Re: browser size

Mark,

This thread is bound to get lots of replies, so I'll try to get mine in here
near the top...

I have learned through experience that "hard-coding" a page to REQUIRE a
specific minimum width turns away visitors. Most people who have
large-resolution monitors (like mine at 1280x1024) do not browse
full-screen, but rather have the browser open filling 1/2 to 1/3 of the
screen or so. Others who do not have their monitors set for high-res, for
whatever reason they have, may be forced to scroll LEFT AND RIGHT, which is
one of the most annoying things to be forced to do while surfing (it's
counter-intuitive, and difficult to read text that way).

My suggestion would be to design your pages and graphics with images no
wider than 550px (if you wish to include WebTV surfers) or no wider than
600px (for 640x480). Unique images, such as click-to-enlarge pictures can be
much larger, of course, but for most of your pages, 550-600px should be the
design maximum. Once you've done that, do not "hard-code" any table widths.
Use percentages where possible. I've found that a table width of 100%
sometimes causes a horizontal scrollbar to appear in some browsers, so 99%
is a good choice. Using table percentages, sometimes you need specific cell
sizes. In my tests, if you assign a table cell a specific width and omit the
width statement for the adjoining cells, MSIE will display the second cell
filling all remaining space. Netscape, however, will equalize the cells
(50/50) unless there is sufficient text or graphics to "flesh-out" the rest
of the cell, then it displays properly. This is probably due to the fact
that one cell's width was defined, the other was not, and that (I think) is
technically illegal, but it still works. The point, however, is that using
this type of layout (when tables are needed) helps to ensure
resolution-independent pages that stretch to fill whatever width is given
them without a minimum or maximum size required.

I would post a link to a site that uses the above techniques, but the site
in question is adult in nature, and I don't want to offend anyone's
sensibilities. You may contact me off-list if you would like to visit the
site to see how it was put together.

Anyway, that's what I do now and what I recommend to others. DON'T FORCE
SPECIFIC SCREEN SIZES AND DON'T FORCE SPECIFIC BROWSERS UNLESS YOU WANT TO
LOSE VISITORS.

Hope this helps,
Kehvan

----- Original Message -----
From: "szcam" <szcam(at)pub.sz.jsinfo.net>
To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2000 01:39
Subject: browser size


> Hi experts and lurkers,
>     As a relative newby and part-timer to designing for the Web I have
been
> designing everything with my screen settings at 1024 x 728. Should the
> audience for my web pages be either using a non maximised browser or have
a
> screen resolution smaller then they will sometimes see clipped images.
> Is there a way to have adaptive graphics so that the page adjusts to the
> browser size. If there is not then is there a standard browser design size
> that people use.
>
> Any help greatly appreciated
> Mark Bolton
> http://www.boltonmedia.com
> Chinese Porcelain, Artwork
>
>

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