flowlayout vs. gridlayout

[Stephen]

I am about to start my first project in asp .net. I like
the gridlayout but is there anyt limitations or obstacles
hing I should know about before proceeding with this page
layout?

 

[Kevin Spencer]

Grid Layout uses CSS for absolute positioning, so if you use it, you want to
make sure to account for browser differences.

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.

 

[Chris Jackson]

Flow layout emits the type of HTML you are most familiar with, which (if
designed properly) can scale to the user's resolution.

Grid layout is designed to be very VB-ish in the designer. You put things
where you want them, and they will be exactly there. It achieves this using
absolute positioning of each HTML element on the page, which is measured in
pixels. Everything is always in exactly the same place, whether you are
looking at it on an 800 x 600 display or a 1920 x 1200 display.

My preference (in case it wasn't obvious) is for flow layout - I think it's
irresponsible of designers to target the lowest common denominator with a
specific number of pixels. Take a look at cnn.com or msn.com on a high-dpi
widescreen monitor, and you'll get a feel for just how much this kind of
rigid design sucks when in an environment for which it wasn't optimized. The
web is objectively different than print, and it's irresponsible that layouts
(particularly of huge sites like these) don't leverage the platform.

Not that I have strong feelings about this or anything...

That being said, it is a lot easier to get things exactly where you want,
and do so really fast, using the grid layout, so it's not always
inappropriate.

 

[Jason S]

Chris,

Amen brother. I couldn't agree more. While I realize that the most common
resolution is 800x600 (hard to believe I know but all those baby boomers are
getting older now and like large type), I still think the big guys can spend
a couple of extra bucks and get thier designers to account for larger
screens.

I mean for chrissakes look at builder.com in a hi res screen. It's
atrocious. Ok, background graphics in table cells looks nice but I would
rather have a scaled width.

Bleh,
Jason S.

 

[Steve C. Orr [MVP, MCSD]]

You should use FlowLayout most of the time.
Grid layout is only useful for specialized circumstances. I don't know why
they made it the default.
You can change this default on a per project basis.
In the solution explorer window, right click on your project and select
properties.
Then under Common Properties select Designer Defaults.
There you can set the default page layout for your project to FlowLayout.

 

[mikeb]

I agree as well.

Now is there a way to get the VS.NET Web Projects template to default to
flow layout so I don't have to change it myself every time?