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Old 06-26-2007, 11:53 PM
ackerley1 ackerley1 is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Canada
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Default Fixed or Variable Width Layouts

I have been designing most of my sites around a fixed 750 to 780px centered layout and lately I have had 3 clients strongly question why it was that way and why they could not utilize the full screen. My best efforts to explain the various resolutions and screen sizes and trying to make it compatible across all platforms was the reason behind it. They show me sites like Beaches Caribbean Family Resorts - All-Inclusive Caribbean Vacation that span the whole screen and I show them sites like MSN.com. I also show to them sites like ESPN: The Worldwide Leader In Sports and Yahoo! who appear to disregard low res settings and layout their pages for widths around 900 to a 1000px (catering to the large 1024x768 res users). None of them seem to care, they just want their screen to be filled with stuff.

So I guess I am stuck on what methods to use to resolve such issues. I have had little success with full spanning sites and like the control of the fixed width layout, but should I abandon the 800 px constraint and use the 1024 instead?

Is there a good and simple way to create variable width sites without it looking like crap on extremely low or extremely high res settings?

some examples. Travel Belize - Xanadu Island Resort, Ambergris Caye, Massage, Mobile Massage, Calgary Massage Therapy, Calgary, Swedish Relaxation Massage, Massage Therapy.

Any insight?

Rob
PS Don't look at my signature link... outdated and relatively abandoned
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Rob Ackerley
Sovereign Web Design
www.sovereignwebdesign.com
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