Hacks.

Most times, there is more than one way to achieve positional control but frequently one method is actually far more appropriate for various reasons. However many designers choose the method they feel most comfortable with and that does not always produce the best results.

[darkstar_tfd]

I mostly use floats.

[espmartin]

floats with negative margins - that's MY baby

[BenjArriola]

Most of the time floats. I rarely use absolute for main elements of a page. most of the time I use absolutes are in special type of navigations where I control the position of the <a> tag within a CSS image replacement.

[bochgoch]

Personally I avoid absolutes as they are such a pain to get perfect across all browsers. I'm a floater!