Larger Screen Monitors... not always good. - 10/27/2002 7:52 PM
While working on things I decided to try and see what my page would look like at the common 800x600 resolution. If you have a screen larger than 15 inches, which for the last 6 years I hadn't, you will notice that some sites don't fully expand in your browser. MSN's site www.msn.com is one such example. If you look you will see that they have their table width set to 768 pixels wide. This looks good in 800x600 or higher as the size remains constant. So, wondering what my page, created at 1152x864, would look like at 768 pixels wide. To say the very least, it was not good.
Personally, I like it when a site uses the full width of my screen. Such layouts are called "fluid" and fill the available space in the browser. But, as much as I like sites that are able to use this space I do not like sites that were created on a larger screen and are not fluid. It's on these sites that users with smaller screens and resolutions end up scrolling right to see the entire page. When I used to encounter such a site I would just move on as it was annoying. I'll bet I am not the only one that moves on either.
So, now I'm encompassing the body of my pages in a single celled table that is center aligned. I use this to switch the width of the layout from 770 pixels to 100% so I can compare how it will look for myself and for others.
Just thought I would share this insight just in case someone else has been overlooking this aspect too.
Personally, I like it when a site uses the full width of my screen. Such layouts are called "fluid" and fill the available space in the browser. But, as much as I like sites that are able to use this space I do not like sites that were created on a larger screen and are not fluid. It's on these sites that users with smaller screens and resolutions end up scrolling right to see the entire page. When I used to encounter such a site I would just move on as it was annoying. I'll bet I am not the only one that moves on either.
So, now I'm encompassing the body of my pages in a single celled table that is center aligned. I use this to switch the width of the layout from 770 pixels to 100% so I can compare how it will look for myself and for others.
Just thought I would share this insight just in case someone else has been overlooking this aspect too.