Centered CSS

[Jocab]

How can I center a page (that uses CSS) so that it has:
- maximum width of 1024
- minimum width of 800
Therefore it should be a liquid design. I haven't found any way in
doing this, not using tables. Yes, it can be done using one table, see
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/centering.html
but is there no way to do it without a table in strict XHTML?

I'm baffled :)

[Els]

Jocab wrote:

How can I center a page (that uses CSS) so that it has:
- maximum width of 1024
- minimum width of 800
Therefore it should be a liquid design. I haven't found any way in
doing this, not using tables. Yes, it can be done using one table, see
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/centering.html
but is there no way to do it without a table in strict XHTML?

I'm baffled :)

Do you want it vertically centered?
The table in abovementioned example is there only for the
vertical centering.
Horizontal centering isn't a problem with css.
Your maximum width of 1024 is your choice, but the minimum
width of 800 will given a scrollbar even in 800x600 screens.
Besides, a lot of people like have their browser windows
smaller than that, even if their screen is bigger.
So don't define a minimum width, unless you have to for some
layout reason, but then make it way less than 800.
--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Brian]

Jocab wrote:

How can I center a page (that uses CSS) so that it has:
- maximum width of 1024
- minimum width of 800
Therefore it should be a liquid design.

That's a strange definition of liquid design. How about designing for
any width?

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign

--
Brian (remove "invalid" from my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Lauri Raittila]

In article Jocab wrote:

How can I center a page (that uses CSS) so that it has:
- maximum width of 1024
- minimum width of 800
Hm. You mean the centered are will have those limits?

html {height:100%;display:table;min-width:800px;
max-width:1024px;margin:auto;}
body {display:table-cell;vertical-align:middle;}

Or something like that.

Does not work on IE, but that is probably irrelevant as you use XHTML,
but I don't see any reason for min/max widths in px unit I assumed from
your numbers.
Therefore it should be a liquid design.
No, it wont be. I practically never use 800px or wider browser window. No
problems, exept some idiots that think everybody has at least 800px wide
area in browser where their page would be rendered.

How about those people that use 1600*1200 resolution in their 17" box,
and also 25px normal font size?
I haven't found any way in doing this, not using tables.

I haven't found any reason to do that.

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Saapi lähettää meiliä, jos aihe ei liity ryhmään, tai on yksityinen
tjsp., mutta älä lähetä samaa viestiä meilitse ja ryhmään.

[Jocab]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:45:00 GMT, Brian
<us*****@julietremblay.com.invalid> wrote:

That's a strange definition of liquid design. How about designing for
any width?

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign

Well, let me be a little clearer. What I want is a page with a minimum
resolution of 800 pixels (this is just an example), centered, which
works in IE also. If the width were fixed at 800 px, then it won't be
a problem. But I would like it to have max-width hof let's say 1024 or
1280. Because I have a 1600 screen, and an 800 page looks silly in
such a resolution. Moreover, if I don't set a max (or fixed) width, on
1600 the page is waaaaaaaaay too large and it looks very ugly. Is my
reasoning wrong?

[Els]

Jocab wrote:

On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:45:00 GMT, Brian
<us*****@julietremblay.com.invalid> wrote:

That's a strange definition of liquid design. How about designing for
any width?

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign

Well, let me be a little clearer. What I want is a page with a minimum
resolution of 800 pixels (this is just an example), centered, which
works in IE also. If the width were fixed at 800 px, then it won't be
a problem. But I would like it to have max-width hof let's say 1024 or
1280. Because I have a 1600 screen, and an 800 page looks silly in
such a resolution. Moreover, if I don't set a max (or fixed) width, on
1600 the page is waaaaaaaaay too large and it looks very ugly. Is my
reasoning wrong?

not really, except for the minimum width :-)
Why don't you use a percentage for the left and right margins?
Let's say 10% on each side, container div of 80% in the
middle. See if that does what you want :-)
In addittion you can set a minimum width of let's say 600px,
but that won't work in IE.

--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Neal]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 08:10:03 GMT, Jocab <jo**@jo-nospam.com> wrote:

On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:45:00 GMT, Brian
<us*****@julietremblay.com.invalid> wrote:

That's a strange definition of liquid design. How about designing for
any width?

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign

Well, let me be a little clearer. What I want is a page with a minimum
resolution of 800 pixels (this is just an example), centered, which
works in IE also. If the width were fixed at 800 px, then it won't be
a problem. But I would like it to have max-width hof let's say 1024 or
1280. Because I have a 1600 screen, and an 800 page looks silly in
such a resolution. Moreover, if I don't set a max (or fixed) width, on
1600 the page is waaaaaaaaay too large and it looks very ugly. Is my
reasoning wrong?

Check out the page design at htmldog.com and tell me if it won't work in
all the viewport sizes you listed and then some.

[Jocab]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 03:49:36 -0500, Neal <ne*****@spamrcn.com> wrote:

Check out the page design at htmldog.com and tell me if it won't work in
all the viewport sizes you listed and then some.

Sure it does. But it has no minimum width. It looks nice in 1600*1200
but my site won't have that much content so won't look nice...

[Jocab]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:37:02 +0100, Els <el*********@tiscali.nl>
wrote:

not really, except for the minimum width :-)
Why don't you use a percentage for the left and right margins?
Let's say 10% on each side, container div of 80% in the
middle. See if that does what you want :-)
In addittion you can set a minimum width of let's say 600px,
but that won't work in IE.

Well wouldn't it be possible to have the left and right navs be fixed
(ie 200px). And the middle content relative? I don't think it is
possible.. I'm talking about a 3-column site, with a min-width of 800
and a max-widht of 1024, centered...

[Els]

Jocab wrote:

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:37:02 +0100, Els <el*********@tiscali.nl>
wrote:

not really, except for the minimum width :-)
Why don't you use a percentage for the left and right margins?
Let's say 10% on each side, container div of 80% in the
middle. See if that does what you want :-)
In addittion you can set a minimum width of let's say 600px,
but that won't work in IE.

Well wouldn't it be possible to have the left and right navs be fixed
(ie 200px). And the middle content relative? I don't think it is
possible..

I don't see why not?
You are talking about a centered page, in which the left and
righ columns have fixed width, and the middle stretches with
the width of the browser, and the total of the 3 together
are not allowed to exceed 1024px wide.

No problem at all, as long as you don't expect it to stop at
1024px wide in IE.
I'm talking about a 3-column site, with a min-width of 800
and a max-widht of 1024, centered...

Again, the min-width is unrealistic. Even 800x600 screens
can't show 800 wide without a scrollbar.

--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Jocab]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:26:56 +0100, Els <el*********@tiscali.nl>
wrote:

I don't see why not?
You are talking about a centered page, in which the left and
righ columns have fixed width, and the middle stretches with
the width of the browser, and the total of the 3 together
are not allowed to exceed 1024px wide.

No problem at all, as long as you don't expect it to stop at
1024px wide in IE.
Would you have an example which works? I haven't managed to do this
myself.
Again, the min-width is unrealistic. Even 800x600 screens
can't show 800 wide without a scrollbar.

The figures were just approximations. 750 will do too.

[Els]

Jocab wrote:

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:26:56 +0100, Els <el*********@tiscali.nl>
wrote:

I don't see why not?
You are talking about a centered page, in which the left and
righ columns have fixed width, and the middle stretches with
the width of the browser, and the total of the 3 together
are not allowed to exceed 1024px wide.

No problem at all, as long as you don't expect it to stop at
1024px wide in IE.

Would you have an example which works? I haven't managed to do this
myself.

http://home.tiscali.nl/~elizabeth/jocab.html

Again, the min-width is unrealistic. Even 800x600 screens
can't show 800 wide without a scrollbar.

The figures were just approximations. 750 will do too.

I made the above example min-width:600px and max-width:1024px.

hth

--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Jocab]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:56:47 +0100, Els <el*********@tiscali.nl>
wrote:

http://home.tiscali.nl/~elizabeth/jocab.html

Impressive, thanks. Will work a little on it :) Are there any hacks to
make it work on IE?

[Els]

Jocab wrote:

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:56:47 +0100, Els <el*********@tiscali.nl>
wrote:

http://home.tiscali.nl/~elizabeth/jocab.html

Impressive, thanks. Will work a little on it :) Are there any hacks to
make it work on IE?

Not that I know off, But you could give it a fixed width in
IE, using CSS hacks to avoid other browsers to read it, but
that would have to be a fixed width of less than 750px, and
I don't think you want over 90% of your viewers to see a
static width.

But why bother? Most people don't use 1600x1200 screens.
I have one myself, but I have it set at 1280x1024, cause it
looks better :-) (19inch)
And with two columns of 200px wide on each side, and a
margin in %, I don't think many people will find the text
too wide to read, and if so, they have encountered it
already in so many sites, that they will have become
cleverer than that, and narrowed down their browser window.

--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Lauri Raittila]

In article Els wrote:

Jocab wrote:

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:56:47 +0100, Els <el*********@tiscali.nl>
wrote:

http://home.tiscali.nl/~elizabeth/jocab.html
Impressive, thanks. Will work a little on it :) Are there any hacks to
make it work on IE?

I would rather call it elementary. Not becasue it is bad, but because it
is pretty simple.
Not that I know off, But you could give it a fixed width in
IE, using CSS hacks to avoid other browsers to read it, but
that would have to be a fixed width of less than 750px, and
I don't think you want over 90% of your viewers to see a
static width.
http://www.svendtofte.com/code/max_width_in_ie/
But why bother? Most people don't use 1600x1200 screens.
I have one myself, but I have it set at 1280x1024, cause it
looks better :-) (19inch)

I have done that because I have lousy graphics card. But I never run
browser fullscreen, not even on 800*600. I used browser on 800*600 for 2
years only making it fullscreen about twice a month.

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Saapi lähettää meiliä, jos aihe ei liity ryhmään, tai on yksityinen
tjsp., mutta älä lähetä samaa viestiä meilitse ja ryhmään.

[Lauri Raittila]

In article Jocab wrote:

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 03:49:36 -0500, Neal <ne*****@spamrcn.com> wrote:

Check out the page design at htmldog.com and tell me if it won't work in
all the viewport sizes you listed and then some.
Sure it does. But it has no minimum width.

That is becasue minimum width is hardly ever useful. In fact, it is most
often harmful. Google old posts by me, if you can't figure it out
yourself. You could for example try 400px wide window (on low res
screen), and then think again if min-width of 800px makes sence.
It looks nice in 1600*1200
but my site won't have that much content so won't look nice...

If your problem is not having content, it is not really good reason to
make it break down to hide that.
--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Saapi lähettää meiliä, jos aihe ei liity ryhmään, tai on yksityinen
tjsp., mutta älä lähetä samaa viestiä meilitse ja ryhmään.

[Brian]

Jocab wrote:

On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:45:00 GMT, Brian wrote:

That's a strange definition of liquid design. How about designing
for any width?

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign
Well, let me be a little clearer. What I want is a page with a
minimum resolution of 800 pixels (this is just an example),

[snip]
Actually, you were quite clear the first time. But setting widths for
content that does not require it (e.g., images) is a bad idea. And
setting widths for text content in pixels is a terrible idea.
Is my reasoning wrong?

In short, yes. Design for any size. See the link I provided.

--
Brian (remove "invalid" from my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Brian]

Jocab wrote:

wouldn't it be possible to have the left and right navs be fixed
(ie 200px). And the middle content relative?

Yes, it's possible. And what happens when the content of the navs
doesn't fit in a 200px wide container? Flexible design means you avoid
having your page fall apart in browsing situations outside of the one
you imagine is common.

--
Brian (remove "invalid" from my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Els]

Lauri Raittila wrote:

In article Els wrote:

Jocab wrote:

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:56:47 +0100, Els <el*********@tiscali.nl>
wrote:

http://home.tiscali.nl/~elizabeth/jocab.html

Impressive, thanks. Will work a little on it :) Are there any hacks to
make it work on IE?
I would rather call it elementary. Not becasue it is bad, but because it
is pretty simple.
It is really, once you get the hang of it ;-)
http://www.svendtofte.com/code/max_width_in_ie/

That's very interesting, and I can make it work for the
example with the 30em, but any other amount I fill in there,
makes the width static.
Also the pixelwidth version, that which gives me a static
width as well.
It probably has to do with what my stylesheet already says,
so I'm gonna have a more indepth look at it later.
But why bother? Most people don't use 1600x1200 screens.
I have one myself, but I have it set at 1280x1024, cause it
looks better :-) (19inch)

I have done that because I have lousy graphics card. But I never run
browser fullscreen, not even on 800*600. I used browser on 800*600 for 2
years only making it fullscreen about twice a month.

Which you would for instance have had to do to view the site
you mentioned ;-)
If you were using Gecko browser that is.
It's going off the left side of the screen when the window
is narrower than about 620px.

Very interesting read though, thanks for posting the link :-)
--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Neal]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:15:01 GMT, Jocab <jo**@jo-nospam.com> wrote:

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 03:49:36 -0500, Neal <ne*****@spamrcn.com> wrote:

Check out the page design at htmldog.com and tell me if it won't work in
all the viewport sizes you listed and then some.

Sure it does. But it has no minimum width. It looks nice in 1600*1200
but my site won't have that much content so won't look nice...

Well, if it's lack of content, I'd think max width would be more critical,
to avoid all that open expanse. Setting a min width would mean the outer
columns wouldn't scrunch up the middle enough.

Seeing 800px as a minimum is poor. I think it's not always possible to
have a design that is viewable down to 50px, at some point even the best
fluid designs get to be problematic. My personal rule of thumb - which is
likely overly generous for some - is to be certain the layout is good down
to 500px wide, and smaller if possible. Certainly the smaller the better.

Setting a min width which forces horizontal scrolling, and having things
begin to overlap and get weird at narrow widths - which is really worse? I
think the horizontal scrolling is.

[Jocab]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 16:48:15 +0200, Lauri Raittila
<la***@raittila.cjb.net> wrote:

Not that I know off, But you could give it a fixed width in
IE, using CSS hacks to avoid other browsers to read it, but
that would have to be a fixed width of less than 750px, and
I don't think you want over 90% of your viewers to see a
static width.

http://www.svendtofte.com/code/max_width_in_ie/

That method doesn't work for the <body> tag or a style on that tag...

[Lauri Raittila]

In article Els wrote:

Lauri Raittila wrote:

http://www.svendtofte.com/code/max_width_in_ie/

That's very interesting, and I can make it work for the
example with the 30em, but any other amount I fill in there,
makes the width static.
Also the pixelwidth version, that which gives me a static
width as well.
It probably has to do with what my stylesheet already says,
so I'm gonna have a more indepth look at it later.

I have never actually tested it much, because I have not yet find need
for use it.

I used browser on 800*600 for 2
years only making it fullscreen about twice a month.

Which you would for instance have had to do to view the site
you mentioned ;-)

No, I would have either used ctrl+f4 or ctrl+s,ctrl+s (discard
stylesheet.)
If you were using Gecko browser that is.

I'm not. It's slow and bloated browser engine, with half done CSS
support¹. And GUIs for it are usually worse. Using Opera 7.5p2.
[1] This is troll. But it is true too: user stylesheet handling is pretty
much non-existant in gecko, and as it is half of CSS...

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Saapi lähettää meiliä, jos aihe ei liity ryhmään, tai on yksityinen
tjsp., mutta älä lähetä samaa viestiä meilitse ja ryhmään.

[Lauri Raittila]

In article Jocab wrote:

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 16:48:15 +0200, Lauri Raittila
<la***@raittila.cjb.net> wrote:

Not that I know off, But you could give it a fixed width in
IE, using CSS hacks to avoid other browsers to read it, but
that would have to be a fixed width of less than 750px, and
I don't think you want over 90% of your viewers to see a
static width.

http://www.svendtofte.com/code/max_width_in_ie/

That method doesn't work for the <body> tag or a style on that tag...

That is because IE don't support much styling on body tag. You most
likely need to wrap everything to div...

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Saapi lähettää meiliä, jos aihe ei liity ryhmään, tai on yksityinen
tjsp., mutta älä lähetä samaa viestiä meilitse ja ryhmään.

[Els]

Lauri Raittila wrote:

Els wrote:

Lauri Raittila wrote:

http://www.svendtofte.com/code/max_width_in_ie/

I have never actually tested it much, because I have not yet find need
for use it.

Well, I tested the very examples given on the site, and
noticed that they work as long as no doctype is specified.
When I specify a doctype (either 4.01 strict or
transitional), IE crashes as soon as the (in this case)
min-width of 800px is reached.
So, I won't be using this trick, unfortunately :-(

--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Els]

Neal wrote:

Setting a min width which forces horizontal scrolling, and having things
begin to overlap and get weird at narrow widths - which is really worse?
I think the horizontal scrolling is.

Depends on the layout of the page.
If I see a page with a menu on the left of 150 or 200px
wide, and I have my browser at about 500px, I'd prefer to be
able to scroll the menu to the left and be able to read the
content comfortably, than having to keep the menu in my face
and reading lines (in the content) that are half as long and
sometimes 'overlap or get weird' as you said.

--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Lauri Raittila]

In article Els wrote:

Neal wrote:

Setting a min width which forces horizontal scrolling, and having things
begin to overlap and get weird at narrow widths - which is really worse?
I think the horizontal scrolling is.

Depends on the layout of the page.
If I see a page with a menu on the left of 150 or 200px
wide, and I have my browser at about 500px, I'd prefer to be
able to scroll the menu to the left and be able to read the
content comfortably, than having to keep the menu in my face
and reading lines (in the content) that are half as long and
sometimes 'overlap or get weird' as you said.

Best is to design thing so that navigation and content won't be rendered
side by side when using narrow browser window. At least I think so.

Personally I use 500 - 550px window, and wind 2 cols side by side better
than scrolling.

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Saapi lähettää meiliä, jos aihe ei liity ryhmään, tai on yksityinen
tjsp., mutta älä lähetä samaa viestiä meilitse ja ryhmään.

[Els]

Lauri Raittila wrote:

In article Els wrote:

Neal wrote:

Setting a min width which forces horizontal scrolling, and having things
begin to overlap and get weird at narrow widths - which is really worse?
I think the horizontal scrolling is.
Depends on the layout of the page.
If I see a page with a menu on the left of 150 or 200px
wide, and I have my browser at about 500px, I'd prefer to be
able to scroll the menu to the left and be able to read the
content comfortably, than having to keep the menu in my face
and reading lines (in the content) that are half as long and
sometimes 'overlap or get weird' as you said.

Best is to design thing so that navigation and content won't be rendered
side by side when using narrow browser window. At least I think so.

That of course would be better, for instance with a
horizontal menu at the top and/or bottom, but that limits
the variety in possible layouts quite a lot.
Or do you mean you prefer the complete 'content column' to
flip under the menu when the page gets narrower? That too is
an option, but personally I don't like blocks moving to
different places when I adjust my windowsize :-)
Personally I use 500 - 550px window, and wind 2 cols side by side better
than scrolling.

Okay :-)

--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Lauri Raittila]

In article Els wrote:

Or do you mean you prefer the complete 'content column' to
flip under the menu when the page gets narrower? That too is
an option, but personally I don't like blocks moving to
different places when I adjust my windowsize :-)

Might be. But do you adjust your window size often? To smaller than maybe
35em?
--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Saapi lähettää meiliä, jos aihe ei liity ryhmään, tai on yksityinen
tjsp., mutta älä lähetä samaa viestiä meilitse ja ryhmään.

[Els]

Lauri Raittila wrote:

In article Els wrote:

Or do you mean you prefer the complete 'content column' to
flip under the menu when the page gets narrower? That too is
an option, but personally I don't like blocks moving to
different places when I adjust my windowsize :-)

Might be. But do you adjust your window size often? To smaller than maybe
35em?

Only sometimes, for instance if I'm doing something in an
application and want to read instructions for it on some
webpage at the same time. But usually my browser window is
wider than that.
I actually have my favourites bar on the left, which I have
quite wide (200px?), and if any page I'm viewing needs more
space than I have open, I usually click the little cross top
right of the fav bar, to instantly have 200px more :-)
Quicker than grabbing the right side (and the right one too)
to adjust the window.
But at 35em, if they put in a 200px wide menu, I wouldn't
read comfortably, and therefore close the favbar ...

--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Chris Morris]

Lauri Raittila <la***@raittila.cjb.net> writes:

[1] This is troll. But it is true too: user stylesheet handling is pretty
much non-existant in gecko, and as it is half of CSS...

Non-existent in Mozilla, maybe. Galeon 1.2 had excellent user CSS
support (similar to Opera 7's, but without having to hack an obscure
config file to add your own). Unfortunately Galeon 1.3 hasn't had it
reimplemented yet, but I suppose they've had more mainstream features
to work on.

--
Chris

[Lauri Raittila]

In article Chris Morris wrote:

Lauri Raittila <la***@raittila.cjb.net> writes:

[1] This is troll. But it is true too: user stylesheet handling is pretty
much non-existant in gecko, and as it is half of CSS...
Non-existent in Mozilla, maybe. Galeon 1.2 had excellent user CSS
support (similar to Opera 7's, but without having to hack an obscure
config file to add your own).

Interesting. I was told once that the problem was in the engine, no in
UI. Or maybe it was hacked into engine code by Galeon people...
Unfortunately Galeon 1.3 hasn't had it
reimplemented yet, but I suppose they've had more mainstream features
to work on.

....this would indicate that it is not trivial thing to do.

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Saapi lähettää meiliä, jos aihe ei liity ryhmään, tai on yksityinen
tjsp., mutta älä lähetä samaa viestiä meilitse ja ryhmään.

[Lauri Raittila]

In article Els wrote:

Lauri Raittila wrote:

In article Els wrote:

Or do you mean you prefer the complete 'content column' to
flip under the menu when the page gets narrower? That too is
an option, but personally I don't like blocks moving to
different places when I adjust my windowsize :-)
Might be. But do you adjust your window size often? To smaller than maybe
35em?

Only sometimes, for instance if I'm doing something in an
application and want to read instructions for it on some
webpage at the same time. But usually my browser window is
wider than that.

So you hardly ever do that. And when you do, would it be problem if
navigation would be before or after content?
I actually have my favourites bar on the left, which I have
quite wide (200px?),
I have often another website on left, in about 200px panel. (Using Opera
7.5 + small screen mode, or good userstylesheet)
and if any page I'm viewing needs more
space than I have open, I usually click the little cross top
right of the fav bar, to instantly have 200px more :-)
Same here. Exept that I hardly ever do that ;-)
Quicker than grabbing the right side (and the right one too)
to adjust the window.
But at 35em, if they put in a 200px wide menu, I wouldn't
read comfortably, and therefore close the favbar ...

Of course you don't measure width of navbar in pixels. That would be
stupid. (If you have navbar made of images, that is already bad idea.)

It is quite possible to have mayb 15em navbar and rest for text. TExt is
usually easily readable in quite short width.
--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Saapi lähettää meiliä, jos aihe ei liity ryhmään, tai on yksityinen
tjsp., mutta älä lähetä samaa viestiä meilitse ja ryhmään.

[Els]

Lauri Raittila wrote:

In article Els wrote:

Lauri Raittila wrote:

In article Els wrote:

Or do you mean you prefer the complete 'content column' to
flip under the menu when the page gets narrower? That too is
an option, but personally I don't like blocks moving to
different places when I adjust my windowsize :-)

Might be. But do you adjust your window size often? To smaller than maybe
35em?
Only sometimes, for instance if I'm doing something in an
application and want to read instructions for it on some
webpage at the same time. But usually my browser window is
wider than that.

So you hardly ever do that. And when you do, would it be problem if
navigation would be before or after content?

Not at all, I just don't like blocks to move around while
i'm resizing the window. Like: I see a piece of text (right
next to the menu on the left) that I want to read, but I
want to resize my window. So I pick up the right border,
drag it to the left... and oops! where did my text go? Widen
again: there it is... try narrowing again: gone again.
Scroll... ah, it's gone under the menu...

Of course this is a bit exaggerated, by now I 'know' it's
probably gone under the menu. Before I ever heard of CSS
though, I would have thought the designer did a very bad job
at using html. Things 'aren't supposed' to play hide and
seek on a webpage.

With that in mind, I don't like a text block to go under the
menu. That's why I set a minimum width to the container, to
prevent that happening. Unfortunately that doesn't work for
IE, and as I don't want to use tables, I'll just have to
live with the knowledge that 'somewhere, someone' is looking
for the disappearing text block. ;-)

I actually have my favourites bar on the left, which I have
quite wide (200px?),

I have often another website on left, in about 200px panel. (Using Opera
7.5 + small screen mode, or good userstylesheet)

Hmm... that's an idea I didn't think of before. Especially
if it's just information you need, that's an excellent way
of having it 'handy' on the side.
Thanks :-)

and if any page I'm viewing needs more
space than I have open, I usually click the little cross top
right of the fav bar, to instantly have 200px more :-)

Same here. Exept that I hardly ever do that ;-)

Quicker than grabbing the right side (and the right one too)
to adjust the window.
But at 35em, if they put in a 200px wide menu, I wouldn't
read comfortably, and therefore close the favbar ...

Of course you don't measure width of navbar in pixels. That would be
stupid. (If you have navbar made of images, that is already bad idea.)

True, I use ems for that, but 'they' more often than not, do
indeed set a width in pixels, but then again, I hardly ever
change the font-size, so I usually don't notice the difference.
It is quite possible to have mayb 15em navbar and rest for text. TExt is
usually easily readable in quite short width.

I've heard different ideas about that in the past couple of
days, but for me personally, it depends on how much text and
how narrow exactly. With a menu of only 15em, I don't think
I would complain about the text next to it being too narrow
to read comfortably.
--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -