Align DIV center?

"Stephen Poley" <sbpoleySpicedHamTrap (AT) xs4all (DOT) nl> wrote

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 20:02:14 -0000, "Phil Thompson"
philSPAM (AT) doublonegative (DOT) com> wrote:


Oh my god, sorry. I didn't realise I'd just brought about the apocalypse.
Fluid is a great idea and yes it works sometimes but there are times, when
big breath> shock horror, a fixed width layout works best.

Perhaps you'd like to offer a few examples of sites where this is the
case?

http://www.simplebits.com/
http://www.mezzoblue.com/
http://www.dkeithrobinson.com/asterisk/
http://9rules.com/whitespace/
http://www.happycog.com/
http://www.zeldman.com/
http://www.blogger.com/start
http://www.stopdesign.com/

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

"Lauri Raittila" <lauri (AT) raittila (DOT) cjb.net> wrote

in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets, Phil Thompson wrote:

"Andrew Thompson" <SeeMySites (AT) www (DOT) invalid> wrote in message
news:k7d9w9j9bxnh.19y0pxo2cm4am$.dlg (AT) 40tude (DOT) net...
On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:39:11 -0000, Phil Thompson wrote:

and for a fixed width div use

If I understand your CSS correctly, it will only work for a page
that is 500px wide. Please drag yourself into the third millenium!

a page that is at least 500px wide. I know that isn't wholly accessible
but
it is pretty damn close.

500px is very bad idea:
1) Most people use much bigger window, so they get large unusable space
2) People using smaller screen will get scrollbar.

There is very little number of people using browser that would be good.

And if you center using the way you showed earlier, people using under
500px window can't use your site. Anything handheld fits that.

Not technically anything handheld, as some handheld devices do recognise CSS
handheld media styles and ignore CSS set for the screen. N.B. Some not all.

Oh my god, sorry. I didn't realise I'd just brought about the apocalypse.
Fluid is a great idea and yes it works sometimes but there are times,
when
big breath> shock horror, a fixed width layout works best.

No, fixed width works never best. Totally fluid is not best always
either, but it is much better than fixed width

Well it actually depends on the design. I notice that the perosnal websites
of the two people haranging me, for advocating fixed-width design, aren't
very image intensive. A design with few images is a great candidate for a
fluid layout but a site with lots of background images (giving a design a
bit of character) sometimes needs fixed width.

Read other peoples opinions here: http://www.designbyfire.com/000032.html

http://www.htmlhelp.com/cgi-
bin/validate.cgi?url=http://www.designbyfire.com/000032.html&warnings=yes

Don't take advice from people that use nested blockquotes to indent
stuff. CSS1 was published 8 years ago, and margins were supported good
enaugh in very first implementions.

Have you see this man's resume? http://www.designbyfire.com/andrei.php I
think I will take advcie from him. He seems a lot more knowledgeable than me
and you put together.

From there:
Fixed:
| Pros
| Guarantees line length readability

You can do that without fixing layout. Read on max-width, and IE
alternative

| Guarantees ability to place images into the layout in relation to other
| design elements and type size

Unless user changes type size, in which case layout breaks.

| Allows for predictable printed results from screen to paper

Most likely one third on right hand side clipped.

| Allows for a predictable presentation as intended by the designer

If user has same fontsize and other settings as user.

What you have go to remember is to design for your audience, this site has
an audience of web professionals who probably are goig to have very similar
settings to the designer, that means large screen resolutions. Amazon and
Google et al have a wider audience and so must design with that in mind.
Google can't afford to make their site inaccessible to someone with a screen
resolution of 640*480 but designbyfire.com can.

snip /

Because said site uses fixed layout, I get scrollbar, and can scroll to
see about 30px of orange margin on right. It looks much better when I
force it to fit window. If this had been done differently, it would not
force me to scroll to see margin.

What screen resolution are you using? 800*600?

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts

"Gus Richter" <gusrichter (AT) netscape (DOT) net> wrote

Given the effort that people who contribute to this group put
into encouraging fluid layout and having everything exactly
as big as the *user* wants, it is disappointing to see people
encouraging fixed widths that would lock the size of the page.


Oh my god, sorry. I didn't realise I'd just brought about the apocalypse.
Fluid is a great idea and yes it works sometimes but there are times,
when <big breath> shock horror, a fixed width layout works best.

Read other peoples opinions here: http://www.designbyfire.com/000032.html

p.s. Sorry I spoke.


You are quite correct in pointing out this other method, Phil.
Really disappointing isn't it, to get such condascending comments such as
"get a clue" and the one above, instead of a sensible comment such as:
Yes, it does work, but has a drawback when the page is reduced to a
certain point, etc., etc. In certain situations however, it is a viable
and at times possibly the only option.

--
Gus

Thankyou Gus. Fact of the matter is my solution was a bit shit but I didn't
think I deserved the abuse I got.
But seems how it came from such excellent designers http://www.1point1c.org/
not to mention http://www.student.oulu.fi/~laurirai/

in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets, Phil Thompson wrote:

"Lauri Raittila" <lauri (AT) raittila (DOT) cjb.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c0b274923bc548c98a182 (AT) news (DOT) individual.net...

No, fixed width works never best. Totally fluid is not best always
either, but it is much better than fixed width

Well it actually depends on the design. I notice that the perosnal websites
of the two people haranging me, for advocating fixed-width design, aren't
very image intensive.

That is because they aren't. That irrelevant.

A design with few images is a great candidate for a
fluid layout but a site with lots of background images (giving a design a
bit of character) sometimes needs fixed width.

No, it doesn't. It sometimes needs some fixed elements. But I have yet to
see any sensible reason to fix width of whole page to some width...

Read other peoples opinions here: http://www.designbyfire.com/000032.html

http://www.htmlhelp.com/cgi-
bin/validate.cgi?url=http://www.designbyfire.com/000032.html&warnings=yes

Don't take advice from people that use nested blockquotes to indent
stuff. CSS1 was published 8 years ago, and margins were supported good
enaugh in very first implementions.

Have you see this man's resume? http://www.designbyfire.com/andrei.php I
think I will take advcie from him. He seems a lot more knowledgeable than me
and you put together.

So, he has been doing webpages since 1999. That is just 5 years less than
me. He mentions mambo.com, which did not succeed. Then he mentions
impresse.com, which doesn't seem to have same UI anymore. Then he has
done web application. So, there is no website in public done by him,
exept his own?

See what person with real knowledge say:
http://www.useit.com/

What you have go to remember is to design for your audience, this site has
an audience of web professionals who probably are goig to have very similar
settings to the designer, that means large screen resolutions. Amazon and
Google et al have a wider audience and so must design with that in mind.
Google can't afford to make their site inaccessible to someone with a screen
resolution of 640*480 but designbyfire.com can.

Well, designbyfire.com would be very easy to make more fluid. And only
thing people would miss is ability to scroll to see that right margin.
His problem is that he sees this issue black and white. Either totally
fluid or totally fixed. That is common, as all arguments against liquid
layout depend on that.

Because said site uses fixed layout, I get scrollbar, and can scroll to
see about 30px of orange margin on right. It looks much better when I
force it to fit window. If this had been done differently, it would not
force me to scroll to see margin.

What screen resolution are you using? 800*600?

Resolution is 1600*1200, which is irrelevant. Viewport is about 800*1150.
But that is not the point, the point is that I get unnecessary scrollbar.
There is absolutely no need for it.

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>

"Phil Thompson" <philSPAM (AT) doublonegative (DOT) com> wrote:

"Stephen Poley" <sbpoleySpicedHamTrap (AT) xs4all (DOT) nl> wrote in message
newsbt1q0l5kmkregh5gbpbrnvrkg5vgm87rj (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...
Perhaps you'd like to offer a few examples of sites where this is the
case?

http://www.simplebits.com/
http://www.mezzoblue.com/
http://www.dkeithrobinson.com/asterisk/
http://9rules.com/whitespace/
http://www.happycog.com/
http://www.zeldman.com/
http://www.blogger.com/start
http://www.stopdesign.com/

What is so cool about horizontal scrollbars?

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Martin Bialasinski wrote:

What is so cool about horizontal scrollbars?

They show the reader in no uncertain terms who's the boss.

And that's what such deezyners seem to be aiming at.

"Brian" <usenet3 (AT) julietremblay (DOT) com.invalid> wrote

Phil Thompson wrote:
"Lauri Raittila" wrote...

Phil Thompson wrote:

Read other peoples opinions here:
http://www.designbyfire.com/000032.html

http://www.htmlhelp.com/cgi-bin/vali...om/000032.html


snip /
I'd take advice from this guy for visual design/interface, but I
wouldn't rely on him for markup advice.

--
Brian (remove "invalid" to email me)

Isn't CSS about visual design? True his markup may be wanting but someone
must have noticed I linked to a page on his site because it contained lots
of links to other webpages where others had expressed their opinions on this
subject matter, not because I thought his page or his opinion was gospel.


--
Phil Thompson
http://www.doubleonegative.com/

in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets, Phil Thompson wrote:

Brian wrote:
I'd take advice from this guy for visual design/interface,

I would too, if you meaned interface for some program. But even then, I
would not take it as granted. He has done stuff for Adobe, and if their
other UIs are as bad Adobe Acrobat Reader, I wouldn't take any advice.

Only other Adobe product I have used was PhotoShop 4 (or was it 3), and
it's UI was not as bad...

And then webpages are totally different than program UIs. So hes
expertice would be more suited on designing Browser than Webpage.

but I wouldn't rely on him for markup advice.

Certainly not.

Isn't CSS about visual design?

Yes. But it is totally different that application interface design.

True his markup may be wanting but someone
must have noticed I linked to a page on his site because it contained lots
of links to other webpages where others had expressed their opinions on this
subject matter, not because I thought his page or his opinion was gospel.

Of course he has links to sites that think same as he does. Everybody
has. But all those pages are just as bad. Or at least it is very likely.
If there was some better, you would propably shown us that one.

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>

Set the width to something smaller than 100% and the margin to auto e.g.
div.someClass {
width: 100%;

That should have been e.g.
width: 80%;
of course.

Thank you Martin (and Phil, of course!). I tried your solution (actually I'm
a floating design evangelist myself *g*), but it doesn't really seem to work
in IE6 (although on Firefox it does)... Is there some "bullet-proof"
solution?
And actually I'm not really satisfied with providing a fixed width. I'd
prefer to have the with of the div be the width required by the content. Is
there a solution without providing a width?

Regards,
Axel Dahmen

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 21:12:29 -0000, Phil Thompson wrote:

Thankyou Gus. Fact of the matter is my solution was a bit shit but I didn't
think I deserved the abuse I got.

Excuse me?

"If I understand your CSS correctly, it will only work for a page
that is 500px wide. Please drag yourself into the third millenium!

Given the effort that people who contribute to this group put
into encouraging fluid layout and having everything exactly
as big as the *user* wants, it is disappointing to see people
encouraging fixed widths that would lock the size of the page."

Which part of that represents 'abuse'?

But seems how it came from such excellent designers http://www.1point1c.org/

Thanks! You might also have listed my other three sites though
(and if you follow the link to my personal site, you could add
three more).

Where's yours?

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology
http://www.LensEscapes.com/ Images that escape the mundane