Re: screen resolutions

I try to control my environment with the use of tables.
Some writers do all of their work in a table that is set to 600 or perhaps 
800 px, and they ignore the white screen outside of their defined field.
I center my first or bottom table to 95%, that always leaves me with nice 
margins regardless of end user screen resolution.
Next, since I choose to use a navigation system on the left of the screen, 
I set the left column to 110 pixels, and the right column I leave on automatic.

Since as you say, you cannot control for how others may set their font 
sizes, I use 100 pixel buttons (.GIFs) on my navigation column, but then I 
must make sure that they are legible at say 1024 px res on a 15" screen 
(that is what I use~ and if someone is using greater resolution than that, 
I shall assume they are using a larger screen.

I design for optimal viewing at 800 pixels, but by never using a graphic 
that is greater than 400 pixels, I assure that those using 600 px 
resolution will still see the page without distortion.

Obviously I avoid using text next to pictures, unless I limit my picture to 
200 pixels wide, so that text will still flow somewhat neatly around it 
regardless of what size screen or resolution the customer is using. Have 
pity on those who have their fonts set large, they need them that way in 
order to see, so the meat of your page ought to be in text that the user 
can control. I happen to like fonts-not-in-my-face, and have the size 
knocked down a notch, and at 1024 px, other users can have difficulty with 
my computer. Tough... it *is* *my* computer.

I do not use frames. They prohibit effective bookmarking, and are a 
difficulty to search engines, who will catalog the frame that is of 
interest to them, but then when clicked on, the viewer will see only that 
frame and not the other information that belongs to your site, and will 
usually be unable to navigate, even back to your home page.

You may look at my pages to see how I have done this. Check out the 
Newsletter pages, where I have mixed photos and other elements across the 
screen. I use Adobe GoLive set to design pages for an 800 px format, they 
look great on my 1024 screen, and work well on a 600 px screen. I am not 
sure how they come out on WebTV, but the text of the articles ought to 
perform well.



At 11:00 AM 7/23/00 +0200, you wrote:
>HI!
>I have a general question about different screen resolutions.
>I was wondering about how you deal with the problem of creating a webpage
>and not knowing at what resolution it will be displayed on different
>monitors. Do you actually create different versions of one webpage for
>different resolutions or leave some space to the left or right of it? I
>think it's especially hard when you are using frames since the fonts and
>font-sizes used with one resolution can look really awkward with another one
>or the frames just won't fit anymore.
>Thanks in advance for any advice,
>
>Sascha Arnold

Br. Elias Thienpont OSB
http://www.assumptionabbey.com

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