Logging screen resolution

What's a good way to do this?

[MatthewHSE]

I need to know how many of my users have what screen resolutions. How can I track this?

Thanks,

Matthew

[flashfan]

AWSTATS allows you to track the resolution.

[smartstats]

use the following javascript on every webpage you want to track for resolution:

if(navigator.appVersion.substring(0,1)>'3') {values='&depth='+ screen.colorDepth+'&resolution='+escape(screen.width+ ' x '+screen.height};

you can now use the 'values' variable as querystring to your server domain url.

e.g. [tracking.yourserver.com...]

hope this helps...

[econman]

Interesting question.

Is anyone aware of any general research concerning the monitor resolution of internet users generally?

The percent of users with 800, 1024 and 1280 resolution monitors would be a useful statistic.

Seems like most websites are optimized for 800 wide resolution, but you can buy a 1280 resolution monitor for $129 at your local store. Surely the trend is upward.

[MatthewHSE]

Flashfan: I tried Awstats, but couldn't find anywhere that resolution was tracked. Is there a different version I should try?

Smartstats: That's an interesting idea, but most of my pages are dynamically generated so I don't think adding a query string will work for me. (Or am I misunderstanding your suggesttion?)

I know slightly more than half of all Internet traffic is surfing at 1024x768, but I suspect my traffic may be using mostly 800x600. Unfortunately I don't currently have a way to tell, so I would really like to find a good stats program that will track resolution. Oh, and the stats program would need to be secure - that is, only I can access the statistics it generates! :)

If anyone has any further ideas, I would love to hear them!

Thanks,

Matthew

[pete_m]

Don't forget that many users don't have their browser window maximised, especially if they're at a resolution of 1024x768 or higher.

Perhaps you ought to log the actual window size, as well as the screen resolution.

[flashfan]

Matthew, did you read the README of awstats? You have to include a javascript in any page you want to track.

<script language="Javaascript" src="****x.js"></script>

Then awstats will tell you the resolution & plug-in details.

-F.

[bruhaha]

You may prefer to go with AWStats, since it is free. But if you're checking out various log analysis programs, one that allows you to easily track screen size (and color depth, etc) is SUMMARY (summary.net). Summary also provides far more reports than most stats software.

(Note: I have no affiliation with Summary; just impressed with what it does.)

[Receptional]

Econman here are results based on 20000 visitors in 2004 on one of my sites.

Resolution Unique Visitors % of Unique Visitors

1024 x 768 9915 49.75%

800 x 600 7826 39.26%

1280 x 1024 842 4.22%

1152 x 864 465 2.33%

640 x 480 227 1.13%

This compares to 102000 visitors in 2003 as follows

Resolution Unique Visitors % of Unique Visitors

800 x 600 45455 44.37%

1024 x 768 45439 44.36%

1280 x 1024 3527 3.44%

1152 x 864 2451 2.39%

640 x 480 1834 1.79%

So...in summary, 1024 x 768 now accounts for nearly half of all resolutions and is gaining in popularity.

Dixon.

[econman]

Thank you very much for providing this data.

If you don't mind, can you give me a bit more context for the data?

1. The trend is interesting. How far apart are the two data sets? In other words, was the 2003 data from an average of approximately 6 months prior to the 2004 data?

2. Would you say the visitors to this site are likely to be typical of web users generally, or is there any reason to believe they might be somewhat early or late adopters of better technology (higher resolution monitors?

thanks again for collecting this data and providing it to me.

[nexus from oz]

Hi

best way to log screen res is tuning your log files, let Apache do that.

Here are my website percents. Audience is important, in my case consider that it is a website about StarWars, so you'll not find fifty years old women screen res here:
1024x768 = 48,11%
1280x1024 = 24,16
800x600 = 21,13
1152x864 = 4,51
UNKNOWN = 1,06
1600x1200 = 0,60
640x480 = 0,43

Last, I use FunnelWeb to do stats, it is far the best I know.