What display settings should I design for? 800x600? 1024x768?

[minerb]

When designing the template for a fixed sized size what is the most common display setting now? 800x600? (yuck) 1024x768?

Basic Question but could not find it searching this site...

Thanks for your time
Minerb

[tedster]

Hello minerb, and welcome to the forums.

The most common screen width has been 1024 for quite a while. And 800x600 is definitely declining fast these days. A year ago I was seeing nearly 30% at 800 and now it's more like half that -- say 10% to 15%.

But if you're designing for a fixed width, the question is this: How much of your traffic can you afford to give a side-scroll? Even 1 in 20 seems to be a pretty big loss to me, so I still use 760 pixels for my fixed width designs.

[minerb]

thanks for that bit of info.. I personally set my screen at 1900x and have a second monitor set up for view it at "normal" view...

thanks again!
minerb

[Ingolemo]

800x600 maximum

Even those with higher resolutions aren't guarenteed to be running their browser at fullscreen. I tend to make sure that my pages are un-horizonally-scrolled (though not nessiccarily pretty) at about 200x150.

[wolfcry911]

I'm amazed at how many people still opt for 800x600 resolution (screen not design). At work (a non-tech company) we were upgraded to 17" LCD monitors with a native resolution of 1280 AND MOST PEOPLE CHANGE IT TO 800! I can't believe it, I try explaining the benefits of leaving the monitor in it's native resolution to no avail. They're used to the BIG letters...

[Robin_reala]

Liquid layout works for everyone :)

In other news, many people (like myself) don't use their browsers maximised, so working by resolution isn't actually that helpful. I'd suggest that you take 770px as a resonable minimum, use liquid layouts if you can, and if you can't and still need more width make sure the stuff that's off the side is unimportant (like a skyscraper ad or something).

[JAB Creations]

You should include 800x600. Dynamic (not liquid, we don't need unnescesary slang ;)) layouts are a given and aren't even hard to design when being lazy and working with tables.

John

[techtracker]

800x600 max.

There are a lot of us with 1024 screen resolutions, but who don't open their browser windows to the full screen. I always feel it is very unprofessional when I get to a site that has content cut off.

[Robin_reala]

Who calls them dynamic layouts then? Can't say I've heard that one before.

[sandpetra]

Liquid design suits me just fine as that's what it is. Set your widths to %'s and test on both resolutions.

[texasville]

I still get 25% of my users at 800X600. I think it depends on the demographics of your visitor base. Mine tend to be a lower tech type. I lean toward building for them plus dialup types.

[redfalconspr]

What your taget site.

1024x768 for teenage.
800x600 for business man and old People easy to read.

[Solution1]

I use a 1024x768 screen, but have the task bar at the left of the screen. That's because the full 1024 pix width makes the screen too wide with liquid designs. It's a strain on the eyes to have to read lines that wide.

[twist]

1 more vote for liquid layout, reminds me of liquid television and really rolls off the tounge, besides, its the only place the word is used in techie circles, dynamic is used all over the place. DHTML sound like HTML with a poor grade.

Laptops are actually getting smaller and smaller and even though a 12" screen might support 1600x1200, I think most prefer 800x600 on such tiny screens. I personally wouldn't want the resolution over 800x600 unless the screen was at least 17 inches.

With the price of 800x600 projectors dropping like crazy (I paid $1000 for mine a couple years back and now it is only $700), I think it might open up a small market of 800x600 web surfers. I enjoy surfing the web on my 100" 800x600 screen and I hate websites that don't support it.

[inveni0]

Wow...I design with 640 x 480 in mind, and here's why: At 800x600, it's good to have a margin. It forces me to better design my pages (reduced scrolling and better in-page links if neccessary).

I don't know of anyone that doesn't maximize the window they're using. Those of you who say otherwise are strange to me, :)

I never build a fixed width larger than 700px. I try to keep it at 650px.

[Robin_reala]

The annoying thing is that this is one more problem forced on us by IE. A site I've done recently has a min width of 770px, is liquid past that until a max width of 1000px at which point it the centers in the window. Line length is fine inbetween those widths, and it never gets too wide or small. Actually, now that I think about it I probably sould have done the max width in ems to allow for the same maximum line length at different font sizes. The code?

#container {
 min-width: 770px; /* minimum readable for 800x600 screens */
 width: 100%; /* make the site liquid to the screen */
 max-width: 1000px; /* but stop at a sensible maximum */
 margin: 0 auto; /* and center past that point */
}

I played around with various 'expression' fixes for IE but gave up after a while - they proved massively unstable in standards mode. At the end of the day it's a nicety to users of up to date browsers, and hopefully when IE7 comes out MS will have implemented min/max-width so the majority of users will get it as well.

[netchicken1]

If I am doing a fixed width page in tables (which I don't do now) I would make the main table 700px wide and centered on the screen.

That allows 800 x 600 and 640 X 400 the ability to read it.

You really need to look at the lowest common denominator of screens, even if you have a high tech one, it doesn't mean others do as well.

However now I use mostly 3 column css with the center column expanding and contracting to fit the screen.

Firefox has a developer tool that allows you to quickly select the screen size you want to see.