On 2010/08/19 09:14 (GMT+0800) Lyn Smith composed: > Was wondering what the latest opinions are on using fixed width or > liquid design in light of the ever increasing size of monitor screens.
The meaning of "fixed width" isn't the same to everyone. It seems most commonly to mean sizing in px, as you mention below, but can mean fixed proportion of viewport width set in %, as well as a fixed multiple of font size, being in em or ex. Set in % of viewport width in reality doesn't adapt very well, squishing in narrow windows, ... > Having just got a new computer with a 24" screen, I was not happy with > the look of some of my liquid design sites. While they are OK in screen > resolutions up to 1280, above that, they seem too stretched out. One in > particular had a couple of lines of text which went from one side of > the screen to the other - not a good look. ...and resulting in unwieldy line lengths when windows are using all of a widescreen display. The "for the web" solution is one based upon some size that is in practical terms adjustable by the user. Since screen resolution on modern displays isn't intended to be adapted to users of varying requirements, readily adjustable does not apply to them. Often people actually do do it in order to enlarge objects they find too small when the high native resolution is coupled with a small physical size. If so many sites didn't size in px, these people wouldn't find such an adjustment's quality degradation necessary. The "for the web" solution is to set widths in em or ex, which adapt to whatever size text the user finds appropriate, while maintaining the proportions among elements and text size intended by the designer. This may or may not be thought of as fixed width, as physical width does indeed change according to text size selected by the user. Nevertheless, when widths are set in em, or to a lesser extent ex, the proportions are indeed fixed, which means proportionally speaking a wide screen with lots of px will not get "too" wide unless that's what the visitor intends via her selection of a monster font size. > It seems to me, going by the sites I have frequented of late, that > many seem to favour fixed width of 900-1000px which requires scrolling > for 800x600 resolutions but don't look too bad whatever the higher > size of screen and resolution. Sites designed "for" widths defined in px are not designed for the web, they're designed for resolutions (and thus to exclude comfort and/or usability for those using other resolutions), as print designs are for particular paper, cover or billboard sizes. Conversely, designs styled for the web are resolution independent, working well even when width is below 800px or above 1280px. Horizontal scrolling of reasonably designed sites whose widths are set in em may only occur when the visitor selects a font size proportionally too large for her window width. For the remainder of visitors, neither will horizontal scrolling occur, nor will lines or overall width become "too wide", regardless how many px it takes to fill up the display, or how wide the display is physically. The best em width sites are less likely to result in horizontal scroll, adapting to what's available, as browsers have always done by design and don't only because of artificial constraints imposed by site stylists via CSS. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *******************************************************************
