Widescreen-specific Designs?

As 16:9 widescreens become more common, are there any designs which
are specifically created to somehow exploit any advantages offered by
letterbox dimensions?

How to remain backwards-compatible with 4:9 aspect ratios, in a visual/
aesthetic sense, while exploting the particular advantages of a wide
canvas?

I did see a "16:9 design" from csszengarden.com featured in the book
"Web Standards Creativity," but on a regular 4:9 screen it caused
unsightly horizontal scroll bars to appear.

I mean, sure, current 4:9-optimized designs can use CSS to fill up the
screen horizontally, but I do feel that something none too sublte is
lost that way.

So what I'm wondering is two-fold: what 16:9 web design might look
like, and whether there's any way to provide for a "visual backwards
compatibility" with 4:9 screens.


TIA!

In article
<a535c321-4368-4971-a8d1-dd8bf0306ecd (AT) j22g2000hsf (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
Prisoner at War <prisoner_at_war (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

So what I'm wondering is two-fold: what 16:9 web design might look
like, and whether there's any way to provide for a "visual backwards
compatibility" with 4:9 screens.

<http://tinyurl.com/6fnfon>

is backwards, forwards, upside-down and inside-out compatible with
different screens. Next question?

--
dorayme

On Jul 21, 11:06*am, dorayme <doraymeRidT... (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:

In article
a535c321-4368-4971-a8d1-dd8bf0306... (AT) j22g2000hsf (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
*Prisoner at War <prisoner_at_... (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

So what I'm wondering is two-fold: what 16:9 web design might look
like, and whether there's any way to provide for a "visual backwards
compatibility" with 4:9 screens.

http://tinyurl.com/6fnfon

is backwards, forwards, upside-down and inside-out compatible with
different screens. Next question?

--
dorayme

Dorayme,

Pls send me the full url of the page, as tinyurl is blocked at my
workplace.

Jagadees

In article
<a34427e3-b692-4a30-a6ec-02c37831ae8b (AT) p31g2000prf (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
jagadees <jagadeeswaranster (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

On Jul 21, 11:06*am, dorayme <doraymeRidT... (AT) optusnet (DOT) com.au> wrote:
In article
a535c321-4368-4971-a8d1-dd8bf0306... (AT) j22g2000hsf (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
*Prisoner at War <prisoner_at_... (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

So what I'm wondering is two-fold: what 16:9 web design might look
like, and whether there's any way to provide for a "visual backwards
compatibility" with 4:9 screens.

http://tinyurl.com/6fnfon

is backwards, forwards, upside-down and inside-out compatible with
different screens. Next question?

--
dorayme

Dorayme,

Pls send me the full url of the page, as tinyurl is blocked at my
workplace.

OK here goes... but Gus will be cross with me as my newsreader might
break it up:

<http://netweaver.com.au/alt/thumbnailGalleryWithShortCaptions/thumbPortr
aitGallery7.html>

If you have trouble, it is

http://netweaver.com.au/alt/

and look for the folder

thumbnailGalleryWithShortCaptions

and then in that folder look for any of the three html files.

--
dorayme

On 2008-07-21, Prisoner at War wrote:

As 16:9 widescreens become more common, are there any designs which
are specifically created to somehow exploit any advantages offered by
letterbox dimensions?

How to remain backwards-compatible with 4:9 aspect ratios, in a visual/
aesthetic sense, while exploting the particular advantages of a wide
canvas?

4:9? Don't you mean 4:3?

I did see a "16:9 design" from csszengarden.com featured in the book
"Web Standards Creativity," but on a regular 4:9 screen it caused
unsightly horizontal scroll bars to appear.

I mean, sure, current 4:9-optimized designs can use CSS to fill up the
screen horizontally, but I do feel that something none too sublte is
lost that way.

The montior's aspect ratio has no relevance to designing a web
page. The browser window cam still be any size and shape.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
================================================== =================
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

Prisoner at War wrote:

As 16:9 widescreens become more common, are there any designs which
are specifically created to somehow exploit any advantages offered by
letterbox dimensions?

How to remain backwards-compatible with 4:9 aspect ratios, in a visual/
aesthetic sense, while exploting the particular advantages of a wide
canvas?

Standard Aspect Ratio is 4:3.

To my thinking, AR (nor screen size) has little to do with Web page
design. If you have a fluid design a user can stretch or contract his
browser at will regardless of AR, screen size, or even how many displays
he has.

If you were to design, for instance, a page that /required/ a 16:9 AR
you're forcing everyone else to horizontally scroll. Not a good idea.

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
A pair of jumper cables walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'll
serve you, but don't start anything."

On 2008-08-19, Joseph Brenner wrote:

Joseph Brenner <doom (AT) kzsu (DOT) stanford.edu> writes:
....
But the
trouble with that is everyone else is designing with an
assumption of relatively wide screens and maximized browser
windows (e.g. a column of navigation controls on the left,
additional content in side bars on the right): that puts
pressure on users to use wide browser windows, which means that
if you *don't* do something control the margins of the text,
they're going to be hit with excessively long lines by default.

Nope. The better web designers make no such assumptions. They
write pages that will work in narrow or wide windows.

Myself, I often use silly compromises like wrapping the text in
tables that are defined as 60-80% of the screen width -- but
what I really want is to be able to specify an absolute limit on
line-length but to let the minimum line width remain undefined.

Ah... "max-width" in CSS:

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/visudet.html#min-max-widths

I was just, once again, trying to decide if there was any real
point in switching to CSS for layout, and as far as I'm concerened
that looks like the killer app.

Funny that none of the CSS advocacy rants I've been reading think
to mention it.

Try reading the advice posts rather than the rants; it has been
mentioned in many places.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
================================================== =================
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

A possibly related question that I've been wondering about again
lately: is there any standard-compliant way of specifying a limit
on line lengths that still allows lines to wrap to narrower
screens if need be?

Everyone knows that text is easier to read if the lines aren't
too long (hence multi-column magazine layouts and so on); and
everyone (hopefully) knows that it's a bad idea to specify an
absolute line length on the web, since you don't know anything
about the physical characteristics of the user's display.

So, should we do web 1.0 compliant designs and let the width of
the browser window control the length of the lines? But the
trouble with that is everyone else is designing with an
assumption of relatively wide screens and maximized browser
windows (e.g. a column of navigation controls on the left,
additional content in side bars on the right): that puts
pressure on users to use wide browser windows, which means that
if you *don't* do something control the margins of the text,
they're going to be hit with excessively long lines by default.

Myself, I often use silly compromises like wrapping the text in
tables that are defined as 60-80% of the screen width -- but
what I really want is to be able to specify an absolute limit on
line-length but to let the minimum line width remain undefined.

Joseph Brenner <doom (AT) kzsu (DOT) stanford.edu> writes:

A possibly related question that I've been wondering about again
lately: is there any standard-compliant way of specifying a limit
on line lengths that still allows lines to wrap to narrower
screens if need be?

Everyone knows that text is easier to read if the lines aren't
too long (hence multi-column magazine layouts and so on); and
everyone (hopefully) knows that it's a bad idea to specify an
absolute line length on the web, since you don't know anything
about the physical characteristics of the user's display.

So, should we do web 1.0 compliant designs and let the width of
the browser window control the length of the lines? But the
trouble with that is everyone else is designing with an
assumption of relatively wide screens and maximized browser
windows (e.g. a column of navigation controls on the left,
additional content in side bars on the right): that puts
pressure on users to use wide browser windows, which means that
if you *don't* do something control the margins of the text,
they're going to be hit with excessively long lines by default.

Myself, I often use silly compromises like wrapping the text in
tables that are defined as 60-80% of the screen width -- but
what I really want is to be able to specify an absolute limit on
line-length but to let the minimum line width remain undefined.

Ah... "max-width" in CSS:

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/visudet.html#min-max-widths

I was just, once again, trying to decide if there was any real
point in switching to CSS for layout, and as far as I'm concerened
that looks like the killer app.

Funny that none of the CSS advocacy rants I've been reading think
to mention it.