Wt

My EUR 0.01 contribution is that it depends.
If your "look and feel" needs to change or to be controlled by program, than the layouts are the answer.
If all is more or less static, then the CSS is a lighter solution, not necessarily easier, though.

Sorry, what do you mean by lighter and not easier? Do you mean it will have faster performance?

CSS will be served by the HTTP server with very little CPU intervention: it'd be a static file, not output produced by a program.
So it's "lighter".
CSS needs very good skills (which I don't have) especially in complex styles. This is why I call it "not easy" for myself.
But, again, I think a lod depends on the specific situation ...

Ok, I see your point. Thank you.

If you are familiar with CSS then my suggestion would be to use CSS instead of Wt Layouts since some of their features relies on JavaScript. However if you are new to CSS then you may use Wt Layouts which may seem easier to you. However if you care about making the website accessible to even those without JavaScript you should learn to use CSS.

The problem with CSS is that for some features you may have to use a few tricks to work around the different browser's handling.

I hope this helps.

My 0.05 cents.

I recommend CSS -- it has benefits for example if you later want to support mobile clients, for which you can use so-called "responsive" design (layout adapting in more signficant ways to the formfactor of the device: when you have less screen space it could arrange things vertically instead of horizontally).

Layout managers have considerably improved in 3.2.2, and add value mostly when you want to vertically arrange contents to distribute excess space in a specific way, or if you want the user to have resize handles between different widgets. This is mostly when you are building "desktop-like" user interfaces.

Performance is I think of less concern -- both will be fast on a decent browser, and both will be slow on IE 6 :-)

Regards,
koen

Server performances won't be affected by the CSS approach which will put loads on the client alone.
Viceversa, programatic (Wt) approaches will add workload to the server and, very likely, also to the client because of the way the layout are rendered (nested <DIV>s, <SPAN>s and <TABLE>s).

Vincenzo,

I wouldn't worry about that - you'll probably not notice.

Wim.