Suzanne — Fri, 31 Mar 2000 23:45:00 +0000

I, as usual, sit firmly on the fence. I use both wherever possible. Like in a good frame design, the areas that cannot be altered without causing wrapping, or worse the content being cut off, these are a set width. The rest is a percentage.

So in a typical table layout, the top bits are one table, the middle is another with 3 columns, the middle at 70% and the outside two at 15% or the outside two at 150 pixels (depending on what the content is in those columns) and the middle is left to figure itself out. The bottom is another table, if I need it.

If the column can resize larger without problems, but not smaller, I use a spacer.gif to set a minimum width for the column.

It completely depends on the design, on the repeatability of the graphics, that sort of thing.

I am currently using a fixed width design for one client, and in this case, to make life easier for higher resolutions, the table is centered and there is a nice background that hopefully draws the eye into the text in the center, and away from the vast space around it.

Suzanne

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Suzanne
Tables DeMystified

Maverick — Fri, 31 Mar 2000 22:05:00 +0000

That's the most common resolution. The last time I tried tracking resolution it was about 50% for 800X600, 25% for 640X480, 20% for 1024X728 and 5% for everything else. But that was 6 to 8 months ago, so the percentages might have changed since then. You can read whatever you want into those stats, but one thing is pretty clear. If you design for any fixed-width resolution, you're wrong at least half the time.

phyllis — Fri, 31 Mar 2000 19:05:00 +0000

Until recently, I was designing in percentages. Now I've switched to fixed widths for 800 x 600 pixel size. I did this after testing my webpages on several different sized monitors. The fixed width pages always looked much better (to me anyway) on the larger screens than the spread out pages (I like the term "spaghetti text"). I don't have any actual data, but it seemed to me that most everyone I knew had (at minimum) a monitor that displayed 800 x 600 so I picked that size. - Phyllis

JP Stones — Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:22:00 +0000

More recently I have designed with % as it is more of a challenge and is better for the viewer.
JP

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Maverick — Thu, 30 Mar 2000 20:30:00 +0000

Brooke, I've always found it annoying when a site mandates something like:

You must use Browser X to view this site
or
You must have X by X resolution to view this
or
You need Obscure Plug-in X to view our content.

The designer needs to understand that everyone has different tastes and views and this thread highlights that fact. Some of us like to use all of our screen real estate to see a page and some like things in narrower columns. That's where the stretchable design wins in the long run.

On a fixed width design where the entire page is crammed into a 620 pixel wide table, that's the end. The viewer is stuck in 620 pixels no matter what he/she might want. If I'm on a page like that at 1600X1200, I'm using far less than half of my screen while the rest is wasted white space and NOTHING I do can override that setting so I can view the page in a manner that's comfortable to me.

Now, look at the flip-side. If that page was set up as <TABLE WIDTH="98%"> instead of <TABLE WIDTH="620">, the viewer controls the width. A person like me can view it full screen edge to edge while a person like you that's comfortable in a narrower display can resize your browser to whatever size you want and the page follows along. Heck, that's the way this page works. Resize your browser window downwards and the page shrinks to follow your taste. Maximize the window and the page stetches to fill it. In a stretchable design, we both get what we want while in a fixed-width design, only the people who like that one particular resolution get what they want.

I set my pages up as a percentage table, usually something between 95% and 98% to leave a little white space around the display. I think that's more attractive than running the text to the edge of the screen. I then use a header graphic, or an invisible gif on pages without the header, to stretch the display to a minimum of 620 pixels. That way everything fills the screen nicely on 640X480 monitors while still filling the screen of 1280X1024 users.

Brooke — Thu, 30 Mar 2000 16:25:00 +0000

I am finding this very interesting. From the critique forums I was getting the opinion that EVERYBODY used percentages. I guess I was mistaken.

It sounds like a lot of this is personal preference. For example, Maverick, you hate having white space. But I like it. I can't stand reading from side to side when it's that wide.

If you have more opinions let me know! I love to hear the reasons why!

Brooke

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Megan — Thu, 30 Mar 2000 15:13:00 +0000

It depends on the project. I try to use percentage widths if possible. As a surfer I really like it when pages fill up my screen (at 1024), so I try to do the same.

Bimjo — Thu, 30 Mar 2000 06:56:00 +0000

It depends on the design. If the design demands that you use a fixed width table, use a fixed with table. If it doesn't, you can use a percentage value.

There are drawbacks in either scheme at higher resolutions. Fixed width tables can look funny at big rez, but anybody running a browser window bigger than 1024 *deserves* to see some white space.

The flip side to that is what Suzanne terms "spaghetti text", where you get text strings that are so long you fall asleep before you can get to the end of the line.

One possible solution is to use a transparent gif to fix a minimum table width (say 600 pixels) and set the table width at XX%. At smaller rez, the table stays 600 pixels wide, at higher rez it expands to XX%.

Even at 1280, 75% width is only 960- still readable, without looking like it could be written on the side of your house.

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Bimjo
Just my opinion, worth $0.001 anywhere on earth.

Maverick — Thu, 30 Mar 2000 04:13:00 +0000

Hmmm, I guess I'm the voice of dissention here. I design in stretchable format as I don't want to force anyone to view a site that's 640X480. It takes a little more time and effort to get something that looks okay in 640X480 and in 1600X1200, but I HATE sites that force to me waste all that screen real estate.

Oh, and for those of you that use fixed-width tables for site layout to precisely control positioning, set your browser to large fonts, disable style sheets and override the site color schemes. Now, see if your precise designs really hold up well. The end-user has a lot more power to screw up the designers work than the designer has to preserve it.

Parker — Thu, 30 Mar 2000 01:47:00 +0000

Actually I don't do it like that. I will make it so it is 100% all the way across and for the navbar I will make it fixed.

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Dumby of the 21st Century