Topic: How wide should I make my site?
I'm completely re-doing my site and was wondering what would be considered a good width.
You are not logged in. Please login or register.
PunBB Forums → General discussion → How wide should I make my site?
I'm completely re-doing my site and was wondering what would be considered a good width.
If you're going for a fixed-size design, you should keep the width at around 750px. That way, it'll look good on any monitor using 800x600 and above.
It's not fixed though, it's in percentage.
percentage is a bad idea imo, you don't get the neatness of a fixed width at high res, and you get a squashed site at low res
I settled on 85% as a compromise. Not too wide and not too narrow. Shouldn't force horizontal scrolling on lower res and shouldn't leave too much empty space on higher res. Now I can start tweaking the text. Thanks for the input
Not too wide and not too narrow. but its different widths on different res?
If your site doesn't use all space it should be a fixed width. If you're using fixed width you should make decide it upon the information on your site. Long text is easiest to read with a ~500px width. Then add onto that for menus and etc. If you don't use much text you should make it as wide as you need to make it easy to navigate. Not too narrow, but not too much space. So by asking us about what width you should use, we can just make wild guesses.
You should also bear in mind that Firefox is not entirely happy with percentage widths, borders etc have a habit of vanishing. If you are going to style with css then fixed width is much easier.
But with fixed width of 750 it looks okay on 800x600 but with higher res, it looks too narrow.
Not too wide and not too narrow. but its different widths on different res?
Yes, 85% of the width of the screen.
You should also bear in mind that Firefox is not entirely happy with percentage widths, borders etc have a habit of vanishing. If you are going to style with css then fixed width is much easier.
Yes it uses css but the css validates and the pages also validate xhtml 1.0 strict. I tested in IE 6, FF 1 and Opera 8.0. It looks basically the same through all 3 browsers at resolutions ranging from 800X600 thru 1280X1024. I just need to do some things with the fonts.
But with fixed width of 750 it looks okay on 800x600 but with higher res, it looks too narrow.
The content will look the same, therefor, there won't be any space in the content that will make it more difficult to navigate. And keep in mind also that many people with high resolution don't run their browser in fullscreen, that's why using 100% width is always better so the user can chose the width himself.
PunBB Forums → General discussion → How wide should I make my site?
Powered by PunBB, supported by Informer Technologies, Inc.