Web Site Width

[shapper]

Hello,

I am working on a centered web site where I think most visitors will
have 1280x800px.

What is the width usually used in this cases? I am trying to decide
somewhere between 920px and 960px.

Could someone advice me on this?

A side note:
Should I design for 800x600px? As far as the statistics I've seen and
the knowledge I have from this type of web site audience most people
will have 1280x800px or higher.

Thanks,
Miguel

 

[richard]

Assuming you're right and I visit your site with a screen res of 1280 x
960 (which I won't, mine is 1280 x 1024), what size do you think my
browser window will be? And how will you know?

Even if my browser is maximized I use SeaMonkey with the sidebar
showing; at various widths depending on my mood. Which changes during
browsing sessions. How will you know?

Awstats will show me what browser settings are. Broken down by the
various sizes.

And sometimes I have my browser less-than-maximized in a variety of
possible sizes. What then? How will you know?

same as above

 

[richard]

Hello,

I am working on a centered web site where I think most visitors will
have 1280x800px.

What is the width usually used in this cases? I am trying to decide
somewhere between 920px and 960px.

Could someone advice me on this?

A side note:
Should I design for 800x600px? As far as the statistics I've seen and
the knowledge I have from this type of web site audience most people
will have 1280x800px or higher.

Thanks,
Miguel

Fine. From stats I've seen on my site, 800x600 is practically dead.
So if you were to set width to 1000, that should be fine for most.

 

[dorayme]

Fine. From stats I've seen on my site, 800x600 is practically dead.
So if you were to set width to 1000, that should be fine for most.

It is not fine at all. It may not be the end of the world, but it is not
a good practice and that is that. 800px wide browsers are nowhere near
dead, they are alive and well on many screens no matter how big.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

Hello,

I am working on a centered web site where I think most visitors will
have 1280x800px.

What is the width usually used in this cases? I am trying to decide
somewhere between 920px and 960px.

Could someone advice me on this?

A side note:
Should I design for 800x600px? As far as the statistics I've seen and
the knowledge I have from this type of web site audience most people
will have 1280x800px or higher.

It often is possible to design a web page so that it views the way
intended on most screen widths. People with newer PCs may have screen
widths well over 1000 px. Those with some portable and hand held
devices may have screen widths of 245 px or less. Do not design for a
certain screen size unless you must in certain situations.

As an example, view
http://winefaq.hostexcellence.com/wine/section3b.php#l9 on any screen
size from about 245 px to well over 1000 px. Notice how the screen is
filled with about the same percentage of margin on both the left and
right. If you have an Opera browser, just press "Shift" and "F11"
together. This will bring up a very small screen width of about 245
px, but the page still views properly. Most other browers will allow
selection of at least 2 or 3 screen widths, but usually not as low as
245 px.

The next question is how is this done. The answer is in the CSS style,
an external style sheet for the example given. View the external
stylesheet at http://winefaq.hostexcellence.com/wine/style.css . The
only reason the style sheet is external is to avoid duplication, since
the same style is used on several pages. Look at the style sheet
specification for body. Note that body contains left and right margins
specified in percentages of width rather than specific numerical
units. This is the secret of why the page views properly on an extreme
range of widths.

Disregard the xhtml Doctype used. It should be used only by those who
have associated the proper mime type for true xhtml on the server;
otherwise the xhtml page just gets served as html despite the xhtml
notation. Also some tricks must be used for browsers that can not
handle true xhtml served properly, such as all IE browsers. So write
the page in html 4.01 strict unless you are doing all of the xhtml
related things mentioned.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

I am working on a centered web site where I think most visitors will
have 1280x800px.

Are all these visitors in your office, and you know for a fact that they
all have maximized browser windows on the office-standard LCD screen?

What is the width usually used in this cases? I am trying to decide
somewhere between 920px and 960px.

Could someone advice me on this?

It's a simple answer:
http://tekrider.net/pages/faq.php?q=flex

 

[dorayme]

Something I really tend to forget is to keep my page sizes down properly.

Have you had any experience on dial-up making websites? There are
lessons hard to forget.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

Fine. From stats I've seen on my site, 800x600 is practically dead. So if
you were to set width to 1000, that should be fine for most.

I have a 1920 x 1200 monitor.

But I run my browsers in half that: 960 x 1200.

What will your stats say tell you about that that?

Lots of people are aware of things other than "Minimized" and "Maximized".

 

[Blinky the Shark]

In that case it's one of the VERY few occasions when we have things better
pricewise in the yUK

I've been trying to figure out if that was a typo. I can't.

 

[Dylan Parry]

In that case it's one of the VERY few occasions when we have things better
pricewise in the yUK, though it's partly a result of several large media
companies offering "free" broadband as part of larger television or phone
packages

Indeed. My broadband is supplied by Sky, and I pay £10 a month for an
16Mbit uncapped service. That's just under $20US by today's exchange
rates. That said, it's ADSL, so I don't get close to what I'm paying for
in terms of speed, but for me it's the "uncapped" bit that won me over,
as the next product down (8Mbit for £5pm, I think it was) had a monthly cap.

--
Dylan Parry
http://electricfreedom.org | http://webpageworkshop.co.uk

The opinions stated above are not necessarily representative of
those of my cats. All opinions expressed are entirely your own.

 

[Andy Dingley]

<snip>

Wow. How did you make such a complex and beautiful design work so well at
various screen widths?

You've got invalid markup - the <sarcasm> tag was missing.

 

[Andy Dingley]

What is the width usually used in this cases? I am trying to decide
somewhere between 920px and 960px.

max-width: 52em; for the "content" column. This avoids text lines that
are unreadably long. Don't worry if IE ignores it, it's not crucial.

width in pixels _POSSIBLY_ if your site is basically an image gallery
and it will break badly otherwise.

Apart from that, don't mess with fixing rigid widths. You either can't
or you shouldn't. Users will show up with browser windows of all sizes
and shapes, you just have to cope with what they bring you. Look up
"fluid design".

Also 800px widths are increasingly common recently, as mobiles and set-
top devices become more popular.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Is there a percentage of US surfers that are basically never going to
be on broadband? I'm thinking "folks" out on the prairies etc where
it's uneconomical for companies to supply broadband. ...

There was a stat published late last year (no, I don't remember the
link) that said U.S. dialup usage was still at least 40% of internet
users. One of the techs in my ISP's help groups said just recently he
believes it is closer to half.

The U.S. is still quite a rural country. I am in an 'almost' rural area,
have 10Mbps cable (last house on the line), but no DSL available.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Is there a percentage of US surfers that are basically never going to be on
broadband? I'm thinking "folks" out on the prairies etc where it's
uneconomical for companies to supply broadband. Here in the UK it's as
cheap, if not cheaper to get broadband than dial-up which always makes me
wonder what the 15% or so that are still on dial-up are doing.

Don't have to be in the wide expanses of prairies. Many places in the US
like here in the mid-Atlantic US where there is no broadband option
except satellite, which at least here has proven to be both pricey and
unreliable. It is true I guess that the US is indeed the richest
third-world country on the planet in many ways....

Something I really tend to forget is to keep my page sizes down properly.
Not an issue so far because all the sites I've done are of local appeal, but
if I want to do something more international I probably need a rethink.

Can be very frustrating to want to see a site to only to be greeted only
with a slowly ticking loading indicator. BTW, this ones for Travis,
another pet peeve about Flash, I love tabbed browsers and I hate the
inability with damn Flash navigation the inability to open a link in
another tab. Just as annoying being set at 800px wide!!!

 

[Bergamot]

In summary, I always design with 800 x 600 in mind.

That doesn't mean it's fixed for 800px wide, does it? You meant it
adapts to that size (or larger/smaller), right?

 

[richard]

Exactly - adapt to any size, but make sure it still looks good in 800 x
600.

So what are site designers to do then? Write a page for every
conceivable screen size?
Or write for the smallest setting alone?
Bullshit. You write the page size in accordance with what the majority
of your visitors use. You sure as hell don't write it to make 1 out of
100 happy. Then what aboujt webtv users who have no horizontal scroll
bar? Ya gonna write a page just for them? And now with cell phones and
PPC's........yeah right. Us little guys who do all the work and design
and don't get paid for it ain't gonna do that.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

So what are site designers to do then? Write a page for every
conceivable screen size?

Basically, yes. Note also you won't know what font or font size will be
used in your site either. You may make *suggestions*, but ultimately the
user has the final word. It not that difficult as you make think, but
you do approach your design differently. Unfortunately noobies couple
with the WYSIWYG crutch pixel-box themselves in.

Or write for the smallest setting alone?
Bullshit. You write the page size in accordance with what the majority
of your visitors use.

Therein is the rub. You have no idea what the majority of your visitors
viewport size it? It is not static as your your incorrectly describe as
"page" because it is not paper. You may get my monitor's resolution (IF
I allow you) but that may not be the viewport size at which I am view
your site. In fact it will not be... Also you may your "box" X pixels
wide and a up my font size and guess what happens to your layout!

You sure as hell don't write it to make 1 out of
100 happy. Then what aboujt webtv users who have no horizontal scroll
bar? Ya gonna write a page just for them? And now with cell phones and
PPC's........yeah right. Us little guys who do all the work and design
and don't get paid for it ain't gonna do that.

Keep your day job. Trucking is a perfect fit.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

So what are site designers to do then? Write a page for every conceivable
screen size?
Or write for the smallest setting alone? Bullshit. You write the page size
in accordance with what the majority of your visitors use. You sure as
hell don't write it to make 1 out of 100 happy. Then what aboujt webtv
users who have no horizontal scroll bar?

For all: Does anybody even care about WebTV users?

<Blinky raises the fin with "NO" painted on it>

 

[dorayme]

So what are site designers to do then? Write a page for every
conceivable screen size?
Or write for the smallest setting alone?

Have you been around here for long?

 

[Blinky the Shark]

WebTV user stats across all my sites - non-existant.

Oh and two. They're goin' down.

For some relevant fun, check my headers...