Resolution

I can see how that would make the column of text longer, Murray. But how
do you prevent it from getting wider than 450 to 500 pixels wide?

max-width

-Darrel

I have a 21" monitor set to display 1280 x 1024. I maximize my browser
window all the time.

Then you must be used to and/or comfortable with longer line-lengths.

Personally, the line-length debate on web sites is a bit of a red-herring
issue. There is no 'ideal' line length, though there's no arguing that very
short and/or very long lines can be an issue. However, no one reads THAT
much content online to really make this a major issue...at least not an
issue more important than other accessibility issues like resizable type.

-Darrel

Ironically enough, one of the sites that does nothing to control the
line length is useit.com :-) See, for example:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040706.html

You tend to see this sort of thing in blogs as well. Well, I haven't
looked at many blogs, but the ones I have seen do not make any effort to
keep line lengths within a comfortable range.

I suspect there is an aesthetic here under which you just dump all of
the information on the page and, in a magnanimous act of ceding control
to the viewer, expect him or her to resize their browser to the perfect
width for reading for *them*. This may seem like the best solution,
since any judgments you make about a reasonable line length won't work
for someone, but it I think the flaw is that a browser window is often
just one of an array of windows you may have open. If so, you've
probably got everything just the way you want it. Then you go to
useit.com and either suffer the long lines lengths or disrupt your
workspace.

I think it's better to constrain the lines to reasonable widths in the
design itself. The goal should be that the page just opens in the
browser and the window's dimensions relative to the content are not
something the viewer even thinks about.

--
James M. Shook
http://www.jshook.com