posted
I'm using Dreamweaver and have been designing a website for a chiropractor. (a barter deal) The resolution on my pc is set at 1152 x 864. Keeping this in mind, I try to keep the content as viewable as possible with out scrolling. I went to the client to show him and his pc was set to 800 x 600. Needless to say it showed up pretty big, as soon as I saw that, I set his resolution to 1024 x 768 so that worked out fine. He really liked it.
I will post it once we go online with it, I would like to get some feedback on it, as well as what the site would be worth if I had to charge him.
So the question, which is the most common size you design in to make sure the site shows up well? Not sure how the newer pc's are setup from the factory as far as resolution goes, but if you think about it, if they all come with it a 800 x 600, I wonder how many people actually get around to changing it. (if they even know how to at all)
Thanks, Tony
[ January 17, 2003, 01:15 PM: Message edited by: Tony B ]
-------------------- Tony Broussard Graphic Details Digital Media Loreauville, LA Posts: 395 | From: Loreauville, LA | Registered: Jul 1999
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First, consider who the audience is. I would imagine that the client is trying to reach a general consumer-related base. If this is the case, I would go no higher than 800x600.
For sites I design for professional graphics-related clients (such as photographers) I may use 1024x768 - but always check that it will work at 800x600. Remember, a lot of people have small monitors or view sites on a laptop.
Designing in 1152 x 864 seems way too high for me… unless it was designed for CAD or engineering purposes.
Hope that helps,
Marty Engel
-------------------- Marty Engel Berkley, MI Hill Mountain Signworks LLC
marty@hillmountain.com 248-890-8265 Posts: 58 | From: Berkley, MI | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
On a fixed width site, I'll design 780 x about 550 or so. If you design with expandable tables though, it shouldnt matter as much what resolution they have.
I've really only done about 3 or 4 non-fixed width sites because I don't like not having control according to browser window sizes. But some clients want it non-fixed width.
780 allows about 20 pixels for a scroll bar if its needed.
"Some are born to move the world, to live their fantasies. But most of us just dream about the things we'd like to be." - Rush Posts: 1192 | From: Washington, NJ | Registered: Feb 1999
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I design at 760 pixels wide. I used to use tables and let the pages expand to the size of the window, but when I got into using layers I found it much easier just to design for a very specific width and it works in all browsers.. everything is aligned properly all the time and you dont have to deal with netscape not rendering a table right because it has an empty cell (spacekeeper).
Dreamweaver has a handy little option in it that allows you to see your pages at any resulution you wish, without having to actually change your screen resolution. It actually resizes the current page window to mimmick the browser window, and will show you the scrollbars if required.
Open up any of your pages in Dreamweaver, and in the bottom right corner you will see something like this:
The box on the left is the screen resolution, click on it to change it. The box on the right is the page size and estimated download time (mine is set for 56k connections).
-------------------- "If I share all my wisdom I won't have any left for myself."
Mike Pipes stickerpimp.com Lake Havasu, AZ mike@stickerpimp.com Posts: 8746 | From: Lake Havasu, AZ USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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Thanks for the replies. I went back and set my tables to 100% and that did the trick. All the pages show up nicely.
Gonna redo mine, keeping the same theme, but giving it a facelift.
Thanks fellows!
-------------------- Tony Broussard Graphic Details Digital Media Loreauville, LA Posts: 395 | From: Loreauville, LA | Registered: Jul 1999
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I agree with Mike on this one. 760 works well for me if I'm doing fixed width. It allows for the scroll bars and gives just a bit of "breathing" room too.
-------------------- David McDonald Palm Harbor Florida USA
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I just (finally) redid mine this past weekend, and used the resizable table route, but the width is still arounf 760 due to the graphic at the top of the page.
MC
-------------------- Mike Clayton M C Grafix Custom Lettering New Jersey (again) Posts: 508 | From: New Jersey | Registered: Apr 1999
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posted
This was copied and pasted from an HTML Design site.
Now that you've figured out what your site is about, who the viewers are, and what kind of technologies you want to use, it's time to think about hierarchies. Not everyone has a huge monitor, so your most important elements need to be at the top of the page, where viewers will see it immediately.
The smallest monitor out there is 640 by 480 pixels, so your design should work on a basic level within those parameters. If one of your goals is to get people to call your 800 number, you better make sure they can see it without scrolling. (Advertisers don't want their banners placed three clicks down for a reason.) Think of that first screen as the front page of a newspaper.
Really important stuff goes on the front page, and the most important stuff goes on the top or "above the fold," as newspaper folks say.
-------------------- Alan Ackerson LetterWorks Design and Graphics alan@ack2.com Posts: 776 | From: Oak Ridge, NJ | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I use 800x600 as a minimum. Autostretch on tables may work great on some sites that are heavy but I always used a fixxed table structure since I also use alot of layers and I want everything to line up. A good source of great info for websites is www.htmlgoodies.com - always up to date and just about everything you need to know is there.
Here is a site that is still in the works for us set up at 800x600
The advice you've gotten here is spot on. 800x600 works on 94% of monitor resolutions, and I'm guessing the 4% other/unknown is for larger than 1024 x 768. Here's the data I have on monitor resolutions:
1024 x 768 - 45% 800 x 600 - 49% 640 x 480 - 2% other/unknown - 4%
But I'd go a step further by keeping the 800 x 600 live area centered. Then have the background elements extend to fill the screen. That gives you a great-looking site at nearly every resolution. B & O does a great job:
-------------------- Jim Doggett General Manager, USA Yellotools, Ltd www.yellotools.com Posts: 500 | From: Sherman, TX USA | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I have got this all figured out now. (or almost all ) I have created a flash video of logo designs I've made and have it as a link to open in a new window (behaviors/on click) from my main logos page. (so the dialup people can make a choice)
It works fine but the mouse doesn't turn into a hand over the text I appied the behavior to. I tried creating a flash text, then applied the behavior to open in a new window, but the behavior doesn't work, just the flash text link. I want it to open with the behavior because I set the video page popup to fit just the video frame.
Question is , how do you create a small page (just to fit the video about 650 x 525) I don't see how to edit the actual size of the window. (I have the table sized to fit the video window snug). This way I could just flash text link to the video page.
Also, I would like to add a "close window" text to close the video page, but don't see in the behavior or events list how to execute it.
Thanks for the replies.
-------------------- Tony Broussard Graphic Details Digital Media Loreauville, LA Posts: 395 | From: Loreauville, LA | Registered: Jul 1999
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Tony, are you trying to make it a pop-up window? if so you can set the format to an exact size and even have it come up clean with out any scrollbar, status bar, etc. Also if you are trying to make a behavior from plain text you need to create a "null" link by simply placing a "#" in the link window when you have the text selected.
Yep that's exactly what I'm doing, a pop up window, that I set to fit the video. Thanks for the null link, that sounds like the trick.
You know how it is, you can never be satisfied with your own stuff, but it's been helping me tremendously over the past few days of re-doing my site.
I noticed on your site Brian, how you have the portfolio to where you can go from picture to picture, tell me, when you goto the next pic, are you actually loading the whole page everytime, or does just the area that contains the pic change?
Looking to do something similiar to keep my page sizes down.
-------------------- Tony Broussard Graphic Details Digital Media Loreauville, LA Posts: 395 | From: Loreauville, LA | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
For making a "dijointed rollover or onclick" event in Dreamweaver use the behavior called "swap image" and for your pop-up use the "open browser window" behavior and you can specify the new windows characteristics right there. These are new to the MX version I believe but I created my old site with ver. 4 and did some hand coding after making the rollovers in Fireworks and exporting which is more graphical than Dreamweaver. Do you have Fireworks as well? Great stuff for rollovers and such.
-------------------- Brian Stoddard Northwest Signs
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