[thelist] 1024-768 V 800-600

[aardvark]

> From: "Timothy J. Luoma" <luomat at operamail.com>
[...]
> > Is it worth building two versions of a same site and run a detect
> > script and refer the vistor accordingly to either 1024-768 V 800-600
> > or is there a better solution out there to overcome differences in
> > individual browser settings?
>
> Your detect script would at best only be able to tell you what size
> monitor the user had, which is not necessarily the same thing as the
> size of the browser window.

in fact, the larger your screen resolution, the more the correlation
between window size and screen size drops... users seem to open their
windows to more than not-quite-1000x~900 on higher resolutions...

of course, you can do some of this research on your own with a little
bit of JS and server-side scripting:

Real-World Browser Size Stats, Part I
http://evolt.org/screen_stats_1

> The best solution is using a fluid layout that can adapt itself to the
> size of the window.  Running two different versions of the same site
> is just bound to cause problems, and at least one will always be out
> of date (at worst they will get out of sync).

i agree... maintaining two versions of a site, even if only by having
two sets of templates, is an unecessary waste of your
employer's/client's resources... it will get harder and harder to
maintain over time...

i'd suggest taking a few minutes to read through this:

Liquid Design for the Web
http://evolt.org/liquid_design

--
my latest book project:
  Web Graphics for Non-Designers
  http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904151159/evoltorg02-20
  ISBN: 1904151159