Help! Nathan Or Other Website Guru's

realpurty2

I've had to pull our website back down after weeks of redesigning. I "thought" I was putting the finishing touches on it today when I discovered a major error. It looked perfect on a 19" monitor, then I saw it on a 17" and realized you had to scroll left to right. (Pet Peeve of mine)

So that made me look at it on a 15" monitor and it was a jumbled up, overlapping, absolute trainwreck!

I had verified Cross-browser compatibility but never even gave a thought to monitor size.

Is there a fix for this or is it back to the drawing board for a new design that won't be so scrunched if I try to reduce it?

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Woman in a Man's World.

Mike Finley

Are you using tables? Are your tables sizes defined as percentages of the page (100%, 90%....) or pixels? Even changing to percentages may not help if you have big pictures on a page.

realpurty2

No Tables, it's Div and CSS.

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Woman in a Man's World.

Nathan

I'm hardly a "Guru" but I can try to help....

What your seeing isn't due to the monitor size but rather the resolution set on the monitor. If you want to get a good idea of how the site will look on different sized monitors you can set the resolution on your own computer.

To change your resolution go to:

1. Start Button
2. Control Panel
3. Appearance & Themes
4. Display
5. Settings (Tab)
6. Screen Resolutions (Section of the screen)

A lot of web designers (including me if I can be considered that) design with a 800x600 resolution monitor in mind. It's a pain and I've considered dropping support for 800x600 monitors but around 11% of my traffic views the site with that resolution so I'm stuck with it for now. Hopefully widescreen monitors will get more popular.

Anyways, if you want I can take a look at the site. Let me know.

__________________
Nathan

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

realpurty2

That's working Nathan. Thanks! I'll revise everything to lay out in 800x600 and it'll just leave white space for those with more up to date equipment.

Lol, seeing 800x600 resolution on a 19" flat makes my eyes feel I'm looking through a magnifying glass.

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Woman in a Man's World.

daleshad

I just looked at a popular website. They brokedown resolution from their users as such:

Display Resolution

The current trend is that more and more computers are using a screen size of 1024x768 pixels or more:
2007 Higher 1024x768 800x600 640x480 Unknown January 26% 54% 14% 0% 6%

I personally, don't know anyone on 800x600.


Where is your website?

I will take a look at it for you.

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Custom Building and Remodeling
http://www.GoodFellasLLC.com

Nathan

True, and even the new Yahoo.com is designed with this resolution in mind. I stick with it 800x600 because a lot of people in the construction industry use older equipment.
It's also an age issue. Older users tend to stick with 800x600.

Like I said... 11% of my users are still using it so it is out there.

__________________
Nathan

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

woodmagman

What about the other 89 % what are your stats for that.

Nathan

These are the stats for the last few days.

__________________
Nathan

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

woodmagman

I think it is time 10.68% of the visitors need to come into 2007, I bet there is pacman installed somewhere on all their hard drives.

Nathan

It's an age issue. I know my dad can't read the screen if it's not on 800x600 res.

I use 1680x1050 myself.

__________________
Nathan

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

daleshad

Do you really want to work for someoone on 800x600 ?

__________________
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Custom Building and Remodeling
http://www.GoodFellasLLC.com

woodmagman

This is contractor talk, do you really want someone to work for you that requires 800x600

Susan Betz

800x600 here. Now I feel old.

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Fences of Distinction, Ocala, FL
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woodmagman

I have to recant my post; “dad” may be reading, sorry dad. “Eye sight is hereditary” I do have my dads peepers….

realpurty2

Well, to further complicate things, I did some checking on various screen resolutions, monitor sizes, and browsers. The ONLY one overlapping text and causing problems is AOL. It looks fine on any size resolution on every browser except AOL. On AOL, no matter what size monitor or resolution, it is a jumbled, overlapping, completely unreadable disaster splattered on the screen.

Considering the large number of AOL users, I don't know what to do or how to fix it, I just know I have to figure it out. Might be time to call a professional unless someone has a suggestion.

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Woman in a Man's World.

wackman

Dude! I WANT Pacman, how do I get that?

Ted W

I gave up on divs and css. Unless you're ready to dive deep into css design and learn just about every quirk, there will always be something not working on some browsers - especially AOL!

There are a couple of good reasons for pure css. It helps some with search engine rankings, as the robots don't have to spider through tables to find the content, but most robots have no trouble with tables anyway. The second is if you want your content viewable on portable devices, as tables and graphics don't work well. There's also a third reason - if you have a .mobi domain it's required that your site is viewable on portable devices.

If you're not trying for #1 position on search engines, and practically all your visitors are using a desktop or laptop, then using tables and images to accomplish your layout is perfectly okay. I generally use about a 780 pixel table with a 1 x 780 clear pixel in the top or bottom table cell to set the width, or a combination equal to 780 px, whatever is simpler. As long as I don't use images or table widths that break that width (i.e. too large), my web pages render perfectly well on all browsers.

99.0 % of your visitors don't know or care if you use valid css. They just want a good looking website that is easy to browse and provides them the information they need. Style sheets are great for setting up your text format, but pure CSS just complicates everything. I say keep it simple and get on with it. Tables and graphics for layout works, and that's what's important.

Just my nickel's worth.

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Carpentry and Woodworking - Chicago / North Shore - Ted's Carpentry

"I don't know everything but at least I think I do, and that's what really matters."

Ted W

Here ya' go, wackman. Enjoy!

http://www.flashkit.com/movies/launc...594&bg=#000000

__________________
Carpentry and Woodworking - Chicago / North Shore - Ted's Carpentry

"I don't know everything but at least I think I do, and that's what really matters."

Second Look

In case you don't want all that white space for the non-800x600 crowd, there are simple javascript resolution detectors like this one.

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Second Look home improvement www.SecondLookHome.com
Handyman and Home Repair Specialist in Rhode Island
RI Licensed Lead Safe Remodeler/Renovator, RI Registered & Insured Contractor