> Folks, let me propose a scenario to you and get your ideas on how > useful/useless you would find it.
I browse with a 3200x1200 twin monitor setup. If I ever expand the browser window to anywhere near full screen size on one of the monitors, it'd be because there's content clipped at a smaller size and I want to see it all: the whole of a table, a large image and so on. I can't imagine that anyone with any sense regularly uses a full- screen browser window at more than 1280; the whole point (for as many people as I've ever talked to about it) of a large screen for browsing purposes is to have multiple apps or windows visible at the same time, not to have a single window open at full screen size. If the content of the window - or the text within the site - were to zoom with the size of the browser window, it would either be infuriating (browsing with an effective body text size of 16px - 18px - 20px), or impractical and going against text size settings I've chosen manually, as an end user. I want to retain control over the size of text on my screen, not have a remote content manager or designer decide for me and have the text enlarge on me without choosing a larger size myself. You've stated... > such layouts often fail in terms of usability when long-ish text > blocks run longer than the print-standard of 50-70 characters per line If that's the case, I'd suggest that a flexible layout is less suited to the site or content in question than an alternative. "Liquid layouts", with flexible main content columns, can be difficult to read and follow once they exceed, say, 500px (or 70 - 80 chars). I and many people who have tested layouts for us - online and off - find fixed-column layouts with respectably proportional columns much easier to recognize and read, than those with average amounts of text and flexible or full-width main content columns. HTH Regards Mark Howells www.permanenttourist.ch ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d IE7b2 testing hub -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=IE7 List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
