I know this has been asked but Im looking for a specific answer!

 

Basically Im working on a pano project website. Ive been designing for a width of 1024 (cant recall the height) and on my monitor all is well....But Im afraid this aint going to be the case for those people with smaller monitors!

 

I need to know what Width and Height I need so that It will look good on all monitors or what other options do I have so maybe it can detect if its a small monitor and load a small version, etc.

 

Client has said they dont want any scroll bars at all...so Im thinking when someone loads this on a small monitor its going to be awfull as currently its width is 1024!!

 

On my monitor all is well, but Ive tested it on my parents smaller monitor(800x600 I think) and I have to scroll downwards and horizontally......

 

What width and height to use?

Is there any method people use to detect screen size?

yes, but as far as i'm aware none work 100% and w3c guidliness reccomend against this.

 

In the ideal world your client would accept horzontal scrolling, but it's not, my suggestion would be to... reduce your screen res, rough design to suit and show to your customer. That ways youv'e adheard to their wishes and can discuss the various options with them.

Client has said they dont want any scroll bars at all...so Im thinking when someone loads this on a small monitor its going to be awfull as currently its width is 1024!!

Then you need to educate your client as to how web pages and web browsers work. You cannot avoid vertical scrolling period, that's a fact of life.

 

With horizontal scrolling you have a choice as to whether to use a fixed with within 1024px - if you do choose 1024 the majority of people will see the pages with no horizontal scrolling, but anyone using a lower resolution or with a non maximised broswer window will get sideways scrolling.

 

You could also look into using min-width and max width values in your CSS, needs a hack for IE6 though.

I don't think that many people use 800 by 600 pixel monitors anymore, so a horizontal scroll for that resolution is acceptable. My site is approximately 950 pixels wide and I still have a good inch on either side of the browser window on a 12 inch laptop with vista sidebar enabled. Though if I have the bookmark window open there's a minute scroll to it. I recently viewed it on an Acer aspire one, which has a horizontal resolution of 1024 and it still had a little bit of air to either side. So I would keep it between 900 and 1000 pixels to allow for any vertical scrollbars or sidebars.

If you're set on making it work in every conceivable browser size your options are:

1) Educate your client to the realities of he web.

2) Use Javascript to detect the resolution and load conditional stylesheets that work for different screen sizes. Only issue here is it detects the screen resolution, but not the browser window size.

 

960px is a good size that works well with 1024 window size and above.

If a website's width is bigger than the viewers resolution such as 800x600 it may be an idea if you create columns to make less important information on the right column and the left side is say 800 wide or less. Less and less people are using 800 x 600.

why don't you just make it stretch itself according to browser size, that's what i do with all of my websites

Hi

I have just had to get my sons friends laptop online, it was a advent laptop prob about €300 the screen is tiny, once i set up the internet i surfed to make sure all ok, so looked at my sites and was very hard to navigate both across and down.

 

laptops are getting very cheap but they are getting smaller, depending on your market, if the site was aimed at children then one could asume children may may be using these cheap end, small monitor laptops.

 

I am going to start to make my own sites around 840 width

 

just my opinion

 

pete

950px is a good width, thought it may be too small for someone like me with a 22" monitor, it works best on ALL!

I always use 900px as a good baseline width and depending on the requirements of the client, maybe increase that to 100% width on projects that require it.

You cannot avoid vertical scrolling period, that's a fact of life.

 

Actually you can.

 

If you design for the lowest resolution as possible at a fixed width, but I wouldn't recommend doing that.

 

It's best to just code for 1024x768.

if it works on your screen, its pretty much gunna be the same on a small monitor just a small version, unless you have for example a footer with a image, and the image has text, you have to allow the image to move with the size of the browser otherwise when people with small monitors view it , itll be there but out of view.

Looking at my stats, it seems that 95% of people are using 1024px and above. I used to design my sites at 750px fixed, then fluid width. I have now decided to design all sites at no less than 960px.

I agree with those who suggest 960px. These 'fluid' layouts are going out in my opinion - and they're difficult to code.

 

As mentioned above, putting less important information in the parts that will be out of view for the minority still with 800x600 is a great idea, and if your client is really this clueless, they most likely won't even notice that it doesn't fit on smaller screens.

 

I think educating them is a great idea too – or telling them that you simply refuse to design a website at 800px when it's for the absolute minority.

 

Ed.

i totally agree on this i usually code with around 940px in mind, but the company i work for i always seem to get the kind of customers who have old machines using ie6 and smaller monitors, so i take the time to sit them down and just explain to them in layman's terms and always good to show them some stats etc, especially when it comes to things like browsers and screen sizes etc.

 

at least then they walk out of the meeting understanding why its better to implement something in that format.