Should I auto-detect screen resolution?

[Shan]

In recent days I requested a site check on a project I am
working on for a photography company at http://www.pixul.com .

My problem is that the screen resolutions of visitors is split
almost in half between 800x600 and 1024x768 +. I have landscape
oriented imaages as well as portrait oriented images. It is
impossible to get a gallery that can be fully viewed without
scrolling AND is visually clear for both screen resolutions.

I realize that you always design for the lowest commone
denominator. However,if you are selling photographs, you do want
your visitor to be able to see the images very clearly. If I
resize the thumbnails and images down for 800x600, those with
1024x768 or higher just aren't going to see it as well. Here is
an example of a gallery that will not resize down well:
http://www.pixul.com/images/gallery/statues/index.htm .
Since it's half and half, I believe that I should have galleries
customized for the two resolutions, and autodetect on a front
intro page (which hasn't been created yet).

I am getting my resolution information here:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp . I have
done a site with a text-only version and a graphical version
before and I did not enjoy maintaining it. In this case I think
it will be worth the extra trouble. Any thoughts?

Shan

 

[DU]

In recent days I requested a site check on a project I am
working on for a photography company at http://www.pixul.com .

My problem is that the screen resolutions of visitors is split
almost in half between 800x600 and 1024x768 +. I have landscape
oriented imaages as well as portrait oriented images. It is
impossible to get a gallery that can be fully viewed without
scrolling AND is visually clear for both screen resolutions.

What is so wrong with a page that has a vertical scrollbar. Explain
that, convince me of that and I'll email Bill Gates, mozilla.org and
Opera dev. team to eradicate, to neutralize, to sterilize for good and
forever scrollbars in their respective browsers.

I realize that you always design for the lowest commone
denominator.

Can you elaborate on this? The lowest common denominator is also
"settable" in a project development, you know.

However,if you are selling photographs, you do want

your visitor to be able to see the images very clearly. If I
resize the thumbnails and images down for 800x600, those with
1024x768 or higher just aren't going to see it as well.

I don't understand what you mean.

Here is

an example of a gallery that will not resize down well:
http://www.pixul.com/images/gallery/statues/index.htm .

If the user has javascript turn off (8-12% of all users), then he won't
be able to see any or the enlarged images at all. That because of your
code and MM script functions.

Since it's half and half, I believe that I should have galleries
customized for the two resolutions, and autodetect on a front
intro page (which hasn't been created yet).

I definitively do NOT recommend scr. res. autodetect and creating 2
galleries for 2 resolutions. This strikes me as an absurd waste of time.
Every day or so, people of this newsgroup recommend (along with/backed
up with numerous tutorial sites, instructional column, explanatory
articles, etc..) to design sites that are the most independent from src.
res. as possible. You,re trying to go in an opposite directions.

DU
--
Javascript and Browser bugs:
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/
- Resources, help and tips for Netscape 7.x users and Composer
- Interactive demos on Popup windows, music (audio/midi) in Netscape 7.x
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Netscape7Section.html

 

[Eric B. Bednarz]

My problem is that the screen resolutions of visitors is split
almost in half between 800x600 and 1024x768 +.

Your problem is that those figures don't mean anything, even if they
were accurate. For starters, resolution is totally unrelated to the
size of an application window.

I realize that you always design for the lowest commone
denominator. However,if you are selling photographs, you do want
your visitor to be able to see the images very clearly.

ACK

So give the visitor a *choice*. Personally I'd consider colors a much
bigger issue, BTW. It's rather difficult to have photographs look good
on e.g. both Macintoy and Windoze. Usually this is base noise, but if
photographs are your business, that's no good.

Since it's half and half, I believe that I should have galleries
customized for the two resolutions,

I agree that it can be a good idea to offer a large and a small version,
respectively linked to each other.

and autodetect on a front
intro page (which hasn't been created yet).

That's the worst you can do; in the best case scenario it doesn't work
at all. What you can do to add some comfort is:

- default to the smaller view if client side scripting is not available
using NOSCRIPT -- if in doubt, always be conservative

- use client side scripting to check the visitor's system resolution and
default to the size you find applicable


As long as the other version is always provided as an alternative and a
fallback is available, this wouldn't really hurt (but avoid stuff like
'800x600' or 'choose your resolution', etc as descriptions for required
user action; it's inaccurate and many people have no idea what it means,
or what their resolution might be, or if they have, it might not be
covered).

 

[Isofarro]

My problem is that the screen resolutions of visitors is split
almost in half between 800x600 and 1024x768 +.

Meaningless statistic really. You don't really believe that all these people
run their browser maximised on these resolutions, right?

It is
impossible to get a gallery that can be fully viewed without
scrolling AND is visually clear for both screen resolutions.

Using web techniques this is possible. If you insist on having pixel perfect
control, then you are making things more difficult than they need to be.

I realize that you always design for the lowest commone
denominator.

Then you are mistaken. A good webdesign works well for more than one browser
window width.

However,if you are selling photographs, you do want
your visitor to be able to see the images very clearly.

In which case you shouldn't be letting this mythical screen resolution
dictate the size of the image, since that limited the clarity of the image.
Why not render the image at its proper size - if clarity is that important,
the user won't mind scrolling to see the whole image which can be bigger
than any browser window.

I am getting my resolution information here:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp .

And do you fully understand how these "statistics" are determined, along
with the obvious flaw in its determination?