Viewable Area In A Browser

[ThisEndup]

In the most popular browsers (IE, Netscape, Opera, etc...), what would you say is the actual viewing size in the browser after you take into account for the navigation buttons, address bars, etc...

I'm just kinda looking for a rough estiamte for the different resolutions cause I know an exact answer isn't possible with people customizing their browsers every which way.

[dmorison]

Are you looking for an average canvas size (the area in which your page is actually rendered) for each browser, taking screen resolution into account?

I'm pretty sure the modal average screen resolution is 1024 by 768 (source: gut feel), and on my set-up here (in that resolution), the canvas sizes are:

IE6ish:
(1024-vertical scroll bar) by 555.

Opera 7.11:
1024 by 515

Firebird 0.6.1:
1024 by 575

Opera is the Adware version, with a button bar taking up the height of a standard banner ad.

[edited by: dmorison at 6:32 pm (utc) on Dec. 28, 2003]

[ThisEndup]

Yeah, I'm looking for a rough estimate of the canvas size people normally have when using their browser.

[tedster]

You may be assuming that the person is browsing at full screen - and many people do not. And then there's also the possibility of a hotlist taking up a big chunk. Throw all that in the pot with screen resolutions that may range from a small screen hand-held device at 320px or less, up to monitors running at 2400 px wide, and you really have a significant range to consider.

A much better approach to page design is to allow your pages to be rendered as fluid as possible over a wide range of window sizes.

If you feel you must design a fixed width layout, then 770px is a relatively safe width, but the 800x600 user with an open hotlist still will get some side scrolling. So even at 770px wide, it's good not to make any "unit" of content take up full width. Wide lines of text are harder to read and if you are giving someone a side scroll, it's better that they can side scroll just once and then have a neat column to deal with.