skijor wrote:
For a page that display's a catalogue of items in table format. If
the number of rows extends below the view, in some browsers (safari,
firefox) the page shifts to the left a little bit. It's noticeable
when the user clicks back and forth between two similar pages with a
common header. One page whose rows all fit in the view and another
page with identical markup and a greater number of rows.
Gazing into my crystal ball I would say the cause is that the contents
of the page has been centered and when the contents extends below the
viewport browsers Firefox and Safari display a vertical scrollbar which
when introduced shifts the center of the page to the left thereby
shifting the contents. IE always shows a vertical scrollbar whether on
not it is needed so you see no shift.
The user is
always free to use the browser scroll bar to view the hidden rows.
What is the generally preferred way to handle this? Would it be
better to split the page in two so that they both fit within view and
provide the links between the two. This would give a more anchored
look to the content that is common to both.
Well you are overlooking something very fundamental about the web. How
do you know what will fit in my browser window? You don't and you
cannot. So stop trying. You should break up pages in to digestible
chunks so that you don't have the infamous "Scroll-O-Death" pages. But
there are a couple of things to do.
Don't feel the need to "center" your page then it won't shift when a
scroll bar appears.
Don't make a page with fixed width and pixel placed elements then the
page will morph to fill the available space and shifting won't matter.
Lastly, do nothing. Who cares if the page slightly shifts when you
change pages. Most people are not going to flip back and forth just to
say, "Hey the page moves!"
--
Take care,
Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com 
