resolution design

[Phoenix Dreamscape]

i can't find an article that gives good advice on how to make my webpage for resolutions. I run in 1024x768, but i know that designing for that causes lots of problems. Can someone give me pointers on what to do? It's going to be a floating square in the middle of the page. The basic outline can be seen at http://ethersoft.cjb.net. Currently I have it set using percentages instead of a set width, but i've been told not to do that.

[mmj]

You might like to look through this thread:
http://www.sitepointforums.com/showt...threadid=18553

I design so it is best on 800x600 but I make it readable at 640x480 (ie no single column more than 580 wide) right up to 1600x1200 (ie no repeating background until 1600 or 1900 width).

To design for a particular resolution, I just subtract 60 pixels (to allow for scrollbars, page margins, borders) from the horizontal resolution and make no table wider than that

For example when designing for 800x600 (which the majority of people use) I will make no table wider than 740 pixels.

It is handy to open up another copy of the file you are working on and resize it so it fits within an 800x600 rectangle (use your paint program to draw the rectangle in the background). Alternatively you could switch display resolutions on the fly. Keep in mind that a lot of people have the default large icons and navigation buttons at the top of their browser, making less room "above the fold".

[mmj]

By the way all of your pages should include a logo or website name, quick description or tagline, and link home all above the fold.

For instance, Sitepointforums has their logo AND name, their description (community forums) and the link home (click the logo) on every page at the top left.

You probably know this already as I have noticed your site is not finished yet. Just some tips.

WHY? Because people might stumble upon yoru site (any page of your site) and they will instantly want to know
1. Who you are
2. What you are
3. How to get back to your homepage.

[Percipient]

Sausage, the people that make the HotDog HTML editor, have a free tool called SilverThingy that allows you to open and preview your work in various window sizes. You can get it a http://www.sausagetools.com/supertoolz/silver.html. It also has some other interesting features.

[Phoenix Dreamscape]

thanks. It's always baffled me why people need "back" buttons and "home" buttons and "back to top" buttons. That's what the browser is for, not the webpage...

i originally designed it for 640x480, but i went back and made it for 800x600. I'm terrible with tables - until I get all the tables working how they are supposed to be, i don't plan on fixing anything else. My main problem with webpages is I can do layout or graphics, but I can't combine them. As you can tell, this page is just a blank layout where a pretty page could go, if I knew how to make nice graphics

one more question: say I have a 500 pixel wide table, and I put a 600 pixel wide picture in it. The table expands to the size of the image. I would really like it to always stay the same size, and just cut off the rest of the page or have scroll bars or something... is this possible?

[mmj]

The pixel width of a table is a minimum width. You could however, set upthe image as a "background image" for that table.

See the image across the top (and the one at the bottom) at http://www.arcticforest.com/ - the image is a background image for that table, so if the page is less than 1800 pixels wide, it only shows part of that image

By the way the above link is not finished yet - that site is under construction.