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I was wondering if there were any statistics available on the browser setup of users. While there is much data available on browser type and version, screen resolution etc., there is little on whether users browse full screen or as a window, with the Search/Favourites frame open or closed.
Due to IE's lack of support for the CSS min-width attribute, users with low resolution screen settings are seeing overlap on one of my CSS fluid designs.
TIA
screen.availHeight and screen.availWidth
....and comparing them to two other values you also collect:
screen.height and screen.width
What I do is less precise. Essentially, I do not assume it is my responsiblity to exert a whole lot of control on the user agent -- that's up to the end user, as I see it. So I just take these steps:
1. I make sure the page renders well at 800 and 1024. Side scrolling for avail.height below 760px width is acceptable to me. However, I try to make sure any content can be read by side-srolling just one time, even at 600px wide -- that is, no back and forth on every line even for really old equipment. So any content column must display at less than 600px for me. Wider than that gets pertty hard to read anyway, so it's a very good practice.
2. I assume that anyone using a very wide screen, and anyone browsing at less than full screen, knows how to use their browser. These are computing basics - stretching and shrinking windows or maximizing windows, etc. - and this ain't television.
[edited by: tedster at 3:36 am (utc) on Oct. 15, 2003]
This was an oversight in our QA process. The site was tested rigourously on many browser, platforms and resolutions - but noone (QA or myself) thought to stick on Favourites, I suppose as we don't use them be default.
I think that there is an important lesson to be learned for me in this - that while I do my utmost to make a site as usable and accessible as possible, the need to cater for every eventuality means that lots of fresh pairs of eyes are needed - and that these eyes should be as non-techhie as possible.
IE's lack of support for the CSS min-width attribute
I sometimes include a 1 px high spacer.gif at the min-width I want for the particular layout...even as the very last item on the page.
...lots of fresh pairs of eyes are needed
You said it. Color depth is another area that has tripped me up more than once. Operating system - differences can surface with the same browser on various flavors of Windoze. System font size. And even the graphics card can enter the picture at times.
