Simulating what my site visitors see.

Targeting 1024X768 resolution.

[Broadway]

I have a widscreen laptop (dell inspiraon 8600) whose native resolution is 1200X800 (I think).

I'm under the impression that a large number of web surfers (if not the majority) use a 1024X768 resolution. I'd like to target these people rather than the 800X600 crowd (which I think is the second largest group of web surfers).

I'm confused about how to mimic on my machine how the format of my site's web pages appear to the 1024X768 visitors.

When I set my laptop's resolution to 1024X768 the appearance of the graphics seem skewed and the fonts seem strange. Even the text in the Adsense ads (font settings I don't control in my html) seems oversized to the point where it doesn't fit in its Adsense box.

As another alternative I wondered if instead of using my web browser at full screen (1200X800) maybe if I would just minimize the browsers window so it was about 85% of the full size (trying to approximate 1024 pixels). Wouldn't this be a fairly truthful representation of the 1024X768 visitors see?

[willybfriendly]

I use HTMLKit for most of my development. One of its featuresis the ability to set the preview pane to various common sizes.

In the end it is all relative though. There are times I have several windows open, and the browser my be any size in that scenario

WBF

[tedster]

Here's one place where Opera shines. You can set it to show the window dimensions in the browser chrome -- and then stretch or shrink to whatever exact pixel size you want to see.

[edited by: tedster at 4:57 pm (utc) on April 26, 2006]

[choster]

* use an editor or development environment in which you can preview your work in a window of a specific size
* use Firefox's Web Developer extension, which allows you to resize to preset or custom window sizes and to display the current window size
* create desktop wallpaper with outlines at the desired sizes, then manually resize the browser window to match
* write a bookmarklet that resizes the window

[coho75]

If you have the Web Developer's extension installed in Firefox, you can simulate different sized browser windows. You can set as many different screen dimensions as you like.

[suzie250]

If you're using XP, right click on the desktop, choose Display Modes and then High Color or True Color. You can choose any screen resolution size.

I check it, and then change it back when I am done.

[Broadway]

Thank you everyone.