Can I give an option to view my site on different browser settings

Is there a way to allow visitors to select the browser settings

[contentmaster]

My site is designed on a 800 by 600 pixel browser setting...

Is there a code or some other tool to provide an option to visitors to my site for selecting and viewing my site in a browser setting?

Urgent help needed!

[tedster]

800x600 is the screen resolution. That's a system setting that works through the graphics card, and it affects every application on the computer, even the desktop.

So it's not really a "browser" setting. Allowing a web page to reset something that primary in the system would open up some big security troubles - and so you cannot touch it with your web page code.

[TheDoctor]

Is there any business reason why you need the size to be fixed? It would be a lot easier all round if your web pages were designed to be more liquid.

If you really need the user to have a 800x600 window to view a page you could use JavaScript to serve up a pop-up that has those dimensions.

[BonRouge]

What exactly is the problem?
Does your site look bad on screens with a bigger resolution? If so, why? You see a lot of sites that are designed with 800px-width screens in mind. On a bigger screen (resolution) everything can be centred so you have a centre column on a background. It looks fine.

[contentmaster]

Does your site look bad on screens with a bigger resolution? If so, why? You see a lot of sites that are designed with 800px-width screens in mind. On a bigger screen (resolution) everything can be centred so you have a centre column on a background. It looks fine.

I got a feedback from someone saying that the home page shows a lot of empty space at the botton when they view it.whereas i dont see anything wrong or an extra space.so i figured that it may be a resolution issue!

Liquid design? can you tell me more about that? does it mean using percentages instead of pixel values? Also i have seen many sites that mention best viewed on 800x600.why is that?

[TheDoctor]

i have seen many sites that mention best viewed on 800x600.why is that?

This is because they have been built by people who aren't any good at design. You should avoid imitating anything these people do.

Percentages do come into liquid design, but it's a bit more than that. Have a look at the CSS forum if you want to know more.

But a good start would be to use percentages in your page design. This would mean that people would be able to adjust the size of the page to fit their monitor resolution, preferred window size and state of their eyesight, rather than having to adapt to your design.

[contentmaster]

I checked my site on a 1024x768 pixels setting on a notebook and noticed that the site is positioned to the left and top leaving a lot of space at the bottom and right but beyond that no other major problem...can this be solved through using percentages as well?

[cabowabo]

Monitor your web stats, and verify that your site looks perfect in the browsers that make up 90% of your visitors and the same with the screen resolution. The rest, just let 'em be. You will spend far too much for those 10% that you may realize in revenue.

Cheers,

Cabo Wabo

[TheDoctor]

contentmaster, yes the problem of huge areas of space can be solved by using percentages. If you use percentages you don't have to spend time thinking about which window sizes your visitors use. Your page size will adjust to their preferences.

BTW, if you are going to worry about which sizes they use, you shouldn't be concerned about the percentage of visitors using a particular screen resolution. You need to worry about the amount of revenue associated with a particular window size - a much more difficult task.

And then, if you follow this route, you need to work out the marginal cost of making any change versus the marginal revenue that you'll get from it.

That's a lot of work. Much easier (and more profitable) to let the software take care of it all by specifying the page size in percentages.

[createErrorMsg]

i have seen many sites that mention best viewed on 800x600.why is that?

This is because they have been built by people who aren't any good at design.

This is a sweepingly critical statement based on a matter of personal opinion. While you could no doubt provide a list of reasons why liquid layouts are superior to fixed width ones, myself, or any other designer who uses fixed width layouts, could retort with reasons why fixed width layouts are superior, too.

The important question is whether or not the extra space seen in a fixed width layout at higher resolutions makes any difference to the function and/or experience of the site.

If you centered that layout horizontally, so the extra space on the right was equally split between right and left, you would probably find that the layout looks fine at higher resolution and no damage is done.

[vkaryl]

Very true, cEM - I run at 1600x1200, browser full screen; a well-coded 800x600 site displays just fine, with a lot of neg space but a fully usable site area.

It's not rocket science....

[contentmaster]

Thanks all for the valuable inputs........

The important question is whether or not the extra space seen in a fixed width layout at higher resolutions makes any difference to the function and/or experience of the site.

No the site functions just the same and shows no errors..

If you centered that layout horizontally, so the extra space on the right was equally split between right and left, you would probably find that the layout looks fine at higher resolution and no damage is done.

The site is left aligned horizontally hence the space on the right....Do you suggest aligning it to the center of the screen to balance out the space?

Those of you who are web designers---- how would you design a website for a client so that later the client does not complain about the extra space when viewed on different resoultions?

is using percentages at all times the answer?

[tedster]

I most often create fixed layouts, and take one of two approaches:

1. Center the layout (using either tables or CSS, depending on browser support needed)
2. Left align, but include some graphic elements that tile to fill the window.

I do not usually use percentages - I prefer being able to fix the line length for easy readability. When I do create a liquid layout, I use max-width in the css to place a limit on line-length. Then I use a scripted css rule to make IE simulate max-width (which it does not support.)

[TheDoctor]

I run at 1600x1200, browser full screen; a well-coded 800x600 site displays just fine

And a badly coded one doesn't? I rest my case.

[createErrorMsg]

I prefer being able to fix the line length for easy readability

This is my primary reason for using fixed width layouts. At higher resolutions, a liquid layout can display a whole paragraph of text in one long line. Not good.

how would you design a website for a client so that later the client does not complain about the extra space when viewed on different resoultions?

is using percentages at all times the answer?

If you want to design the site so they don't complain, make it a liquid layout (%). However, it might be worth while explaining to the client that not everybody runs their system at a 1600X1200 resolution and that often the best bet is to design to the lowest common denominator. You can also mention the readability issue, and load up a few sites for them that display at full browser width, but have excess space in between elements (as opposed to on one or both sides of the whole page), which is fairly common in many liquid layouts.

If you DO use %s, I'd advice calculating numbers that force text content into a reasonably sized box so it's still readable, and read up on ways to glue a liquid layout together so that a maxed browser doesn't put your text to the left and your image to the right with 400px of empty space in between.

I'm sure such techniques exist. Maybe someone else can drop in a few references?

[tedster]

Here's a thread from our CSS Forum: Making IE simulate max-width [webmasterworld.com]

[contentmaster]

Thanks i will study the link........but let me confess here ..........css is totally alien to me!:(

Is that the place to start.....i gather from some inputs that css is essential to set some of these paramaeters..?

[tedster]

CSS will revolutionize your web authoring - and you will find it much easier to do almost everything once you get a handle on it, and that includes designing for different resolutions.

You can get your content to code ratio WAY up, like 70% to 80%. Your HTML becomes human readable and your site maintenance a breeze. To say nothing of the fact that CSS lets you do rendering things you cannot achieve with HTML alone (line-height alone is worth the price of admission!)

My strongest recommendation - dive into CSS.

[createErrorMsg]

My strongest recommendation - dive into CSS.

I agree. It'll completely change the way you think about page layout and gives you incredible control over the most minute things on your page.

[contentmaster]

Ok I guess it's time to study css! Any valuable links---resources to start with....for a beginner like me? ----would appreciate it very much

[tedster]

Right here in the WebmasterWorld CSS forum we've got a CSS Crash Course [webmasterworld.com] in three lessons.