buy.com goes to 1280 screen width ?

first major site that I know of....

[wingslevel]

Seems like less than a year ago most of us were still coding for 800 x 600 resolution. I did a little searching and it seems like we haven't had a thread on this in a bit, so...

I just checked all of the top 10 retail websites (per internet retailer) and every one of them are set up for 1024. Buy.com (actually #24 on the list) was the mindblower for me, they are at 1280!

I'm staying at 1024, but I feel a little more comfortable there now...

[encyclo]

Are you using a 1280 pixel screen? The site you mention shows as 1024 pixels on my screen, not 1280 - but they may well be detecting the screen resolution and adjusting in consequence.

If you are using a fixed-width site at 1024 pixels, I won't use it. I don't run my browser full-screen, and I don't do sideways-scrolling. The larger the screen resolution, the smaller the number of users running the browser window full screen. What's more, 800x600 is still above 40% usage for a general audience.

The only reasonable options available are fliud (the best) or a 780px absolute maximum if you decide to go fixed-width. Anything else, and you're losing visitors.

[wingslevel]

that's it...

[willybfriendly]

Try resizing your browser window by dragging the edge. It's not a fluid design, but it tries to resize to the current window size. Has to reload to do it though.

WBF

[Lance]

My resolution is set for 1280x1024...

Scrollbars show up when the browser width hit 956px. Above that, the layout expands the width of the middle column to fill the screen. No redraw necessary.

This is in IE6.

[flashfan]

It's using <table .. width="100%"> for the layout.

[willybfriendly]

I get the redraw in Opera 7. Haven't bothered to open IE.

WBF

[ronin]

I had firefox open at 1014x768 and buy.com fitted on the screen without a problem - I doubt it would go much narrower than that though.

Just for the record I still design pages on my main website for 640x480 even though I use a 1400x1050 desktop.

[tedster]

I make sure the main content area fits 640 width - so at most those with older equipment need just one side scroll.

[chameleon]

Thank goodness that we're finally starting to see 800x600 go away. We've been stuck with that tiny resolution for so long now, and it's nice to see 1,024 x 768 start taking over.

The latest stats I saw had 800x600 at 33% of Internet traffic. The other 67% was at a larger resolution.

[WebDon]

make sure the main content area fits 640 width

That's a great idea Tedster. A nice, subtle way of making it a bit easier on folks who are a little behind without making current design too painful or unrealistic.

[createErrorMsg]

Thank goodness that we're finally starting to see 800x600 go away. We've been stuck with that tiny resolution for so long

More screen space tends to make people add more stuff to a page. This is human nature, I think, and happens in all areas of life. People buy a bigger house; they buy more stuff to fill it. Get a larger desk; get more knick-knacks to cover it. Get more screen resolution; get more junk to pack into the page.

I'm not so sure this is a good thing. Too many sites out there are stuffed to the point of distraction. I click away from sites all the time because the kneejerk filling of screen real estate is overwhelming. If a user can't see what they want in a glance (usually the glance you get while the page is still loading) many of them are gone without an eye-bat.

What's nice about 1024x768 is that it makes a nice 750px wide layout look very clean, with a nice buffer of empty background space on either side. But if it's an excuse to jam more c*ap onto the page, don't be surprised if usability drops off.