Liquid Layouts not always appropriate ?

S

Synapse Syndrome

I would say that there is always a case for using absolute positioning on
webpages rather than liquid layouts. Absolute positioning is used on most
big websites.

For example, I cannot see how The Guardian news site would be as clear when
using liquid layouts. www.guardian.co.uk

Would anybody say that liquid layouts are always what is most desirable, and
that when that they are not used it is due to the incompetence of the
designer?

Cheers

ss.
 
N

Neredbojias

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:36:07
GMT Synapse Syndrome scribed:
I would say that there is always a case for using absolute positioning
on webpages rather than liquid layouts. Absolute positioning is used
on most big websites.

You would be wrong.
For example, I cannot see how The Guardian news site would be as clear
when using liquid layouts. www.guardian.co.uk

Actually, the site is somewhat successfully liquid via javascript. This
demonstrates that the site _could have_ been completely liquid had the
creator been less inept.
Would anybody say that liquid layouts are always what is most
desirable, and that when that they are not used it is due to the
incompetence of the designer?

Not I, but those using fixed layouts almost never have to.
 
S

Synapse Syndrome

Neredbojias said:
Actually, the site is somewhat successfully liquid via javascript. This
demonstrates that the site _could have_ been completely liquid had the
creator been less inept.

Inept? I'd have to disregard what else you've said in that case. That site
is often used as an example of good design in the UK. Could you find a
better designed news site? I really doubt it. Making that site with a
liquid layout would bring a lot of formatting problems to the people making
the content. It'd just be a mess.

ss.
 
N

Nik Coughlin

Synapse Syndrome said:
Making that site with a liquid layout would bring a lot of formatting
problems to the people making the content. It'd just be a mess.

Um, that's simply not true. This statement makes me think that you don't
really understand the concept of liquid layouts. This site would be quite
easy to make fluid. It wouldn't make any different whatsoever to the people
generating the content. My belief that you don't understand is reinforced
by your use of the term absolute positioning instead of fixed width.
Absolute positioning means something quite different -- I use absolute
positioning in my liquid layouts.
 
D

dorayme

Inept? I'd have to disregard what else you've said in that case. That site
is often used as an example of good design in the UK. Could you find a
better designed news site? I really doubt it. Making that site with a
liquid layout would bring a lot of formatting problems to the people making
the content. It'd just be a mess.


OK lets look at a typical page:

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2244122,00.html>

It uses a transitional doctype. Perhaps this is ok. Some people
will wonder what it is transitioning from. But still it has lots
of errors. I saw a count above 80.

There are some css ones too. Perhaps these latter things are not
that important and due to various hacks to ward off greater
dangers...

But there are some nasty looking things like body {font-size:
small...} which do not auger well. It is not a good thing to
start the day with. The authors actually admit (in a comment on
body):

"For most browsers we want to default to font-size small, but for
IE 5 PC we want to use x-small, as it's font sizes are one size
out"

Now, I am not saying that a table layout is a terrible crime - it
is not - but you cannot have a table layout like this site uses
these days for non tabular material and trumpet too loudly its
good design, much less hold it up as an example.

Not saying the site is incompetent. It is not.
 
A

Andrew

Synapse said:
I would say that there is always a case for using absolute positioning on
webpages rather than liquid layouts.

I think you're confused here - it's not a "rather than". A web page can
use absolute positioning and still be liquid. Presumably you mean fixed
layout using absolute positioning.
Absolute positioning is used on most big websites.

Which ones did you check, and by what criteria did you decide if they
counted as big? Or is that one of those made up claims convenient to
your argument? And do you mean fixed layout here?
For example, I cannot see how The Guardian news site would be as clear when
using liquid layouts. www.guardian.co.uk

It's not very clear if your browser canvas is narrower than the page's
width - scrolling in both directions is required to see everything. It
also fell to bits in Internet Explorer 6.

It does degrade well with CSS disabled (apart from the slightly strange
double-link lists.) It's certainly perfectly clear that way, perhaps
just less visually appealing.

Mostly I quite like the design, but it's another of these sites that,
for me, crams too much information into every available space, as if
it's desirable to match newspaper layout on the web. I'd prefer more
white space and a design that gradually leads me from the most important
information to the finer details.
Would anybody say that liquid layouts are always what is most desirable, and
that when that they are not used it is due to the incompetence of the
designer?

"Always" would be a bit strong, but liquid layouts are a major strength
of the web that most visual media just don't have. There could be
conceivably be situations where the requirements of a design outweigh
the benefits of a liquid layout and demand a fixed layout instead, but I
can't think of one right now. Outwith such situations, why remove the
ability to cater for wide-ranging user needs or preferences?

I've never seen the idea better expressed than by the late Alan J. Flavell:

"As if a tailor would make a suit to fit only one ideal customer,
rather than for the actual customers who want to buy one. *But* in
the case of the web, the web "tailor" only has to make one suit,
provided he knows how to make it so that it adapts /itself/ to the
client requirements."

Andrew
 
B

Ben C


You're right that is a typical page, and they've been like that for
years. They recently (a few months ago) redid the main front page and
some other bits, which is more likely to be what the OP is saying is an
example of good design.
It uses a transitional doctype. Perhaps this is ok. Some people
will wonder what it is transitioning from. But still it has lots
of errors. I saw a count above 80.

It's awful. The way they've done those headings ("Home", "UK", etc.)
across the top is particularly horrific.

One table nested inside another, for no apparent reason, all in a center
element. The inner table is set to 'width="1"' so any heading with
spaces in it has them substituted with &nbsp;.

Lots of missing tags and tags in the wrong places.

[...]
Not saying the site is incompetent. It is not.

It's very old and perhaps some of the bizarre ways of doing things in
there are there because they were the only things that "worked" in those
days.

No excuse for the broken tag structure though.
 
S

Synapse Syndrome

Nik Coughlin said:
Um, that's simply not true. This statement makes me think that you don't
really understand the concept of liquid layouts. This site would be quite
easy to make fluid. It wouldn't make any different whatsoever to the
people generating the content.

Like how would they keep everything in sections, without it fragmenting too
much? If it could easily be made liquid, why didn't they then? I /think/ I
understand the concept of liquid layouts. I don't think there is much to
understand, is there?
My belief that you don't understand is reinforced by your use of the term
absolute positioning instead of fixed width. Absolute positioning means
something quite different -- I use absolute positioning in my liquid
layouts.

Yes, excuse me. I actually knew that, but as you suspect, I do not know
that much at this stage. I did mean fixed width, but I did not know that
you could use AP Divs with liquid layouts. My personal experience is
limited to centralised fixed width divs so far.

ss.
 
S

Synapse Syndrome

dorayme said:
OK lets look at a typical page:

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2244122,00.html>

It uses a transitional doctype. Perhaps this is ok. Some people
will wonder what it is transitioning from. But still it has lots
of errors. I saw a count above 80.

There are some css ones too. Perhaps these latter things are not
that important and due to various hacks to ward off greater
dangers...

But there are some nasty looking things like body {font-size:
small...} which do not auger well. It is not a good thing to
start the day with. The authors actually admit (in a comment on
body):

"For most browsers we want to default to font-size small, but for
IE 5 PC we want to use x-small, as it's font sizes are one size
out"

Now, I am not saying that a table layout is a terrible crime - it
is not - but you cannot have a table layout like this site uses
these days for non tabular material and trumpet too loudly its
good design, much less hold it up as an example.

Not saying the site is incompetent. It is not.

The basic template for that page is actually pretty old, and it was a while
ago that I saw the site being used as an example. It is the main front page
that has recently been redesigned (and made to fit a 1024 screen width, from
800).

ss.
 
D

dorayme

I /think/ I
understand the concept of liquid layouts. I don't think there is much to
understand, is there?

It depends. Most authors don't understand it. So the problem may
be finding this "not very much to understand" animal in the
jungle. Once caught, it might well be a grey thing that you are
severely disappointed with or are very impressed with. What did
you catch?
 
D

dorayme

The basic template for that page is actually pretty old, and it was a while
ago that I saw the site being used as an example. It is the main front page
that has recently been redesigned (and made to fit a 1024 screen width, from
800).


As Ben C surmised.

OK. The home page looks well. I have not really examined it but
here is just one comment to do with something you asked - liquid
design. I can understand a big site with lots of info not able to
be quite squeezed into 800 wide. But there is no reason for the
bits that do not need to be out of the picture to be out of the
picture.

Look at the search bar at top at 800px for browser and especially
(perhaps paradoxically enough) at very small user text size. Look
at all the room available to the left where it could happily go.
One needs to pause before holding the page up as an example of
good design.

But I admit, it is not all that bad!
 
N

Nik Coughlin

Synapse Syndrome said:
Like how would they keep everything in sections, without it fragmenting
too much? If it could easily be made liquid, why didn't they then? I
/think/ I understand the concept of liquid layouts. I don't think there
is much to understand, is there?

http://nrkn.com/guardianFluid/

I didn't bother hacking it to work in IE 6 so use a real browser to view -
tested in IE 7, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Would work in IE 6 with another
10 minutes work which I have no intention of doing.

It's very rough and I've only bothered doing the two main content columns as
this is all that is required to show that it can be made fluid. Everything
else is low quality placeholder images.
 
H

Harlan Messinger

Synapse said:
I would say that there is always a case for using absolute positioning on
webpages rather than liquid layouts. Absolute positioning is used on most
big websites.

You start by saying that there is always a case for X, but then all you
have to offer is "X is what most people do". I'm afraid your
understanding of what it means to make a case for something needs work.
 
B

Ben C

http://nrkn.com/guardianFluid/

I didn't bother hacking it to work in IE 6 so use a real browser to view -
tested in IE 7, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Would work in IE 6 with another
10 minutes work which I have no intention of doing.

It's very rough and I've only bothered doing the two main content columns as
this is all that is required to show that it can be made fluid. Everything
else is low quality placeholder images.

Looks good. You have a min-width of 942px, where the original site sets
a width of 940px and centres.

So on a very wide monitor, I can fill the width with your version. But
940px is already quite wide.

How would you make the page work at much narrower than 940px?

If you make the viewport 800px and look at either version, you notice
that everything still looks neatly laid out, just with no jobs or
dating. You lose an exact precisely-measured slice of gubbins.

I'm sure that's deliberate. I see it quite a lot on the web. This is
another trick to do the sort of thing salmobytes was discussing the
other day-- the discretely fluid compromise.
 
N

Nik Coughlin

Ben C said:
Looks good. You have a min-width of 942px, where the original site sets
a width of 940px and centres.

So on a very wide monitor, I can fill the width with your version. But
940px is already quite wide.

How would you make the page work at much narrower than 940px?

Move the search box so it doesn't slide over/under the GuardianUnlimited
logo. Or make it so that it dropped under it when they collide.

Once you've done that then the minimum theoretical width is the width of the
images in column 1 + the width of the images in column 2 + the widths of
columns 3 and 4 which are fixed. That's if you don't want the columns
dropping under each other (use floats), if you don't mind that then the
minimum width is the largest image or fixed widht column you have on the
page.
If you make the viewport 800px and look at either version, you notice
that everything still looks neatly laid out, just with no jobs or
dating. You lose an exact precisely-measured slice of gubbins.

I'm sure that's deliberate. I see it quite a lot on the web. This is
another trick to do the sort of thing salmobytes was discussing the
other day-- the discretely fluid compromise.

Yeah, it's all a compromise. But man those tiny little fixed width sites
look silly on my giant monitor.
 
T

Travis Newbury

I would say that there is always a case for using absolute positioning on
webpages rather than liquid layouts. Absolute positioning is used on most
big websites.

Anyone that says "one size fits all" on the web is a fool. Fluid
design is great for some site, fluid design is dumb for others.
 
T

Travis Newbury

Like how would they keep everything in sections, without it fragmenting too
much?

Sometimes the fluid crowd's view is like that old joke "Dr, it hurts
when I do this... "Don't do that"
 
J

Jukka K. Korpela

Scripsit Travis Newbury:
Anyone that says "one size fits all" on the web is a fool. Fluid
design is great for some site, fluid design is dumb for others.

You can't make up your mind, can you? Or maybe you just don't understand
"fluid design". In a nutshell, it's an approach that says that one size
does not fit all. Try googling for "fluid design".
 
T

Travis Newbury

You can't make up your mind, can you? Or maybe you just don't understand
"fluid design". In a nutshell, it's an approach that says that one size
does not fit all. Try googling for "fluid design".

No I completely understand fluid design, I just do not believe that it
is the way that ALL websites need to be created. I believe each site
is unique in the way that the content needs to be presented to obtain
the best results for the client. In some cased this is fluid, in
others it is fixed width, and in still others it is all Flash.

I try not to have a preconceived idea of what is best for a client
until after I find what they need and who their customers are.

I guess we disagree.
 
C

Chaddy2222

No I completely understand fluid design, I just do not believe that it
is the way that ALL websites need to be created.  I believe each site
is unique in the way that the content needs to be presented to obtain
the best results for the client.  In some cased this is fluid, in
others it is fixed width, and in still others it is all Flash.

I try not to have a preconceived  idea of what is best for a client
until after I find what they need and who their customers are.

I guess we disagree.
It really does depend on who the client is. As an example most of the
sites I design are information based sites.
But for entertainment based sites a more graphical based design works
better.
 

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