[thelist] resizing in browswer

[Megan Holbrook]

Simon Coggins wrote:
> 
> If you find the paragraphs too wide, why not just browse with a smaller
> window? The point is, at high resolutions you at least have the choice how
> wide to make your windows, but users with low res screens can't increase
> their screen width, and there is *nothing* more annoying than horizontal
> scrolling.
> 

Actually, I'd argue that having to change my browser size each time to
be able to read the text properly is *just* as annoying as horizontal
scrolling. When I have my browser open to full screen, I can then see as
much as possible vertically - this helps with reading quickly screen by
screen. 

> If you are going to use fixed width tables, going above around 576 pixels
> (once you include browser chrome) is going to cause problems for some
> people. This is a bit inflexible in most cases, so liquid tables become
> the best option.

I forget what the screen resolution statistics are at this point, but
640x480 users are increasingly rare (I'm not including Web TV users,
which we tend to see as an entirely different design issue). For sites
that we design that are over the 570 limit (at this point I believe we
tend to design mostly for 800x600 because of information display needs),
we tend to place information in a way that sets off the least important
information in a column on the right side of the screen. 

> 
> In my opinion, liquid tables with liquid margins are the best
> compromise. Something like a 2:6:1 ratio between left margin, content
> and right margin works pretty well at all widths.

As long as information is grouped properly, text columns are readable,
buttons don't fan out in disconnected, widely-space rows, I don't mind
liquid tables. But I'd really love to see some sites that do this
properly. Any suggestions? 

Even a site promoting liquid tables that was mentioned in the evolt
article (http://www.digital-web.com/tutorials/tutorial_1999-10.shtml) I
think has some serious flaws - the top navigation is spread out, the
main content table loads all at once rather than progressively because
it's all in a table, etc. I much prefer the layout of another site
mentioned in the article which limits the overall table width to 640
(http://www.digitalthread.com/ - though the font size is waaay too
small). 

M.
> 
> Simon
> 
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