Resolution

What's the easiest way to make my page look decent for all the screen resolutions that people use. I currently use 1024x768 and my page looks fine. But when I look at it with 800x600 it looks like crap and 1/2 of my viewers have a 800x600 resolution and i'm sure they're thinking that I'm a shitty designer when they look at it.

Thanks

(Oh yeah, here's my site/blog: http://www.geocities.com/roscoblog/)

 

The only way I can think of is if you used percentage instead of px's for the sizes. I usually like to stick to using % instead, and it works well.

 

The age old question.....what resolution to make a webpage.

Percentages are ok in some instances....but stretching things does get messy sometimes too.

You have to also think about folks using resolutions higher than 1024x768, with flat screens getting popular, so are the higher resolutions.

This is one of those questions where you have to decided what look you want, and hope most of your users will view the same. I usually make my sites 800x600....the stretch the remaining page with filler on the right to fill the rest of the site. Its not perfect, but everyone can see the whole page, and those with larger resolutions will just get some filler on the side.

 

Yeah.... its tricky choice to make.

You could go with the "stretch to fit" idea... using percentages so the page always has the same proportions...

Or you could fix the proportions. Crazy as it sounds, having a 750 block of content in the center of the page doesn't look that bad, even on high resolutions! Just make sure it stays in the middle of the page, and elements don't "fall out" and ruin the effect.

I would aim for a "minimum resolution", like 800x600 (nobody has anythting less than that these days), and make it scale up gracefully. Think about it: you said yourself half the people who see the website have 800x600... so why did you design it for 1024x768?

Scrollbars are TEH L0S0RZ.

You might also consider getting some hosting which doesn't force ads on your page... it looks really lame when they go over the content.

Another tip: Use background images. They won't cause scrollbars if the element they are sitting in gets cropped, and they don't get squashed either. And don't make div's scrollable where they don't need to be

My site is designed for 800x600, believe it or not....

 

Yeah I can't stand websites like msn or netscape that put the site in the top left corner, its messed up. I mean depending on the type of site, sometimes it looks really good if its a minimalistic style.

 

Sites that do that usually totally mess up the content flow. It sucks.

 

Yeah, I applied for a domain at host-dot.com but I haven't heard anything back from them yet, and it's been a couple weeks so I'm almost giving up. What hosts do you guys recommend?

And thanks for the help.

 

I don't, I do it myself

http://www.goldfishsbowl.co.uk/index.php?p=61
http://www.goldfishsbowl.co.uk/index.php?p=70

 

I do have a background image, doesn't it show up for you?

 

I use a javascript to switch .css files on my personal website, one for 800px and one for =/> 1024px. Only folk over 1024 see the background color filler, unless javascript is disabled.

http://www.glade.net/gladepages/mullins/

 

Not for the whole website, but for design elements. Like divs. You can signicantly reduce page size if you use tesselating background images to make a certain effect (like gradient).