Screen Sizes

Screen Sizes (Full Version)

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MCD -> Screen Sizes (4/11/2008 12:22:03)
When building a fixed width site how wide are most of you building your sites now. With the widescreen monitors plus a good many people still using 600x800 resolutions it is difficult to know. I need to build a fairly small site with a fixed width. and was leaning towards 750px. Any suggestions?

Larry M. -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/11/2008 12:43:26)
I'd go with 1024x768 which statistically represents 54% of all users (and gaining). ......... and for the whopping 6% of all dyed-in-the-wool FF users, allow the gratuitous comment that IE Browser users stand at 89% [sm=whistling.gif] Source: http://www.echoecho.com/

Tailslide -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/11/2008 13:06:07)
Doesn't matter what the screen size is - there's no way of knowing what size the actual browser is. Many many people don't have maximised browsers. Also - I've been to 4 clients in the last 6 months who have 17 inch screens and have it set up as 800x600 (urgh!) so personally I'd either go for 760px or preferably - a fluid layout so that you can cater for more people.

rdouglass -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/11/2008 13:41:37)
I have to admit my last 3 (and current) sites I'm working on have content areas 990px wide.

mar0364 -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/11/2008 13:52:22)
I'd go with 800 x 600 as I constantly see people with large screens that don't have the browser maximized and have the DAME IE favorites bar open that takes 1/3 of the screen............................!!!! I'm better now. I really don't like the favorite bar.

MCD -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/11/2008 14:17:45)
I can see from the responses thus far that we are all over the place on this one. I normally build fluid but the site I build next needs to be a fixed width. I was thinking about something around 900px and center it. The 600x800 folks would not have to scroll far.

treetopsranch -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/11/2008 15:15:53)
I hate any amount of scrolling. I am finding more and more sites that require scrolling and it makes me want to leave that site. Especially sites that have Google ads plastered all over. You can design a site for 800 width but when you add the Google ads it causes scrolling again unless you are very careful on how you do it. Spooky has done it correctly on this page of the forum.

womble -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 5:10:10)
I tend to avoid fixed on most of mine so as to avoid the scrolling problem, but the last couple I've done have needed to be fixed and gone between 760 and 790 as there's been enough of a margin around the edges to ensure that even at 800 x 600 or thereabouts no important content's missed if you don't scroll. In both cases the page width was governed by the header width requirement unfortunately.

Donkey -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 6:37:38)
I think it is still important to make a site work without sideways scroll at 800 px width. On my sites 800 x 600 is still approx 10% of users. I think as long as it works at 800 x 600 without sidebars that is acceptable. Bearing in mind that the majority of ordinary users (like me) prefer to have a sidebar open with favourite links available because it makes life easier, then catering for a minimum 800 px width is essential. If I have to scroll sideways on a site I will move on somewhere else. It is not user friendly, it is like reading a book through a letter box. Even if a thread on outfront creates sideways scroll (usually because someone has posted a long line of code or a long link) I won't bother to read it.

MCD -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 9:20:44)
There is a growing number of folks that are like me. I purchased a new laptop with a 17" widescreen monitor and I run a 1440x900. Some fluid sites don't look very good unless they have a lot of content. I guess my point is that it seems there is a wider discrepancy in the resolutions being used than ever before. BTW - I have now about decided to go with a 775 fixed width.

womble -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 11:51:07)
quote: ORIGINAL: MCD I guess my point is that it seems there is a wider discrepancy in the resolutions being used than ever before. Ah yes, the eternal dilemma! You can't please most folks some of the time, but you can't please some of the folks most of the time either! [:D]

jurgen -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 12:01:04)
Just like womble is suggesting a fluid setup is the best way to go. With the majority having a resolution of 1024px I tend to design for this size to look best. Lower or higher resolution will look a little bit different but the fluid layout will prevent from side scrolling, the whole view port is utilized, and it still looks good.

rdouglass -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 12:31:07)
Unfortunately a fluid layout is easier said than done and does take more work than fixed width. Sometimes significantly more. Oh yes, you can make any site fluid with enough effort but there is a point of diminishing returns and that most clients won't pay the difference. And a simple site is simple to make fluid and there are hundreds of ready-made fluid templates. But some just don't work as fluid. At least with the sites I do anyways. Most of what I work with are DB driven displaying typically tabular data and most times need a certain amount of fixed width space to work well. If your site is more free flowing and 'forgiving', then a fluid design will work well and definitely makes sense to do it. The bottom line IMO is that some sites just do not work well with varying width display. Some do and some don't. If you get your clients to pay for the difference, than 'bravo'. I do build fluid sites but I don't do them for free.

MCD -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 13:06:30)
quote: The bottom line IMO is that some sites just do not work well with varying width display. Some do and some don't. If you get your clients to pay for the difference, than 'bravo'. I do build fluid sites but I don't do them for free. Exactly. Some sites simply do not look good in a fluid site. In a high resolution such as I'm running now a fluid site with a small amount of content looks terrible. You see more background than content.

Tailslide -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 13:36:28)
If it's a site with very little content then I'd do an elastic layout (everything possible sized in ems so that it expands when text size is increased). If it's got a fair amount of content then I'd do fluid with max/min-widths to constrain it to a reasonable width.

d a v e -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 14:04:43)
quote: ORIGINAL: Tailslide If it's a site with very little content then I'd do an elastic layout (everything possible sized in ems so that it expands when text size is increased). If it's got a fair amount of content then I'd do fluid with max/min-widths to constrain it to a reasonable width. do you mean using css max-width, min-width? if so i thought that didn't work in ie6??

Tailslide -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 15:32:07)
It doesn't - you use targeted expressions for IE6 and under - works fine.

d a v e -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/12/2008 16:47:14)
could you share an example? a url would do... if you wouldn't mind ;)

Tailslide -> RE: Screen Sizes (4/13/2008 3:11:21)

Ok - well here's one of my templates in use on a recent site: http://www.tmp-mortgage-zone.co.uk/index.html

It uses min and max width to constrain the layout between 760px and 1200px on modern browsers like this:

#container{width:98%; max-width:1200px;min-width:760px;}

and it uses this:

body {width:expression( documentElement.clientWidth < 760 ? (documentElement.clientWidth == 0 ? (body.clientWidth < 760 ? "760" : "auto") : "760px") : "auto" );}
#container {width:expression( documentElement.clientWidth > 1200 ? (documentElement.clientWidth == 0 ? (body.clientWidth >1200 ? "1200" : "auto") : "1200px") : "auto" );}

To force the same with IE6 and under.

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