Keeping Web Page at Fixed Width

On Mon, 08 Sep 2003 19:40:36 -0600, SoloCDM <deedsmis (AT) aculink (DOT) net>
wrote:

Some things look sloppy if spread out.

Such things are clearly candidates for "max-width" settings, preferably
specified in em units. It is perfectly possible to have a fluid layout
that doesn't spread out beyond a certain point, but still contracts
properly when someone is using, for example, a PDA.

Even some of your link
references use control over the width of their web pages, which
clearly contradicts their preaching.

Yes, I didn't bother to read anything that these sites had to say. I
did pay attention to the clueful ones.

--
Greg Schmidt (gregs (AT) trawna (DOT) com)
Trawna Publications (http://www.trawna.com/)

On Tue, 9 Sep 2003 15:19:58 -0400, "Harlan Messinger"
<h.messinger (AT) comcast (DOT) net> wrote:

span style="flame" intention="sincere"
One wonders how readers of books and magazines have managed all these years!
Has there ever been a call by the magazine reading community for publishers
just to mail them sequences of words with annotations as to their respective
roles, so that the readers could produce their own mock-ups to enjoy?

For many years, the only fastener we had was the nail. We used it by
pounding it hard with a hammer. One day, someone invented the screw.
Screws work best if they are *not* pounded hard with a hammer. Screws
are superior to nails in many ways, although there are still places that
nails are best. Both are trying to solve very similar problems, but the
ways in which we apply them are very different. Builders who wanted to
start using screws but refused to learn how to use the screwdriver
presumably didn't last very long.

Paper used to be the best way to present the material. In some cases it
still is. The web is very different from paper, and the sooner people
realize it, the better off we'll all be.

Believe it or not, many producers of web-based material are trying to
provide a specific and approximately consistent appearance to people having
one of several current-day browers (including Netscape 4.x, etc.). The small
portion of the population that wants to shrink the browser to a window 200
pixels wide and 600 high, or 1000 wide and 100 high, and still have a
legible presentation is not really a fundamental target.
/span

Many producers of web-based material are former (or current) desktop
publishing experts who are trying to shoehorn a new medium into a
familiar shape to avoid having to learn something new. The very real
portion of the population that wants to use a browser window less than
800 pixels wide and not have to scroll horizontally to read the
information, and the small but growing portion of the population that is
using PDAs with screens less than 600 pixels wide are targets that are
ignored by these desktop publishing gurus, to the detriment of the
companies that hire said gurus to design their online presence.

And I'd wager that the percentage of people still using Netscape 4.x is
not much larger than the percentage of people who want to use a 200
pixel wide browser window. Netscape 4.x is *not* a "current-day"
browser, it is several years and several versions old. All
"current-day" browsers are quite capable of providing a "specific and
approximately consistent appearance" of an attractive liquid design, in
the hands of a talented designer.

--
Greg Schmidt (gregs (AT) trawna (DOT) com)
Trawna Publications (http://www.trawna.com/)

Jim Dabell <jim-usenet (AT) jimdabell (DOT) com> wrote

OJ wrote:

"EightNineThree" <eightninethree (AT) REMOVEeightninethree (DOT) com> wrote in
message news:<bjj6tg$n6l$1 (AT) ngspool-d02 (DOT) news.aol.com>...
"SoloCDM" <deedsmis (AT) aculink (DOT) net> wrote in message
news:3F5D18EB.1050002 (AT) aculink (DOT) net...
How do I keep my entire web page at a fixed width?

Why would you want to do that?

Why can't you answer peoples questions without preaching to them?

What about the following scenario:

How do I shoot myself in the foot?

Put the bullet in the gun, aim, and squeeze the trigger.

When somebody asks something that sounds like a bad idea, generally, you
should point that out to them instead of deliberately letting them screw
up.

Hi,

I guess they didn't ask you for your opinion of what they were doing.
Just how to do it.

You don't know either the context or the application.

That's probably why Karl asked:

Why would you want to do that?

Not in that context. That was more like "Are you an idiot? Why would
you want to do something insane like that.

If you don't know the answer, stay out.

I didn't see you answer the question either, but I don't see anybody telling
you to stay out.

I wasn't responding to the original poster.

oj

Harlan Messinger wrote:

span style="flame" intention="sincere"
One wonders how readers of books and magazines have managed all these
years!

The limitation of the print industry is not a limitation of the web. Paper
is cut at fixed size where the width is decided at printing time. This
"event" happens much later on the web - or sometimes browser window width
is irrelevant to the particular user. Imposing a print limitation on the
web just because it exists in print is short-sighted and counter to the
web's flexibility and strengths.

Has there ever been a call by the magazine reading community for
publishers just to mail them sequences of words with annotations as to
their respective roles,

Considering the more accurate analogy is about editors and writers on one
side, and printing houses on the other - yes. There has been a time where
editors and writers did not define how a page was printed, and instead they
defined (by marking up) which parts of the text corresponded to which
logical structure, and the printer/renderer used a stylesheet to translate
the logical structure into what inks and font-faces were used. On the web
rendering time happens within the user's browser - so the user's browser is
effectively the print/render process.

This separation is still in effect within the print industry - as evidenced
by novels and newspapers. Novels tend to come out as hardback first -
larger page size, larger font size, larger margins and paddings. Then a few
months later a paperback edition is released. And funny enough, the author
doesn't have to write the entire book out again because of the paperback
edition - they reuse the same copy and add a different presentation on top
- a presentation more appropriate for the smaller paperback page sizes.

Newspapers tend to syndicate columns. The columnist does not retype their
column for each newspaper it is syndicated on - she just transfers the copy
which allows the newspaper printers to add their custom styles to the copy.

--
Iso.
FAQs: http://html-faq.com http://alt-html.org http://allmyfaqs.com/
Recommended Hosting: http://www.affordablehost.com/
Web Standards: http://www.webstandards.org/

"OJ" <orljustin (AT) aol (DOT) com> wrote

"EightNineThree" <eightninethree (AT) REMOVEeightninethree (DOT) com> wrote in
message news:<bjj6tg$n6l$1 (AT) ngspool-d02 (DOT) news.aol.com>...
"SoloCDM" <deedsmis (AT) aculink (DOT) net> wrote in message
news:3F5D18EB.1050002 (AT) aculink (DOT) net...
How do I keep my entire web page at a fixed width?

Why would you want to do that?

Why can't you answer peoples questions without preaching to them? You
don't know either the context or the application.

If you don't know the answer, stay out.

Congratulations, you've just won the "dickhead of the week" contest.
Welcome to my killfile.


--
Karl Core

Charles Sweeney says my sig is fine as it is.

Harlan Messinger wrote:

span style="flame" intention="sincere"
One wonders how readers of books and magazines have managed all these years!
Has there ever been a call by the magazine reading community for publishers
just to mail them sequences of words with annotations as to their respective
roles, so that the readers could produce their own mock-ups to enjoy?

at the moment my eyesight is such that reading books is a real pain in the
proverbials...unless I can get them in large print...I manage by only
reading for a quarter of an hour or so at a time with the book held quite
close...thanks for asking

--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
"Hey Lord don't ask me questions
There ain't no answer in me"

Peter Stokes wrote:

SoloCDM <deedsmis (AT) aculink (DOT) net> wrote in message
news:<3F5D18EB.1050002 (AT) aculink (DOT) net>...
How do I keep my entire web page at a fixed width?


To keep your entire page at a predetermined width, set up a table to
the required width and put the page contents inside. It doesn't have
to be a single table, you can run a succession of tables each to the
required width (heading, intro, body text, footer, etc, down the
page). This has worked for me on several sites.

5 years ago, that was the way it was done. It was really the only way to do
it. Then this wonderful thing called CSS was created. Now we don't need to
use tables for anything other than tabular data. Novel idea, really.

I take on board everything the naysayers have hit you with about
leaving it to the viewer to decide the width they view at; however, I
have also seen sites whose designs have been destroyed by width
expansion.

Only because the designer didn't know what they were doing.

In my (purely empirical/anecdotal) experience, the majority of
computer users are not sophisticated enough (or care enough about what
they're looking at or interested enough to take the trouble - take
your pick) to keep adjusting their window size in an effort to find
what the page designer was trying to achieve.

So the page should be designed to display nicely at any width, not the one
width the designer had in mind.

They have their browser
set to screen size and take the pages as they come.

Many users do not have their browser maximised. IE by default is not
maximised.

I also think it
somewhat arrogant of designers to expect users to change their
settings in order to achieve the best design view.

ISTM that you are arguing against yourself here.

Why shouldn't we designers give what we believe to be the best
presentation of our work, or more often our clients'
products/services? Surely we can have the same freedom of expression
as anyone else.

Why do you seem to think that the best presentation of your work and a
liquid design are mutually exclusive?

--

Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

"Brian" <usenet1 (AT) mangymutt (DOT) com.invalid-remove-this-part> wrote

EightNineThree wrote:
"OJ" <orljustin (AT) aol (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:77d3a68b.0309090954.7b824091 (AT) posting (DOT) google.com...

"EightNineThree" <eightninethree (AT) REMOVEeightninethree (DOT) com> wrote in
message news:<bjj6tg$n6l$1 (AT) ngspool-d02 (DOT) news.aol.com>...

Why can't you answer peoples questions without preaching to them? You
don't know either the context or the application.

If you don't know the answer, stay out.

Congratulations, you've just won the "dickhead of the week" contest.

Wow. And it's only Tuesday. :-D

Yeah, sometimes they come charging in for that award early.
Heck, sometimes there's a waiting list for that award! ;-)

Welcome to my killfile.

And you were kind enough to tell him. Imagine how many other
killfiles he joined without even knowing it.

It is a basic principle of usability to let the user know what you expect.
lol


--
Karl Core

Charles Sweeney says my sig is fine as it is.

"Alan J. Flavell" <flavell (AT) mail (DOT) cern.ch> wrote

On Tue, Sep 9, OJ inscribed on the eternal scroll:

Why can't you answer peoples questions without preaching to them?

Welcome to usenet.

You
don't know either the context or the application.

Maybe you hadn't noticed, but this isn't misc.misc, it's
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html: eacn of those elements has a
reason for being there and sets the context of the discourse.

Hi,

That doesn't mean you know the application. Maybe his application is
a larger version of a photo in it's own window that requires a certain
dimension. Maybe it's a game field whose parts make up a certain
size. You don't know what he is doing from his original question, so
don't pretend to.

If you don't know the answer, stay out.

Welcome to the killfile.

OOohhhh.

oj

"EightNineThree" <eightninethree (AT) REMOVEeightninethree (DOT) com> wrote

"OJ" <orljustin (AT) aol (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:77d3a68b.0309090954.7b824091 (AT) posting (DOT) google.com...
"EightNineThree" <eightninethree (AT) REMOVEeightninethree (DOT) com> wrote in
message news:<bjj6tg$n6l$1 (AT) ngspool-d02 (DOT) news.aol.com>...
"SoloCDM" <deedsmis (AT) aculink (DOT) net> wrote in message
news:3F5D18EB.1050002 (AT) aculink (DOT) net...
How do I keep my entire web page at a fixed width?

Why would you want to do that?

Why can't you answer peoples questions without preaching to them? You
don't know either the context or the application.

If you don't know the answer, stay out.


Congratulations, you've just won the "dickhead of the week" contest.
Welcome to my killfile.

Hi,

Won't you miss that award on your wall for this week?

oj