Help please browser view problem

[midi25]

Hi i have made my site in 800x600 i know this is the common size now but i just thought i,d test it in 1024x768. When i did my website fitted in the top left of the screen and there was just blankness around it. My website fits exactly in IE6 using 800X600. I am using DW4. How can I correct this please help

thanks

[fashezee]

"Fix this problem"

Well, you have to define the columns of your table as autostretch. Also, while you are designing
your interfaces, you must consider that factor of different resolutions.

For example;
I always make sure that my top nav bar always has a cell that can be autostretched (i.e. containing
no pictures or background) so that my page fits the screen no matter what the rez.

but dats onlee wat i tink !!!

[Nick_W]

Why not go liquid?

If I bought a new big screen telly and saw my favourite shows as little 'windows' with blank unused space I'd be furious.

Not so hard to do, just re-adjust your thinking/design a little...

my 2p's worth ;)

Nick

[papabaer]

Obviously, your site utilizes a "fixed-width" layout as opposed to a "liquid" layout. Without going into a deep discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of both, you might take comfort in the fact that many sites also use fixed width layouts: Yahoo, CNN, ESPN, MSN and many others.

If your layout requires precise positioning of elements in relationship to each other, then fixed width is perfectly acceptable. Also keep in mind that many users with larger monitors and hi-res displays, often resize their browser windows to approximate the 800x600 display (though many, including myself, will extend the height of the browser window). This allows room for multiple windows for other browser panes and/or other programs.

If, on the other hand, your layout will adapt to a "liquid" display, then you could convert your layout dimensions to percentages or "auto" width.

Since you are using DW, I am going to take a guess that you are using "layers" to create your layout and then converting to tables, which will give you "fixed-width" tables. If you are beginning your layout using tables, then you can just change over to percentages.

In any event, tables are NOT meant for layout. Learn CSS for cleaner coding.

[old_crone]

"Learn CSS for cleaner coding."

Man, that comment makes my head hurt! ;-)

[Nick_W]

Actually it's very easy, and lots of fun. People who balk at css are usually the ones it scares most. Give it a try, you'll be hooked within an hour and an expert within a few weeks ;)

Nick

[tedster]

I recently had to kick a friend in the butt to get him to start using CSS for layout. The issue is really what's familiar to you, not what's easy or hard.

If you've been creating pages for a while, you no-doubt learned to use layout tables. Can you remember the learning curve? It's not exactly a walk in the park! But now it's what you know and it seems to come "naturally".

However, css actually makes more sense to a first timer. Sure, there are some peculiarities (learning how the options for position: work, for example) but it is a better tool, because it was CREATED for the job.

[rewboss]

CSS is created for the job, but few people use browsers that correctly implement CSS-P. In other words, it works in theory, but seldom in practice, making it frustrating to learn.

Use Dreamweaver's implementation of CSS to, say, position a graphic behind some text, and you're quite likely to find that the graphic totally obscures the text in NS4, and is invisible in NS6.

For me, using tables for layout is a case of "the devil you know". I think it may be a couple of years before I feel CSS has got to the point where it can be used the way it was supposed to be.

[Nick_W]

I disagree rewboss. All version 5+ browsers can handle CSS-P

So you've got to make a couple of little hacks for IE5 now and again, so what? I have one person every couple of months using a version 4 browser so can honestly say that the clean code and fast load time well outway those very occasional pre-historic visitors.

CSS-P is easy and will work acroos the majority of browsers your visitors will be using.

Nick

[rewboss]

Well, my experience is different, that's all I can say. And I have anything up to 20% of my hits from Netscape 4. Probably because I take the time and effort to make sure that they get a website they can actually use.

How many of your clients can afford to ignore 10-20% of their potential audience?

[Nick_W]

None of them get anywhere close to that amount so there's no problem.

[tedster]

rewboss, I'm in the same boat. I have two clients with high NN4 numbers - one of them at 40%. I'm still moving toward div layouts with them, but then I'm much more limited in design choices.

So when the need is there for these clients, I continue to write the occasional table layout. Still, I can do a lot, even for them, with CSS-P.

[rewboss]

Yep. I'm just waiting for a bit.

Nick, I suggest the reason you have so few NS4 users on your site might be because they can't use them. This is crucial -- I'm not saying this is necessarily so in your case, but it could very well be; and if so, then you need to rethink your strategy.

A common conversation between me and my colleage:

Me: "I wonder how they did that?"
(Click)
Me: "Oh, CSS."
Me and Paul in unison: "What does it look like in Netscape?"
(Click)
Paul: "Ugh!"
Me: "Huh?"
Paul: "Netscape 6?"
(Click)
Me: "Er..."
Paul: "Yikes!"
Me: "Opera?"
(Click)
Paul: "Oh..."
Me: "Not bad, but where did that white bit come from?"

(This was a conversation we really had. The site had been done in DW. And the code showed no effort had been spared to make it NS-compatible. It just hadn't worked.)

[Nick_W]

I really don't think the one nn4 user I get every couple of months is going to tell all his nn4 buddies about my sites.

It's all about the right tools for the job. If nn4 is not an issue then it's css-p all the way, it it is an issue then it's just a case of serving a table hased layout to those people.

Nick

[rewboss]

Really only one visit every couple of months? That's incredible, because while the number of people using NS4 has dropped in the past few years, you're the first webmaster who has ever confessed to me to less than 2% -- unless you're only getting 100 visits per month anyway.

If you want prehistoric, I've had the occasional visit from Netscape 3. But Netscape 4 remains at anything up to 20% of individual visitors (i.e. not page views) for me. tedster's 40% surprised me, I must confess, but if I had a figure as low as yours, the first thing I would do would be to check if I haven't used a <script> tag with a broken src value or committed some other awful blunder with my code.

[Eric_Jarvis]

the simple fact is that Netscape 4 users CAN use a site laid out with css...presentation is supposed to be optional...if you make the site that way there is no problem

using the @import hack can also feed a reduced Netscape applicable stylesheet that makes the experience of using the site with Netscape 4 perfectly reasonable if a little different and less slick than with other browsers

[rewboss]

Presentation is optional -- yeah, well, that's fine, but it doesn't help when, in order to make a page not look like Spaghetti Junction, you have to make the code twice as long as it would have been if you'd used HTML. It defeats the object of CSS, namely: to cut down on code bloat and make the site easier to maintain (separating design from content is a means to that end).

When NS4 usage becomes insignificant, I'll switch to CSS. Until then, I'm using what gives the best trade-off between efficiency and design. (That's actually what transitional DTD's are for: "deprecated" does not mean "do not use", it means, "it's possible that future browsers will not be required to support this".)