How to autosize your website

Question

Does DW8 have an autosize or autostrecth function , where it
will allways resize the webpage regardless of the screen resolution
, I am aware that 800,600 and 1024,768 are the most common , I only
need to autosize between these two resolutions, do I need to design
in 800,600.?.
Thanks.

Answer 1

> I thinks these debates comes in the same category as
late night talks
> about the universe :)
I would agree. ;o)
> *My* preferred viewport. What's the difference between
*my* preferred
> resolution and preferred viewport. They are both
completely
> unpredictable... or what?
They are both unpredictable, but theres much more data on
'average' screen
resolutions than viewport sizes. So many people like to grasp
that as a
viable statistic and then use that as their reasoning behind
designing to a
specific size.
>Wouldn't you agree that 99% of all page would look crap
at 680x420 (or
>something like that... I don't have that on my display)
but most pages
>looks OK at 800/1024... but a bit small at larger
resolutions. How do you
>define that in viewports? Don't we need a fixpoint such
as resolution?
You're falling for the same gap in logic as most folks do.
All screen resolution can tell us is what the probable
(though not
necessarily actual) upper limit is.
It doesn't tell us:
- if they are browsing fully maximized
- if they have a side panel open
- how many toolbars they have
Yes, a high percentage of people DO browse fully maximized,
so there is some
argument for using screen resolution stats. But what's often
more important
is the ones that aren't average.
Maybe 80% of your site visitors are hitting it with a 1080
monitor. Let's
assume 80% of those browser fully maximized without panels or
toolbars.
So then we use that as our argument for making the web site
1000 pixels
wide.
However, in doing so, we just written off the other 36% of
the audience.
Which is a rather big chunk. It also doesn't take into
consideration that a
lot of the customers may be icnreasngly using small monitors
as much as
large monitors (PDAs, Blackberries, etc.) (Side note...anyone
know if web
stats apps can properly track screen stats from those types
of devices?)
The bottom line: all it ever is is a guess. And the amount of
tangible data
that looking at screen resolutions can bring isn't worth a
whole lot. The
problem is that people put way too much weight on that stat.
So, I say, design what you think is best, but err on the side
of too narrow
if you have to have a fixed-width site.
I suppose I need to rethink my philosophy on that a bit. I
guess I'd
prioritize it as such:
- Design a fluid layout if you can. Optimize it for what you
feel is a good
average size.
- If you can't do fluid:
- design it 750 pixels or less as it's best to err on the
side of too
narrow than too wide. UNLESS:
- you have concrete reasons to purposely make the site even
wider
from a usability standpoint
for your audience that outweighs the usability problems that
those using smaller viewports
will encounter
ALAP didn't have much of a tangible reason for making their
site that wide.
In fact, I made a greasemonkey script to return it to a
decent fluid-width
layout and the site still works just fine.
-Darrel