screen resolution solutions

[salmobytes]

I try to do all css with percents and ems (elastic/liquid)
so my displays look as much the same as possible,
regardless the user's screen resolution. But I (still)
never seem to get what I want. Compromises seem
to lurk at every moment.

==========Static html
for instance:
font-size: 10px; /* looks drastically different at 768 wide
compared to 1024 */
font-size: x-small; /* better than above, but seldom what I want */
font-size: 80%; /* I'm not sure what this does.....% is
percent of what?
Regardless the answer, this seems
to produce
badly pixelated fonts in some
browsers */

images are really trouble. A 700 pixel wide image that looks great
at
high resolution bombs the layout at 768 pixels wide.
With hand-typed html there is no happy solution. You have to make
lowest common denominator compromises, whether you like it or not.
========= Dynamic Html
However, If your html is generated dynamically, maybe the right thing
to do
is to make a "resolution selection menu" somewhere on each page--and
then
to keep track of state with sessions or cookies or both. Then you
could write
custom css for the 2-3 most common screen sizes.....and choose image
paths
from 2-3 differently sized image bins. Then you could make screens
that look
good all the way up from 800x600 up (800 wide still has 15% market
share).

This seems like such an obvious idea I'm surprised I don't ever see
it.
Does anybody know of any major or well-done sites that do this?
Or CMS systems that offer that feature?

......I may have to try adding this to my own little microCMS
I must be missing something obvious.......

[Harlan Messinger]

salmobytes wrote:

I try to do all css with percents and ems (elastic/liquid)
so my displays look as much the same as possible,
regardless the user's screen resolution. But I (still)
never seem to get what I want. Compromises seem
to lurk at every moment.

==========Static html
for instance:
font-size: 10px; /* looks drastically different at 768 wide
compared to 1024 */
font-size: x-small; /* better than above, but seldom what I want */

I thought you said you try to do all CSS with percents and ems.

font-size: 80%; /* I'm not sure what this does.....% is
percent of what?

80% of the font size established for the containing element.

Regardless the answer, this seems
to produce
badly pixelated fonts in some
browsers */

You're missing the point.

body { font-size: 100%; }

states affirmatively that the text should appear in the font that the
user has by default set his browser to use as the default body text font
size. If you want footnotes or sidebars to have slightly smaller text,

.footnote { font-size: 90%; }

And so forth. If the user wants a different font size, then instead of
first having to notice and then having to use whatever mechanism you
might offer that only has an effect on your site, the user can use the
same mechanism built into his browser that he uses wherever he goes on
the Web.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit salmobytes:

I try to do all css with percents and ems (elastic/liquid)
so my displays look as much the same as possible,
regardless the user's screen resolution.

You're kidding, right?

font-size: 10px; /* looks drastically different at 768 wide
compared to 1024 */
font-size: x-small; /* better than above, but seldom what I want */
font-size: 80%; /* I'm not sure what this does.....% is
percent of what?

Does "salmo" in your nickname refer to /Salmo salaris/, a noble fish for
trolling?

A 700 pixel wide image that looks great at
high resolution bombs the layout at 768 pixels wide.

Did you ever consider starting to read an introduction to the first
principles of the basics of web authoring?

However, If your html is generated dynamically, maybe the right thing
to do
is to make a "resolution selection menu" somewhere on each page--and

Sorry, now you're just boring. There's no fun in just repeating old very
stupid ideas without inventing any new foolishness.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Ben C]

On 2008-01-17, salmobytes <Sa***************@gmail.comwrote:

I try to do all css with percents and ems (elastic/liquid)
so my displays look as much the same as possible,
regardless the user's screen resolution. But I (still)
never seem to get what I want. Compromises seem
to lurk at every moment.

It depends on the design. Something that works at all viewport and font
sizes within reason is ideal, but I realize that may not always be
possible.

[...]

However, If your html is generated dynamically, maybe the right thing
to do is to make a "resolution selection menu" somewhere on each
page--and then to keep track of state with sessions or cookies or
both. Then you could write custom css for the 2-3 most common screen
sizes.....and choose image paths from 2-3 differently sized image
bins. Then you could make screens that look good all the way up from
800x600 up (800 wide still has 15% market share).

This seems like such an obvious idea I'm surprised I don't ever see
it. Does anybody know of any major or well-done sites that do this?

http://www.yahoo.co.uk is one. Go to "Page Options" over on the right.
You can choose "narrow" or "wide" layout (as well as your choice of
pastel colour scheme).

It switches in and out different stylesheets and may do other things
besides.

I think it also tries to detect your viewport size when you first visit
the page to decide whether to give you wide or narrow to start off with.

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

salmobytes wrote:

I try to do all css with percents and ems (elastic/liquid)

(but you didn't...)

so my displays look as much the same as possible, regardless the
user's screen resolution.

Read and heed:
http://k75s.home.att.net/fontsize.html

But I (still) never seem to get what I want. Compromises seem to lurk
at every moment.

How will it look on my mobile phone? My PDA? My text only browser?

Why "what you want?" Think of your visitors.

--
-bts
-The World Wide Web is not paper

[salmobytes]

On Jan 17, 12:09 pm, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<[e-mail]:

>
Read and heed:http://k75s.home.att.net/fontsize.html

Good page(s), thank you. Yes, avoiding Verdana and using font-size as
a percent seems to come closest to ideal. font-size: 85% for
footnotes
and auxilliary links, etc. seems to look OK in Firefox and IE, but
often pixelated
in Safari. Thanks to who ever it was for the yahoo, custom css
links. I think I'll start to work towards pages that work that way.
Almost everything I write is generated from code anyway, so adding
user customization menus (chooseable css) is practical in that
context.

REhand held devices. Yes, the web will always
involve compromise. I'm *trying to learn* how to minimize the
compromises.
I get a lot of good info here, along with the chaffe.

And yes, salmo does refer to that noble salmo family:
salmo trutta
salmo salar, etc.
I'd post a link to my (home-rolled, fishing related) website.
But I'm too tired to deal with the inevitable snipers right now.

What you see on 800 pixel-wide screens is so vastly different
than at 1024 I think you have to do offer some display choices.
Somehow, someway. Hey ney oh wey.

[Harlan Messinger]

salmobytes wrote:

What you see on 800 pixel-wide screens is so vastly different
than at 1024 I think you have to do offer some display choices.
Somehow, someway. Hey ney oh wey.

You have to? Even though almost no website does, and yet the world keeps
spinning?

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Harlan Messinger:

salmobytes wrote:

>What you see on 800 pixel-wide screens is so vastly different
than at 1024 I think you have to do offer some display choices.
Somehow, someway. Hey ney oh wey.

You have to? Even though almost no website does, and yet the world
keeps spinning?

Well, "salmobytes" already showed that he or she has little clue of what
web authoring is. He or she would probably get mad if he or she realized
that there are are other resolutions, too, far smaller and far larger
than the "both resolutions" he or she is designing for, especially when
we consider the resolution of the window (or canvas) - which matters -
and not the screen.

But "salmobytes" was probably just trolling.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[salmobytes]

On Jan 18, 2:59 am, "Jukka K. Korpela" <[e-mail]:

But "salmobytes" was probably just trolling.

Perhaps I should have said:
"I was having trouble with a complex, multi-panel site
....that I was able to get looking just fine at high res,
but not at low res."

Not all layouts are so tricky.
And no, I wasn't trolling.
I bit your little insult lure.
So perhaps you were.

The world is hopeless. Too many jerks worldwide.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit salmobytes:

>But "salmobytes" was probably just trolling.

Perhaps I should have said:
"I was having trouble with a complex, multi-panel site
...that I was able to get looking just fine at high res,
but not at low res."

Perhaps you should stop inventing new ideas for trolling. Everyone and
his brother can see that you are just making things up as you go. This
is evident from your URL (that is, lack of it).

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Ben C]

On 2008-01-18, Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:

Scripsit salmobytes:

>>But "salmobytes" was probably just trolling.

Perhaps I should have said:
"I was having trouble with a complex, multi-panel site
...that I was able to get looking just fine at high res,
but not at low res."

Perhaps you should stop inventing new ideas for trolling. Everyone and
his brother can see that you are just making things up as you go.
This is evident from your URL (that is, lack of it).

Why was a URL necessary? Salmobytes was asking if anyone knew of any
major or well-done sites that switch between alternative fixed-width
layouts. I don't see how that question would be better illustrated with
the help of a URL.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Ben C:

Why was a URL necessary? Salmobytes was asking if anyone knew of any
major or well-done sites that switch between alternative fixed-width
layouts. I don't see how that question would be better illustrated
with the help of a URL.

If it had been a serious question, surely he or she would have told the
reasons and illustrated it with the URL of his or her current design,
demonstrating how it fails to work at different resolutions.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Ben C]

On 2008-01-18, Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:

Scripsit Ben C:

>Why was a URL necessary? Salmobytes was asking if anyone knew of any
major or well-done sites that switch between alternative fixed-width
layouts. I don't see how that question would be better illustrated
with the help of a URL.

If it had been a serious question, surely he or she would have told the
reasons and illustrated it with the URL of his or her current design,
demonstrating how it fails to work at different resolutions.

Rubbish. He or she might not even have a current design. It's still a
perfectly reasonable question without a URL.

[dorayme]

In article
<0f**********************************@s8g2000prg.g ooglegroups.com

>,

salmobytes <Sa***************@gmail.comwrote:

That's one reason why I started
thinking about dynamic css.
http://wage.cns.montana.edu

This breaks horribly. I think you should not think any more for a
while about anything dynamic. Calm right down and be happier with
less. Your users will thank you.

--
dorayme

[Andy Dingley]

On 18 Jan, 22:12, salmobytes <[e-mail]:

Hans Weilenmann has a nice site where he displays the best
sharp-focus, high-detail close-up photos (of trout flies)

URL? It's not obviously Googleable (HW is evidently well known for
his work, but less so for his own site)

But because 60% of all users view from 17"
monitors at 768 pixels wide,

It's several years since that has been even approximately true.

power users who have 1024 pixels wide or better.

These days it's hard to find a non-power user who doesn't have at
least that resolution even vertically.

A better (more intelligent) web-solution would provide some kind
of a mode-toggle switch on each page,

No, this is terrible. Long experience of it for years now has taught
us this.

That's one reason why I started
thinking about dynamic css.
http://wage.cns.montana.edu

That's a ghastly page. It's particularly bad on a FF window under
890px wide.

[salmobytes]

On Jan 19, 1:53 am, "Jukka K. Korpela" <[e-mail]:

And you expect to do this in CSS? Consider reading an introductory
tutorial on the elements of basics of getting started with WWW
authoring.

No, you can't swap images with css.
But if you were swapping image sizes, based on a mode switch,
you would also have an opportunity to change the css too,
so it was custom tailored for low resolution or high resolution.

Yahoo (as someone else pointed out) does this. I will give it a try.
You seem to be a pigeon-hole thinker. Cs attracts lots of those,
for some reason. Even in Finland, apparently.

[Harlan Messinger]

salmobytes wrote:

On Jan 21, 2:49 am, Andy Dingley <[e-mail]:

Hans Weilenmann has a nice site where he displays the best
sharp-focus, high-detail close-up photos (of trout flies)

URL? It's not obviously Googleable (HW is evidently well known for
his work, but less so for his own site)

http://www.danica.com/flytier/

Hans' "large" images are only 600 pixels wide--he's trying to
accomodate everybody.
Closeup images of flies look a heck of a lot better at 700 pixels
wide.
On high resolution monitors with high-speed connections, 800 pixels
is spectacular, by comparison. Trying to serve everybody all at once
with 600 pixels wide is an annoying compromise.

>>But because 60% of all users view from 17"
monitors at 768 pixels wide,

768 has never been a screen width in pixels. It's a height in some
resolutions.

>It's several years since that has been even approximately true.

Not according to w3c They currently show 54%
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

W3Schools is not the W3C, the information shown is a year out of date,
and who knows how they're compiling it?

[Michael Stemper]

In article <62**********************************@i12g2000prf. googlegroups.com>, salmobytes writes:

>On Jan 21, 2:49 am, Andy Dingley <[e-mail]:

But because 60% of all users view from 17"
monitors at 768 pixels wide,

It's several years since that has been even approximately true.

Not according to w3c They currently show 54%
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

Point one: "w3schools" is not in any way affiliated with the w3c.
Point two: Even their page shows 54% for 1024x768, which is 1024
pixels wide, as well as 26% for higher. That means at least 80%
of everybody has a monitor that shows at least 1024 pixels wide.
This ignores the 6% listed as "Unknown".

My first PC, purchased in 1992, had a 1024x1280 monitor, and I'm
far from being a "power user", so it's not suprising that, over
fifteen years later, most people are running with equipment at
least as good as what I had then.

On the other hand, this is monitor width. Don't get tricked into
thinking that this equates to canvas width. Between not running
browsers maximized, browser chrome, various sidebars, there's no
way of knowing how many pixels you have available.

>That's a ghastly page. It's particularly bad on a FF window under
890px wide.

>I had that site looking OK at high resolution, but it was (as you
said) ghastly at low resolution.

Nothing was said about "resolution". The reference was to the width
of the FF window.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him talk like Mr. Ed
by rubbing peanut butter on his gums.

[Michael Stemper]

In article <20*************************@walkabout.empros.com> , Michael Stemper writes:

<brain fart>

>My first PC, purchased in 1992, had a 1024x1280 monitor,

That should have said "1280x1024".

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him talk like Mr. Ed
by rubbing peanut butter on his gums.

[salmobytes]

On Jan 22, 11:13 am, Jeff <jeff@spam_me_not.comwrote:

thanks, that *was* helpful.

I have a pretty thick skin, most of the time.
I know If I ask a question on usenet a stream of poison will
inevitably result,
punctuated by occasional civility.

Oddly, or perhaps interestingly, I often see the same sort of poison
attached to the
same well-known names on multiple groups. Some people just can't get
enough.
For most of this threads responders (not you) here's a link that might
help:
http://www.excaliburcutlery.com/rubi...FQNCgwodmis9GQ

It'll be a while before I return.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit salmobytes:

On Jan 19, 1:53 am, "Jukka K. Korpela" <[e-mail]:

>And you expect to do this in CSS? Consider reading an introductory
tutorial on the elements of basics of getting started with WWW
authoring.

No, you can't swap images with css.

What makes you think you cannot? Perhaps the fact that you didn't take
my advice that you quoted above.

_You_ were babbling about "mode-toggle switch" in a group devoted to the
use of CSS in WWW authoring. That's something you cannot do in CSS, as
you would surely know if you read an introductory tutorial on the
elements of basics of getting started with WWW authoring.

(There are several ways to "swap images with css" in some sense, e.g.
positioning two images in the same position and using z-index and
:hover.)

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Andy Dingley]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:12:00 -0800 (PST), salmobytes
<Sa***************@gmail.comwrote:

>Not according to w3c They currently show 54%
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

They have nothing to do with the W3C

Or reality.

[Jeff]

Andy Dingley wrote:

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:12:00 -0800 (PST), salmobytes
<Sa***************@gmail.comwrote:

>Not according to w3c They currently show 54%
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

They have nothing to do with the W3C

Or reality.

There was a time when people said the same thing about the W3C.

Jeff

[Andy Dingley]

On 23 Jan, 01:20, Jeff <jeff@spam_me_not.comwrote:

They have nothing to do with the W3C

Or reality.

There was a time when people said the same thing about the W3C.

We've told you before about reading that HTML 5 draft! 8-)