Suzanne — Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:43:34 +0000

heh, exactly! design so the user can do what s/he needs to do, don't force the user to fit your design, make your design able to fit the user.

badda bing badda boom!

Abhishek Reddy — Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:39:58 +0000

Yep, when reading I use restored widths. Sometimes I want to view long lines on code when programming, so then I maximise (wait, how is that relevant? :\).

Anyway, I suggest looking into your visitor demographics and then deciding primarily if you should even go with fixed-width after all. Then think about whether your content requires a relative or fixed layout.

A good webmaster should create fluid and accessible layouts, regardless of whether people who actually need it widely accessible use it or not. The content should be potentially accessible to all users, presented at least barely coherently.

But a 'real' webmaster, IMO, ends up designing to demand. i.e. if there are no visitors using, say, PDAs, then the webmaster doesn't design with that (potential) audience of PDA-users in mind.

Suzanne — Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:18:45 +0000

(N.B. I often have two documents side by side -- browser on one side, what I'm working on on the other.)

Suzanne — Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:17:50 +0000

Sorry, I usually include the caveat that Gamers and Graphic artists aren't included in that method of use. Writers and people who need to read on the web, i.e. programmers, tend to not go full screen. Why? Because the lines of text get too long and it becomes hard to maintain comprehension. When you're reading for a missing semi-colon or trying to understand a large technical document, that can be critical.

Besides which... if the site requires full screen 1280xwhatever to be viewed and it's NOT graphic based, then there is no way in hell anyone will be able to read the damn thing on anything other than a computer monitor.

Abhishek Reddy — Sun, 12 Jan 2003 10:40:03 +0000

I'm on 1280x1024 and I always view web pages at full width. Most everyone else I know on high resolutions does the same...

Apart from the obvious reasons like playing games, viewing large images, and reducing scrolling, there is that feeling of leaving so much space wasted, so I usually keep windows maximised.

Also, I keep all extra toolbars on auto-hide, and again, everyone else I know who use toolbars (apart from the taskbar) does the same...

Suzanne — Sun, 12 Jan 2003 03:16:05 +0000

Just to throw it out there, the dock/drag thing are usually on the sides on a mac, even my ibook set to 800x600 has one. Browsers on the mac have sidebars (ie5/mac is set to default as well), as well as their pc counterparts and take up further real estate.

Keeping your page under 480px wide is ideal (the widest element on the page or combination of elements side by side).

Using relative widths and sensible planning, you can still have a page that looks good at higher browser widths.

Most people with larger monitors don't view full screen unless looking at flash presentations/full size images, so keep that in mind. Even at 12xx by whatever I have my monitor set to, I don't have the browsers bigger than about 800x800.

Renegade — Sun, 12 Jan 2003 02:48:01 +0000

Yeah, I usaually have have one or two relative widths for my page, which is usually the middle, or the content area. just about everything else is fixed widths

mjames — Sat, 11 Jan 2003 18:42:25 +0000

Some use the toolbar, but unless you have data to back it up, I don't think that number is enough to make you alter your design. It's like worrying about design height because people might have multiple toolbars on their browser. I wouldn't sweat it.

openmind — Sat, 11 Jan 2003 18:10:35 +0000

I use the 100% width for a "container table 1cell by 1 column. I then use fixed width tables for the side nav and let the table in the middle do its stuff. I've chaecked it with various resolutions and browsers and it seems to work OK but then I'm not a "real" Webmaster...

I just think I am....

Suzanne — Sat, 11 Jan 2003 05:08:24 +0000

I generally use relative sizing wherever possible. It's better all around for all users, developers and alternative browsers.