Some fast questions and comments.
when I'm making a website, I always use 1024x768 and I also use % but when I go test it on 8x6 it really buggers-up (looks like crap) I've happen to of done some reading and talking to people and about 75% of the people I taked to said that if I make for 8x6 (what most of the public is using) I'll be fine when I go to 1024x768. Thats what I did and well lets just say WHAT A WAST OF SPACE!! there is to much of nothing. so I surfed around changind of screen size at sites like yahoo and there looks good at all sizes, why????
Next, I was reading that one someone posted about screen size, and someone answered back saying "Don't forget about the 640x480 people" A little note on that... FORGET ABOUT THEM!!! the public is not using that so let them change there size, its not worth it for about 2% of the public on the net.
When you design , think about what kind of audience you are trying to reach: are you creating an information site (news, weather, etc) that everybody will look at or are you creating a site for narrow audience (say, artists, graphic designers, the type of priveleged folk with 21" monitors and T1 connection) that you know only use high resolution monitors....
Please don't forget the 640 x 480 people.
If you look at the so called 'professionally' built sites including Yahoo! and Amazon, they work well in the low screen resolution. Why? There is still a large percent of people using this resolution. Much more then 1024 resolution. Most new computers are being sold with a 15" monitor, just look in Sunday flyer. In fact, most computers were I work and go to college are 14" or 15". Not to mention all the people that are going with laptops.
The surfer with a 13" screen over a 14.4 connection with 2.x browser could still be a customer for your web design client!
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IMHO - Steve
Your opportunity on the web is now!
www.westmichiganweb.com
You need to come up with a design methodolgy so your site looks good in any user agent regardless of screen resolution. Computers are not the only devices connecting to the internet anymore. In the next few years you will find hundreds of millions of new connections via devices with a fixed screen resolution. These include PDA's, Cell Phones, WebTV, Games Consoles (both the Sega Dreamcast and Sony Playstation II are internet capable). A lot of these devices open the internet up to people who would not be able to afford it otherwise considering the price difference between a game console and a PC. Plus consider that 30 million computers are sold to new users per year in the US with the screen resolutions set to 640 X 480.
As a case in point, I work with approximately 85 users on a daily basis. Not a single one of them would be able to change their screen resolution if they were told to. If I printed out instructions about 50% would mess it up. Not that these are unintelligent people but they could care less what their resolution is as long as they can see the applications to do their work. You will find that 85% or more of all new computer users are this way for at least the first year of their internet experience. So now because your going to forget about 640X480 resolution you have probably cut off about 50% of new potential visitors when you take into account all the variables.
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Wayne Luke
The Majormud Encyclopedia - www.bloodquest2.com
Come Play one of the hottest games on the net.
if you are asking what size to make your web page, make it 600 px wide (or use %), if you are asking about screen resolution/size - anything goes as long as you test it on different resolutions.
IMHO, I believe that there are two approaches when considering screen resolution.
1) Put everything in a table that is no larger then 600 pixels wide
2) Put everyhting in a table based on percentages, but don't put any images or unwrappable words that are larger then the pixels diveded by colums to equal 600 pixels. In other words, if you divide your table into three colums make none of these colums contain an image wider then 200 pixels.
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IMHO - Steve
Your opportunity on the web is now!
www.westmichiganweb.com
When I come up with a design, I usually create it on a 1024x768 resolution also, but don't forget the power of CSS when you do formating. I hardly use tables anymore when I found out about CSS. The way I handle the other resolutions is quite simple. I control it with JavaScript. You filter out the resolution, and window size, then make simple calculations to make it look the same in all resolutions using the width, height, top and left attributes of CSS. The "Trouble Shooting" tutorial at Webmonky under DHTML is the place to figure it out.
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