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I originally set my page width at 700px (centered) to display well in 1024px and 800px browser resolutions, and also to cater for low res browsers and the presence of slide bars and side panels. However this doesn't really fit the current typical widths of banners and advertising space. Google Adwords for instance requires a width of 728px for their widest display area.
Is there now a recommended standard for page width for fixed-width pages?
This is the most recent one i can find here [webmasterworld.com]
-George
I had already seen that thread, but as it was a year old it couldn't take account of recent changes.
My experience is things tend eventually to fall into a standard format, for instance logos at 88px, 120px, and 150px. Presumably Google has based its Adwords sizes on some sort of perceived standard, with a leaderboard at 728px, a banner at 468px, and columns at 120px and 125px. Things like this tend to make for conformity, and if I were to change the width of my pages I would like to get the most up-to-date advice available.
I agree there isn't a standard for fixed display width, but there are normal ranges that are in use. I have seen widths from about 700 to 790 used by those who cater for 800 res, with some sites going above that because they are only cater for 1024 res and above.
My question is what is the optimum width within the 700-790 range. I could take the easy way out and plump for 728 to be in line with Google, but it seems sensible to canvas opinion. I don't want to change a third time. :)
To answer your question HarryM, 760 is the best and safest in my own opinion.
You wouldn't want your pages to go off the screen.
[edited by: cyberfyber at 6:29 pm (utc) on April 1, 2004]
the 40 px difference is the size of the lefthand scroll bar on the browser.
I suspect that Google's 728 is because they are also supporting macs, which default to a slightly different set of widths, can't remember what an imac came with, I think it was 750 judging by designs I received from Imac designers.
mac doesn't have enough market share to warrant sacrificing your display width just to support imac users. Most other mac users are using large monitors.
I suspect that Google's 728 is because they are also supporting macs
Thanks, isitreal. That's exactly the sort of information I was looking for.
And thanks to everyone else. That's three votes for 760 - it looks like a concensus.
Standard width adverts do make it easier to surf undisturbed. Personally, if I were adding advertising content to my site, I'd make it a non-standard width -- consistency is grist to the mill of a Firefox UserContent.css file.
Don't forget to take into account the various side-bars people have open. I tend to leave a bookmarks tree open all the time.
Yes, that is a great article!
My site is only targeted at people using normal browsers....
Harry, you just can't "target" like that any more.... you really can't. Whether in your mind the site targets "normals" or not, you NEED to consider the "ab-normals": the Japanese who surf on phones and ipods in preference to a "normal" machine; the teens in the US ditto who are refining "keeping up with the Jones's" to a fare-thee-well; the shopping-queen-junkie who surfs on her phone while she's driving I-10 at 90 mph (um. Nope, that is NOT A JOKE - I only wish it were....)
Liquid is the way to go.... consider the colloquial meaning of "liquid" in France....
[webmasterworld.com...]
vkaryl
you NEED to consider the "ab-normals": the Japanese who surf on phones
careful now ;-)
How people fit screens onto PDAs I have no idea. I'd like to see my website on a PDA.
I remember looking at a site I did through that thing and I realized that the PDA user would see nothing but a piece of the logo.
Alternatively, you can use a separate CSS stylesheet called with the attribute
media="handheld"[opera.com...]
there is virtually no way to test your site for small-screen compatibility short of downloading literally gigs of unnecessary SDKs...(Software Developers Kit...) ... Opera, alone, is the only SSB to offer some meager way to test your SSB-compatibility. src [webmonkey [hotwired.lycos.com]
Good read. Opera will only show you how opera displays in small screen mode, unfortunately, I seem to remember that windows ce IE tries to actually display the whole page in some weird way.
"ab-normals" in that sense would be oddball machines with oddball surfing situations, such as cell phones, of which the Japanese (and as I pointed out before) teenagers.
